Albany, NY
Saturday, 10/8

Isn't it amazing how much can happen between Wednesday evening and Saturday evening!

We made a really early start on Thursday and were collected from our Glasgow apartment at 7:15 am; the beginning of a really long day and a really long night.  Of course we were earlier than necessary for our 9:35 flight from Glasgow, but that waiting was insignificant compared to the nearly five hours waiting for our 15:45 flight from Heathrow to Boston.

 But finally the time passed and the flight went smoothly, all in daylight, into Boston about 6 pm.  Then the usual long delays with the entrance formalities, and a cab ride to our hotel, which made it about 1 am Glasgow time.  So a seriously long day. However, it was not late by Boston time and we went to bed at (maybe about) 8 pm local time.  Hence a very long night too!

So Friday we spent in Boston, pretty much adjusted to the different times.  In often heavy rain, we checked whether our hire-car would come with a GPS (like our little Mercedes in Germany) (it didn't), bought a micro-SD card for the TomTom, bought and downloaded maps of USA and Canada, checked out US phone/internet plans (and decided to wait, at least until after Canada).  At Macys we bought a new watch as Rob's died at Heathrow.  And then we decided to buy a road-map covering our bit of the US and Canada...

You know how easy it normally is to buy maps.  You go into a newsagent, or good bookshop and just choose what you want.  You can't do that in downtown Boston.  There appear to be NO newsagents and very few bookstores (and they don't sell maps).  After about seven or eight tries, everyone had told us about an excellent bookstore in a big new shopping complex, but it was miles away.  (Barnes and Noble, by the way, at the Prudential centre.  Well worth a visit if you go to Boston).

From downtown, the Prudential was to be either a thirty minute walk through pouring rain or a ride on the notorious Boston underground.  We took the subway!  And the subway tickets are called 'Charlie Cards' in memory of "poor old Charlie", ("the man who never returned").

Also... The US calls itself the land of the free, but I think the statistics show otherwise if you look at the percentage of the population in jail. A notice on a subway platform helps explain this, indicating that you can go to prison for smoking in an underground station!

One thing the Prudential has is a tower block, with a very smart bar/restaurant up on level 52.  While I sipped Australian (Clare Valley) shiraz and Judy had her Italian prosecco, the skies cleared and we saw the whole city spread out below us.  It was fabulous!

Today we collected our car and have just come the short distance to Albany on our way to Niagara Falls.  What fun!

Regards to all from Judy and Rob