Travel Tips

By the summer of 2008, Continental still offered a red-eye non-stop from Tucson to Newark. Although now gone, at the time, this was the longest non-stop flight out of Tucson, and I had always wanted to take it because traveling overnight and skipping a night at a hotel always attracted me. This had not worked in the past though, like on the train from Chicago to Cleveland, so I don't know why I thought it would work this time.
Sure enough, I got about 45 minutes of sleep on the long flight, getting into Newark at a little past 6am local time bleary-eyed and hungry. I will give New Jersey credit though in that Newark airport is actually fairly nice. We had about a two-hour connection, so we found some breakfast and sat uncomfortably in the pleather chairs for several hours. At least the flight to Boston was one time.

Because of a weekly rate special from Dollar, I had received an excellent deal on a rental car. However, this meant that I had to park the car in central Cambridge for a day and a half, something that I was told would be difficult, if not impossible, without paying an exorbitant amount (at least, exorbitant to me). The hotel had valet, garaged parking for $12 per day, but I felt that I could do better. The worst case scenario was a long "T" ride to Boston College on the city's west side, where I was told (by a student staff member there) that parking was free on the weekends.
Still bleary-eyed and a bit dodged up from the flight and excessive humidity of summer on the East Coast, we waited in line patiently as the typical slew of tourists mulled over their car reservations with the agents. All the while I was thinking how fast I would be, considering myself somewhat of a car rental veteran. Heather pointed out that there was a self-service kiosk so, while she remained in line to hold the spot, I moved over to it and attempted to get my car.
Unfortunately, it didn't work out: the kiosk kept showing my rate over $100 more than I had been quoted. I had saved an additional $20 by prepaying the reservation, so I wasn't about to be charged any more. So, I got back in line and waited for an agent to explain to me how I had fouled up. Apparently, with Dollar, you cannot check a car out before you reserve it. I had reserved it for noon and it was now 10am. I rented from Budget and Enterprise usually and had never had a problem, although the Dollar clerk found this fact unbelievable. But after about 20 minutes of manager finagling, we got our car and tried to plug in my mp3 player, which would offer musical entertainment for the hours of New England auto touring we would be doing. But where was the jack? On the stereo face? No. Inside the center console? No. By the shifter? No. There was no jack. It had a CD player, but I only had two CDs. Oh well: radio time.
Leaving the rental car center, there were only signs redirecting me to the airport, but I had a sign on another road in the way in that directed toward I-90. I wanted to go I-90 east until it became US 1, then skirt around the bridges and tunnels, which were all tolled, and drop into Cambridge on a bridge from Beacon Hill. I had my route written down and ready but, one wrong turn, and I was on I-90 toward the tolled Ted Williams Tunnel. $3.50 gone. It was interesting to go under the "Big Dig" when we got to I-93, but I had intended to exit so as not to find myself on the Mass Turnpike. First exit in several miles for Downtown Boston: no, I don't want Downtown, I'd get lost. Several miles later: "Pay Toll Ahead." $1.50 more gone. What a town.
Finally found our way off the turnpike and across the bridge to Cambridge, where I recognized where I was on the map fairly quickly: near Central Square. Okay, down Mass Avenue and I'll head north to the hotel (mind you, I didn't have a very good Boston map to work with). Unfortunately, you cannot go north on Land Boulevard, where our hotel was, from Mass Avenue eastbound. So, across the poet's bridge, back into Boston, through a confusing roundabout, then back west across the bridge to the right street.
The hotel was the Royal Sonesta. I got it for about $100/night through Hotwire. I had thought it was a different hotel, and could have gotten it through the hotel directly for only about $10 per night more, but it was still a 3+ star and neither of us had a lot of experience with places like that. At this point, we just wanted to lie down and rest.

Leaving the hotel fairly early, we had a rather large day ahead of us. Even though we were practically next door to the science museum, neither of us had a lot of interest in museums, although we had both agreed that "one or two" museums related to art might be nice. First on the plate was the Chinese-style brunch known as dim sum. This exists in Tucson, in theory, but not any form that should be recognizable or passable to anyone who's ever had dim sum in a Chinese country. So I had gotten recommendations from a friend from China who had lived in Boston for a period. We were directed to Chinatown, which meant our first ride on the "T" and a need to purchase passes.
Considering how much we would be using it, I determined that the $15 7-day pass would be our best deal considering that it came with free rides on the subway, bus and the Charlestown ferry. But, to get that, we had to walk to North Station on the other side of the river.
The city was dead that morning, and the clouds were threatening. That didn't stop us though and, when we exited the "T" into Chinatown, it had already cleared.
The dim sum was fabulous. Carts whirled around, brief, snapping Mandarin was exchanged, Heather dove into alien dishes, a busboy took an awkward interest in me, and we ended up with a $20 bill. Not bad considering how much food we got and how delicious it all was. After we left, we found a Chinese market, where I got one of my favorite Asian snacks: Koh-Kae. They're just peanuts covered in a coconut-milk shell, but they're awesome! The market in Tucson used to have them, but, for whatever reason, they no longer do. Heather got some strange Pocky for her sister, and we laughed at much of the rest of the merchandise.
Walking away from the slightly dirty and dingy Chinatown, we head south and west to Boston Common, where we had planned to ride the swan boats. Now, maybe I'm the only one on this, but "swan boat rides" conjures images in my mind of large swan-shaped paddle boats fit for two that you can ride around a small lake sleepily in. Oh, but how wrong I was. The "swan boat" is actually a long boat hauling about 25 people at once, piloted by a single recovering heroin addict, with the masthead of a swan. Pretty disappointing, but the lady at the front assured me that this how it had been for over 100 years. Well, I guess I can't argue with that. So we continued to walk around the gardens, enjoying the nice, although hot and humid, day.

I'm the type of traveler who likes to check off states that I've visited, so, for me, New England is a great place to go. Maine was always a state that had interested me, so I thought that we'd go there for the day and, since it was on the way, I could also check New Hampshire off the list.
The day started with running to get the car, which was about three blocks away in a metered space, before the meter enforcement began that morning. I moved it about a block away to another metered space and put a bit of cash in it, giving us an hour.