New-York et Boston

The day I took the Staten Island ferry

Today was my last day in NY before I move to Boston (I will come back here for one day at the end of my trip, but I don’t think I will have the time to visit a lot of places).
The weather forecast was right: today, we’ve had a wonderful day and I don’t regret I planned my visit of Staten Island for today.
I left the hotel at 8.30, which I thought was very late as I had to stop at the bank, but I arrived just in time to take 9.30am ferry at the extreme South of Manhattan. The Staten Island ferries are some very big boats: you have at least 3 decks, You have a lot of seats inside and also outside (that’s great when you want to take pictures). It was quite cold anyway and I stayed inside most of the time because I was having breakfast (a huge muffin and a surprisingly good coffee, both for a very reasonable price).
It took only 25 minutes maybe to arrive in Staten Island… this was much earlier than I thought. That’s why I decided to walk to the botanical Garden, which was the first of the 3 places I wanted to visit (the other 2 was opening at 1.00pm only). On the way I saw the SI Yankees Stadium (baseball), and a tribute to the the WTC victims.
Did you know that Staten Island was a BIG island???? The road was looong before I arrived a the botanical garden, which is located inside Snug Harbor, the cultural center of the island. The place is extremely quiet and beautiful, with a lot of flowers, trees, benches, cottages (one of them was a restaurant and 2 guys were playing jazz outside). It was perfect to relax and take a million pictures. They even had a Chinese Garden with a wonderful pavillon.
At 1.00pm, I went to the Noble Maritime museum, also located in Snug Harbor and dedicated to a printmaker (John A. Noble). It exhibits his work, his houseboat sudio (!!!! - they’ve put a part of a boat inside the museum!!!!), and a collection related to Sailors’ Snug Harbor, a retirement home for mariners.

After this I went back to the ferry terminal (by bus this time) to take the bus to the Historic Richmond Town museum. This museum is a trip into the past. It was like the Van Cortlandt house yesterday, but with 28 buildings dating from the late 17th to the early 20th centuries. Some people with historic costumes were explaining the history of the house they were in. I also took a million pictures there (several shots per room, they probably thought I was mad!!).

It’s time to pack my luggage now (it’s already 10.00pm and I have to leave the hotel at 7.30 tomorrow morning). I’ll try to post a message tomorrow, but I don’t know yet how it will be like at the hotel in Boston.

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The day I took 332 pictures

I’m a pictures addict, but I think I’ve never taken so many pictures. Today started early because some of my roomates woke up at 7.00 and then I did the same.
I started with a church close from my hotel (the Christian Science Church), then Trinity Church, then I went to Boston Commons (the park) and followed again the Freedom Trail. This time I did it all, from Boston Commons to Bunker Hill And the USS Constitution. Here’s the whole list: the State House, Park Church, Old Granary Burial Ground, King’s Chapel, the Old Corner Bookstore, the Old State House (I did visit it, but it was forbidden to take pictures), the Boston Massacre site, Faneuil Hall Marketplace, the memorial for the victims of World War II (I know it’s not in the Freedom Trail, but I saw it anyway), Paul Revere’s House (did visit it too, no pictures again!!! the house is so old, simple and nice), Old North Church, Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, Bunker Hill (294 steps to get to the top, without lift to have a wonderful view on Boston) and the USS Constitution (did visit it too, and also the Cassin Young, another - and more recent - navy boat). All this was a very long walk but I finished visiting the Cassin Young around 1.30pm, wich allowed me to do other things: I went to the aquarium because I could get my ticket for a short cruise in the harbor. Instead of waiting stupidly 45min for the next cruise, I decided to take the time to visit the aquarium before and took a ticket for the 3.30pm cruise.
The aquarium is small but great. I took a lot of pictures there (like in all the other places today).
The cruise was fun too but the sun wasn’t on the right side to take pictures. You know what? Boston is small!! I shouldn’t have come here after NY!!!
I went to the Science Museum to get a ticket for the “Boston Duck Tour”, a fun tour of the city by car, but it was already too late: almost everything ends at 5.00pm here in Boston!!! It’s incredible!
After this, I went back to the hostel, had something for dinner and went to the top of the Prudential Center , and guess what? It was open today!! It was already the night and the town is just wonderful with all its lights!
Now, I let you because I really need to sleep.

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The day it was too late

I’m very tired and today, the post will be short. I’m also a little fed up because the museums close early and I didn’t do what I expected to do: for a lot of small museums, you must follow a guide who speaks english and tell you much more than you need to know and all this make you waste your time and miss other museums. That could sum up my day.

It started well because I managed to catch the first Boston Duck Tour: you sit down in a huge car, visit Boston following the streets, and at one moment, the car jumps into the water and becomes a boat, sailing on the river!!! Was really fun!
After this, on the way to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, I stopped at the Mapparium of the Mary Baker Eddy Library, wich wasn’t very interesting (even quite boring… and I had to wait 15 minute before the tour started and couldn’t leave before the end… 20 minutes later).
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is absolutely gorgeous!!! The building itself is amazing: the inside court is a trip to Venice with its decorated windows, the rooms are wonderfully decorated from the floor to ceiling, the furniture is incredibly well done with a million details, and as it wasn’t enough, you have a wonderful wollection of paintings, drawings, sculptures… I would have been the museum of my dreams if only could have taken pictures there but, once again, it was forbidden… I’m starting to hate that city.
When I went out of the museum, I had a cruel decision to make: to be on time for a cruise on the Liberty Fleet Tall Ship, I had to choose between visiting some house-museums (3, with very short open times and all with guided tours), or to visit Fenway Park, the famous baseball stadium home of the Red Socks. The Red Socks being the symbol of Boston, I’v opted for the tour of the park (and also because I’ve visited quite a lot of old houses recently). I thought the tour of the park would last half an hour as there were tours every 30 min… but in fact, there were several guides and the tour lasted 75 minutes… oooops!!! The tour itself was culturaly very intersting and the guide captivating because it was obvious he LOVED the Red Socks. On the other hand, at the end, I was looking at my watch, thinking I would never arrive on time for the cruise. Indeed, I took the subway right at the end of the tour, but when I arrived at the port, all I saw was a wonderful “sold out” sign on the cruise board. If I were a cartoon character,i would have had a very dark cloud above my head. Grrrr!!! I just hate that.
Let’s go back to the center of the town to visit the house-museums. I lost so much time to go to the port, 1 one of the museums was already closed. I went to 1 of the other 2 (the one closing first), thinking I would have enough time to visit the 3rd one… pffff! Once again, I had to wait for the begining of the guided tour and the guide was talkative and the tour ended too late for the 3rd museum. It really drove me mad.
At 5.00pm, I went to the Museum of Fine Arts wich is closing at 9.45pm on wednesdays!! I left the museum at 9.15 and had dinner before going back to the hotel. I’m now lying on my bed, almost sleeping… I don’t know what I will do tomorrow, but I hope it won’t be too late again!!
Good night!

Almost no pictures today, sorry!

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The day I went to the town of witches

I had the schedule for the trains to Salem and someone in the room took it *me happy*. I went out of the hotel quite early and went to North Station, rushed to take my ticket on time for the 8.30 train boarded and 35 minutes later, I arrived in Salem.

NY was smaller than I thought, Boston is small and Salem is… tiny.
A lot of houses a made of wood, there’s a small port and a lot of museums about witches.
The first thing I did was to walk around the town, taking some pictures (well, I didn’t really had the choice because it was only 9.00 and the 1st museum opens at 10.00, hahahah!!). It really looks like a town for tourists addicted to witches and other strange stories.
At 10.30, the tour of the House of the Seven Gables started. No pictures. You listen politely to the guide telling you all the details you don’t care about, you then take a few seconds to look at the objects before your leave the room. I hate guided tours. They take such a long time and you don’t really see the things as you want.
At the end of the tour, I stayed in the garden to take pictures and then went to the Peabody Essex Museum, a huge collection of objects from all over the world brought there by sailors. There were a lot of very nice items.
It was hard to leave the museum, but I had to as I also wanted to visit the Witch Museum. It looked far on the map, but in the reality it wasn’t: I went 1 street to far, and lost time… only a few minutes, but that was enough to miss the 12.30 guided tour!!! It really bores me to wait 30 minutes for a guided tour, and also, with the 1.00pm tour, I would have missed the train to Boston and could have said good bye to my other visits in Boston. Because of that, I decided not to wait for the next tour and to go to the station. You guessed I missed the train by 2 minutes and had to wait for almost 1 hour.
I arrived in Boston at 2.15, picked a trolley pass for tomorrow (one of these trolleys fo tourists that go from one site to another, with comments by a guide). Then, I went to the Gibson house (one of the houses I wanted to visit yesterday) and had to wait 15min for the no-pictures-please-guided-tour, wich lasted a little more than one hour… of course, the “little more than” costed me to miss the other house because it was too late for the last guided tour of the day.
Did I ever tell you that I hated guided tours???? I’ll remain polite on this blog, but I promise you I have enough of these guided tours. I’ve wasted a lot of time and missed a lot of beautiful places because of them.
I was so tired and fed up I went to the hotel to have a rest and decided not to go to the museum of contemporary art, because modern art is not my thing.
End of the day.

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The day it was almost the end

Today was my last full day in Boston. I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon and I will arrive quite late in NY then, I’m really not sure I will be able to post here.
My day started early again, with a visit of Harvard and the Museum of Natural History (in Harvard). The museum wasn’t as big as the one I saw in NY, but it was very interesting and I’ve learned several things. Do you know the color of the pigment of a blue feather? It’s black, but some air bubbles make it look blue, hahahah!!! You didn’t know, right?
After that, I walked a little more in Harvard and then took the bus to the JFK museum. I’m happy I took the time to visit it. The museum is outside the town
and from there, you can see Boston from the South. The museum includes a lot of videos and make you travel into the past, with a reconstitution of Kennedy’s Headquaters for the 1960 elections or Bobby’s office and a lot of pictures, letters, clothing and other objects related to JFK and his family.
When I came back in the center of Boston, I stopped at South Station to visit Chinatown and walked to the hotel to have a (very) short break. Then, again, I took the subaway and went straight to the north, to visit the Museum of Science... it just seemed they made the museum just for me: The whole part related to the earth was excellent. I spent so much time there that I didn’t make it to visit the rest of the museum. I had a great time there.

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The day I was back in NewYork

This morning, I only had a rest in Boston as I’m very tired after having visited so many places and museums. I left the hotel around 1.00pm and went to South Station to take the bus. I was lucky the 2.00pm bus wasn’t full and they let me board with my 4.00pm ticket, hoping that we won’t be stuck in the traffic jam in NY.
That’s incredible to see how the nature has changed here in only 5 days: on my way to Boston, there were only a few yellow leaves in the trees and today, they were much more numerous and there were also a lot of red ones. It was wondeful and it will certainly be just incredible next week… I’d really like to stay here and look at the trees becoming yellow and then all red!!! Instead of that, I’m going to NY and on Wednesday, I’ll be back at the office in Montpellier *noooooooo!!!!! Life is so unfair!!!*
Arriving in the Queens, I suddenly understood that it was a brilliant idea to have left Boston earlier because there was already a big traffic jam to cross the bridges to reach Manhattan.
The weather here is not very nice (I think they had rain this afternoon). At one moment, the view was amazing: the highway was quite high because it was going over a huge cemetery, and right in front of us there was New York, with a pinkish and already very low sun, and the top of the buildings were in a sort of fog or clouds. It was like a dream. In that cas, I love traffic jams… it gives you a extra moment to see the landscapes.

Then, after a long while on the road, we arrived in Chinatown, I took the subway and arrived at the hotel. It’s quite old and not so clean, but I’m there only for 2 nights then, that should be ok.

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