BeantownAug 24, 2005
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Boston City Skyline.
USS Cassin Young WWII Warship. Madness!
Me telling the crew to reload.
| Hi Y'all, Finally after a 1 hour delay in Bermuda and waiting for my baggage for about 30 minutes at JFK I met up with Leon and Sarah again who said they had thoroughly enjoyed waiting the extra time for me. We went and picked up our hire car, a Ford Taurus with leather interior, sun roof, CD player and all the mod-cons. We drove directly to Boston and it took us about 3-4 hours with no wrong turns which I thought was pretty good. After a slow start we spent the day exploring Boston in the lovely, respectable, low humidity weather. We got on a Beantown Trolly (open air bus) Tour which took us on a 2 hour hop on/off narrated tour through Boston. Took us places like Copley Square, Quicy Market, Boston Common, MIT University among other things. We also went to the docks where we took a harbour cruise which gave us a great view of the city skyline. It also took us across to where the USS Constitution and Cassin Young were docked. You could tour both these boats for free. The constitution is the oldest commissioned ship in the Navy. It kind of looks like a boat out of Pirates of the Caribbean, it has to travel at least 1 nautical mile each year to remain commissioned which it does on the 4th July each year. The Cassin Young is a WWII war ship. I found this really interesting, it was also good because it hadn't been modified at all for tourists coming aboard. After we got back ashore we went to the Quincy Market which was great, soooo many food options in the one place and soooo many cool little shops and carts to check out. I bought a Cheers bottle opener from the replica Cheers pub. We then sat down and had an early dinner, seafood again. Really nice again. I had some more clam chowder and thoroughly enjoyed it again. We just wandered some more through downtown Boston, saw this famous little cemetery where there are a few notaries buried, one of which being Sam Adams the famous Bostonian. You may know the beer. We then went up to the top of the Prudential Building which is one of the highest in Boston. They have an observation deck and it was pretty cool to see Boston by night. We had a good view of Fenway Stadium (Home of the Boston Red Sox) where the Rolling Stones Concert was on. The next day we drove about an hour north to a town called Manchester in New Hampshire. Now there was a reason for this...I wanted to go shooting. The gun laws as they are in OZ you can't do this sort of thing there. So I thought whilst I'm in a country where it is your constitutional right to carry a firearm and the gun laws are a lot more relaxed, I'd go shooting. What I really wanted to shoot were some machine guns. Call me a redneck but this is something I have always wanted to do. I researched this location before I left OZ so we weren't just rolling up not knowing what was going on. We arrived at the range, went inside and there was just a plethora of assault rifles, sub-machine guns, machine guns, shotguns, pistols, rifles and anything you can think of mounted on the wall and in cabinets. It was mad, I was right where I wanted to be. So Gooch, Sares and I selected a few guns which we all shot (including Sarah, she was the most trigger happy out of us all). I won't go into too much info because I know most of you will all get bored. It was really good fun and we spent about 2 hours there trying out a few different guns. It was all very safe and above board so don't stress out parents. Just for the record I am not a gun nut but whilst in America why not I say. That night we ate dinner at a place recommended to us called The Cheesecake Factory. Probably the best meal I've had in a long time. Massive servings and really really nice food. None of us could finish our meals. Leon was pretty annoyed with himself because he could only down half of his burger. Weak! Next stop, the gay capitol of Massachusetts! BT |
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