Well, believe it or not I managed to get up at 5:30 AM, which I thought would give me an opportunity to see us sail into New York. Unfortunately, I had mistimed by an hour and woke up to find us just finishing our approach into the dock. Still, by virtue of docking in midtown this still afforded quite an impressive view of the famous New York skyline. When we went out onto the dock of the ship we could see for miles, and had a good view of the statue of liberty.
The docking process itself was quite lengthy, and we were not called to leave the room until 7:45am. This gave my dad plenty of time to have kittens about driving in the New York traffic which was already fairly busy. Fortunately the disembarkation procedure was fairly straightforward, and all three of us managed to leave together, with my father and Jan performing quite convincing impressions of pack-horses carrying all our (well mostly mine) luggage off the ship- three large bags of medical and electrical equipment, 2 suit carriers, a pillow and a rucksack each.
On the dock, we were reunited with our other luggage and escorted to the pickup point to meet our hire car. After some frantic ringing around we managed to locate the hire car driver, who gave us a very brief lesson on the car itself. The car, in the end is fine and will perform exactly what we need it to, if not being entirely well-designed or attractive! Most of this 10 minute lesson was focused on how to get me in the vehicle, with no more than two minutes on actually driving the thing. After signing for the keys, we were then promptly ushered off the collection area and into the New York traffic. All in all, rather a stressful experience for my Dad, which we only managed to get through thanks to the sat-nav we had already prepared, and the fact that I can sit up front in this car and was able to give directions.
However, despite being a little dropped in at the deep end, the plan came together quite well and we managed the three and a half-hour drive to Boston without any major hiccups. It did make us realise that the quality of the roads in the States is highly variable, and in some cases makes some of the potholed streets in Britain look like the unblemished face of any supermodel (or something similarly un-bumpy - yes I know, I need to work on my
similes!).
Our arrival in Boston was pretty uncomplicated, and we checked in to the Hilton with relative ease at 2:30pm. We were shown to our rooms, on the 23rd floor (quite why an accessible room is quite so high is beyond me, but I’ll just put the question of how I’ll be evacuated in the event of a fire out of my mind for now...). If I die to regret those words, I command you: see me avenged! Don't worry, I'm sure I'll be fine!
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful and devoted to recovery from all of the excitement! Our first sight of New York was particularly exciting, and it's good to know we will be back there to see it all. My mission now, to find free wi-fi access as this first 24-hour Internet session at the hotel cost $16! Still, I'm at a loss to find free WiFi nearby without first looking on the Internet! Ah, the irony!
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