Jenny's Bit

Well, we made it home.  We travelled approximately 27,467 miles on 17 planes, four trains and one car. We spent 57 nights in 20 hotels, three nights on planes, two nights on boats and two nights on trains. We had a marvellous time. We stayed healthy, met some lovely people, never lost our luggage, and (as far as I know) we are not getting a divorce. I'm overjoyed to see my family, London, and my own hair products.  Time for a nice cup of tea. Jx

May 20 2012, The End

Today was the last day of our fabulous circumnavigation of the globe. We spent about an hour just sitting in the shade by the pond in the public garden adjacent to Boston Common. Temperatures were forecast to get into the eighties, so we didn't want to do too much, especially as we were booked on the seven o'clock red-eye out of Logan, so we just watched the world go by for a while.

The pond in Boston's Public Garden.

When we felt up for it, we hailed a cab and paid a visit to somewhere we had last visited in 1994 - the John F Kennedy Library and Museum out on the bay. It's a good place to spend a couple of hours in air-conditioned comfort, and it's also nice to walk around outside, where the tranquility is only interrupted by aircraft swooping overhead on their way into Logan, on the other side of the bay.

Jen outside the entrance to the JFK Library

The giant stars and stripes in the atrium of the Kennedy Library.

Eventually, the time came for us to get on our way to Logan ourselves, and the adventure was over.

When we get back, I'll have over 2100 photos to sift through and goodness knows how much video. The blog has had over 2500 hits and loads of comments. Thanks to all of you, and now we can look forward to seeing you in person again.

May 19 2012, Boston

The final whole day of our holiday has arrived! Using the hop-on/hop-off tour bus as our taxi service, we went first to the Museum of Fine Art, which is just the other side of Fenway Park from the baseball stadium. We joined the bus at the nearest stop to our hotel, which just happens to be outside the famous Cheers pub on Boston Common.

The Cheers pub on Boston Common, algthough it loks nothing like the TV set once you get inside.

Our tour bus, which has just dropped us off at Fenway Park Stadium for the short walk across the park to the MFA.

The museum has some interesting stuff, especially relating to the fathers of the American revolution, but strangely we couldn't find a portrait of John Adams (thinking back to John Adams Way in Boston, Lincolnshire) which Jenny was most put out about! The special exhibition they have there at the moment displays the prints of Alex Katz, an artist I hadn't really beeen aware of before, but we both enjoyed the show.

After a bit more touring round on the bus, we joined the Charles River Cruise, which was included with our bus ticket and spent an hour drifting up to Harvard Bost Club and back.

These girls on the Harvard Bridge tried to persuade me to disembark and join them, but the rotten captain wouldn't stop the boat!

A final view of the Boston skyline before we leave, with Beacon Hill in the foreground.

By the way, we had an enjoyable supper yesterday evening in a French restaurant called The Hungry I, again just a block away from our hotel. As a matter of interest, this is our hotel...

Our room is behind the left hand two windows on the second floor.

Stand by for tomorrow's post - the finale!

Jen's bit: Oh well, that's it. Jx

May 17 & 18. Boston

Arrived in the final city of our trip yesterday lunchtime after a two-hour flight from Chicago and were pleased to be reminded that Logan International Airport is not far from downtown Boston, so we weren't faced with the seemingly endless, traffic clogged, slow crawl that we had endured both ways between Chicago and O'Hare. For this last stop we had chosen a boutique hotel in the Beacon Hill area of the city and it really is lovely here - a sort of cross between Hampstead Village and Notting Hill - uber trendy!

The front desk lent us a book of walking tours and we chose the Beacon Hill walk just to stretch our legs. One of the first stops on the tour was the Harrison Gray Otis House, which had originally belonged to a wealthy Boston lawyer and property developer and was built to order for him by architect Charles Bulfinch in 1796. Bulfinch later went on to design the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. It was an interesting tour, conducted by a very knowledgeable elderly lady, but meant that we ran out of time to finish the walk. We'll probably pick it up again on Saturday or Sunday.

The Harrison Gray Otis House

On the way back to the hotel we spotted an Italian restaurant on Charles Street, so booked it for later. On the way to the restaurant later we called in at a pub in the area for a sharpener before going on to an enjoyable meal.

This morning (Friday) we walked down through Boston Common and bought tickets for the city tour bus. After crossing the river to Cambridge, we jumped off at Harvard Square and picked up a walking tour of Harvard University conducted by one of the undergraduates, which was pretty interesting. With the Facebook flotation happening the same day, the guide was quick to point out this building...

The dorm where Mark Zuckerman lived as a freshman.

We rejoined the bus tour and covered a fair bit of the downtown area before getting off to spend an hour or so walking before getting back to the hotel. Here are some of the things we spotted during the afternoon.

Old, not so old (1950s), modern and post-modern architecture, all in one shot.

In the centre background is Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox and one of the oldest and best loved baseball stadiums in the country. In the foreground is a Shell petrol station. So what? Well, on match days, about three hours before the game starts, the petrol station proprietor shuts the place down and turns it into a match-day parking lot. Capacity is 92 cars, and the charge is no less than $60 per car. Just to save you working it out, that's $5,520. Who needs to sell petrol? By the way, there's a 162 game schedule in major league baseball, which means 81 home games per season. The season's gross for the petrol station is therefore $447,120!

Paul Revere's house, built about 1680.
In 1774 and the Spring of 1775 Paul Revere was employed by the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Massachusetts Committee of Safety as an express rider to carry news, messages, and copies of resolutions as far away as New York and Philadelphia.
On the evening of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere was sent for by Dr. Joseph Warren and instructed to ride to Lexington, Massachusetts, to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were marching to arrest them. This "midnight ride" to warn people that the British were coming has ensured Revere's place in US history. The USA declared independence a year later, in 1776.

Not sure what we're doing tonight, but if it turns out to be spectacular, I'll report back tomorrow.

Jen's bit:  I've enjoyed yesterday and today. Lots of walking, lovely weather and a very relaxed atmosphere. As Peter says, Beacon Hill is very trendy / yummy mummy, what a pity I resemble a bag lady as I try to eke out my few remaining clean clothes. Jx

May 16 2012, Chicago

Waves were crashing on the shore of Lake Michigan this morning as the windy city finally lived up to its name. It was another sunny day, but the temperature was very noticeably lower than yesterday - I guess the wind has shifted round to the north.

After breakfast we rejoined the bus tour that we abandoned yesterday, but only travelled a couple of stops at first because we wanted to ride the "L" train, which we did for a while, joining the brown line at the Loop in the centre of the city, riding out to Fullerton and then crossing to the opposite platform and coming back. Bit silly, really, but the L is so famous that it had to be done.

After our customary coffee stop, we made our way to the Sears Tower. Officially, it's now called the Willis Tower since the British insurance brokers bought the naming rights, but the tour guide on our short ride on the bus this morning told us that many people still call it the Sears Tower. As the tallest building in the world for many years, and the tallest building in the western hemisphere for many more, the Sears Tower is considered a bit of an icon and there is now a movement afoot to get the name changed back to Sears. I even heard one American lady on a cellphone outside the tower telling someone, "I'm just at the Sears Tower", so it looks as if the name has stuck. The views from the top are great, as you would expect from the 103rd floor, and I strolled out into one of the glass boxes that hang off the side of the building - no problem! (Mind you, I did take Dave Sweet's advice and checked that there were no Americans out there with me at the same time - these things do have a load limit!)

After finally finishing the bus tour (today's live guides were all a massive improvement on the guy driving the trolley car yesterday) we did a bit of gift shopping up and down Michigan Avenue before returning to the hotel to rest up and decide where to eat this evening.

Jen's bit: The temperature has dropped by 20 degrees, sunburn yesterday and shivering today, just like home. Jx

Part of the great view from the sky deck at the Sears Tower.

About an inch of glass and 103 floors, straight down!

This not very attractive building, with slits for windows, is a Federal Correctional Facility (aka prison) in the city centre.

The NBC building in Chicago is a late art deco masterpiece, and this is the lovely main entrance.

This astonishing apartment and hotel building, the Aqua Tower, was designed by a lady called Jean Gang and opened in 2009. The wavy white bits are the balconies, and no two are identical in this 82-storey edifice. Their fluidity mimics the water on nearby Lake Michigan. We really liked the building!

May 14 & 15 2012, Chicago

A flight of just two hours got us here from New Orleans yesterday around 2.30pm and we checked into the Drake Hotel, at the north end of Michigan Avenue overlooking Lake Shore Drive. We have a room overlooking the beach on Lake Michigan, just north of the hotel...

The view from our window in the Drake Hotel.

After settling in, we went for a walk down to the Chicago River and back, with a coffee stop at the John Hancock Centre and then relaxed in our room for a couple of hours before being really lazy and going down to the hotel bar (which is apparently unchanged since it opened immediately after the repeal of prohibition) for a drink and a light supper.

Today, Tuesday, we began by buying tickets for the city bus tour, but soon realised that the tour is operated on both double decker buses and smaller vehicles that they call trolley cars. The first of these to turn up at our bus stop was a trolley car, so we boarded, only to find that the wretched thing was terribly uncomfortable (there was nowhere near enough leg room for me) and the driver was a useless tour guide. Despite the fact that driving while operating a mobile phone is illegal here, he drove this thing around with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding a conventional microphone into which he gave intermittent bursts of uninformative drivel along the lines of, "Ok guys, this area on the left here is a place where you can find lots of restaurants, so if you're looking for somewhere to eat and you come to this area on the left here, you'll find lots of restaurants. So that's the restaurant area here on the left, and in this restaurant area here on the left you'll find what many people think is the best restaurant in Chicago, right over here on the left." (Pointing to a hot dog joint!).

Jenny and I therefore got off at the first stop and checked with the tour rep manning the kerbside booth to make sure there was a double decker bus coming soon. He made a call on his walkie-talkie and assured us that there would be a double decker coming along in about 20 minutes. While we were waiting, a single decker black vintage coach pulled up, emblazoned with the logo "Chicago Gangster Tours". Before we left England I had tried on a couple of occasions to search the net for exactly this sort of thing, thinking that in a city which is so famous for gangster activity in the 1920s and 1930s there was sure to be a gangster tour, but I couldn't find any. We seized the opportunity (our city bus tickets will still be good for tomorrow) and jumped aboard to spend an entertaining 90 minutes or so. The driver ("Shoulders") and his sidekick ("Three Knives"), both dressed gangster style, took us around to see the sites associated with the gangster era, although sadly, many of the locations have changed beyond recognition. Here are a couple of interesting examples, though...

This is the Biograph Theatre, exactly as it was, where John Dillinger was lured by his girlfriend, Anna Sage, in 1934 following a deal she did with the Feds to give him up in exchange for the $20,000 reward and a promise that she would not be deported (she was Romanian). As they left the theatre, he saw the agents and tried to run, but was gunned down and killed in an alleyway a few yards away.

This is the site of the garage where the St Valentine's Day massacre took place in 1929. The pathway to the right of the picture marks the line of the north wall of the garage, against which seven gangsters were lined up by rival gang members dressed as police officers and machine-gunned to death. The assassins were working for Al Capone, with instructions to do anything to kill Bugs Moran, and they mistakenly believed that Moran was one of the seven, but his chauffeur had been late picking him up that day and so he survived.

Following the gangster tour, we had one of our coffee stops and then went to the river to catch a 90-minute cruise, guided by a lady who talked about the architecture of Chicago. It was a most interesting trip, although temperatures were in the low 80s by this time and Jen disappeared to the air-conditioned lower deck about half-way through. I, on the other hand, have a very nice sun-hat which doesn't make me look too much like Benny Hill, and so I stuck it out!

The L crossing the Chicago River.

This huge Art Deco edifice, known as Merchandise Mart, cost $80 million dollars to build in the 1920s, but was not a commercial success and was bought later by Joe Kennedy (JFK's father) for only $13 million. The Kennedy family sold the building in the late 1990s for somewhere north of $500 million!

On the way back to the hotel we called in at the John Hancock Centre (sorry - Center) to take in the views from the observation deck on the 94th (I think) floor.

Part of the Chicago skyline, with Lake Michigan beyond, looking south from the observation deck of the John Hancock Building.

Not yet sure what we're doing for supper tonight, so will report back tomorrow.

Jen's bit: The hat does make him look like Benny Hill. Jx

May 13 2012, last full day in New Orleans

A bright, sunny day for a change. We strolled around this morning, taking in some street music, and watching people escorting their mothers into restaurants for brunch and lunch (it's Mother's Day here today). Let's hope we can find a spare table this evening!

For the afternoon, we had booked a French Quarter Cemetery walking tour, which sounded really interesting. Cemeteries here are different from most other places, because it is impossible to bury people underground (this is all reclaimed swamp, which is still there about three feet down) so people are buried above ground in stone or concrete structures that look like small houses. Once the "house" is full, the oldest coffin is removed and disposed of, and the decomposed mortal remains are put in a small bag and shoved right to the back of the house with a long pole. Hence the expression in America "I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole"!

However, when we arrived at the cemetery, it was closed and locked. The notice pointed out that it is always closed at noon on Sundays, so naturally we were annoyed that the clowns in the "New Orleans Welcome Centre" had sold us a cemetery tour which started at 1pm. What made us extremely annoyed was that they refused any sort of refund because we had been taken on a tour through the French Quarter (which was part of the deal). Those of you who have ever tried to complain about anything in America will know that you might as well beat your head against the wall. They are full of "have a nice day" but can't deal with problems very easily at all. Anyway, as a first step I have e-mailed the City Council, so we'll wait to see if they have anything useful to say.

Our guide, Preston, was really nice and told a few tales, which went some way to making it a pleasant afternoon, but a sour taste has been left, I'm afraid.

If we discover anything astonishing this evening, I'll blog again later. If not, we'll see you in Chicago, where we arrive early afternoon tomorrow.

Jen's bit:   Really like New Orleans, I could probably live here if someone would give me one of their nice little houses with a courtyard. Everyone is very relaxed and although they seem to drink all day (on Bourbon Street), its all very civilised and friendly. Jx

This is the back of a ten dollar bill of the type issued in the nineteenth century by the People's State Bank of Louisiana. The French word Dix (ten) is prominent, and led to this area being referred to as the "Land of the Dix" which soon became "Dixieland". See? Entertainment and Education all in one blog!

The faint shadows of sadder times can be seen in this picture. Above one of the side doorways to this hotel you can just make out the word "Change". The first two letters have been obliterated, for it once said "Exchange". This was the term used for slave sales, and every Sunday, at this hotel, that is exactly what happened back in the day.

On a lighter note, you can still have a drink in May Baily's Place in the Quarter. In the mid-nineteenth century she was a well-known madam and operated a brothel on these premises. Prostitution was, strictly speaking, outlawed. However, May came up with the not-too-original idea of bribing those in authority, which led to this licence, which can still be seen on the bar wall, allowing her to carry on as usual. You may have to click on the picture to enlarge it so that you can read it, but you will see that it confirms that May Baily, "Having paid the tax imposed by Ordinance No 3267 concerning Lewd and Abandoned Women, she is hereby authorised..."etc. You couldn't make it up! (Well, actually, they did!)