Yes, you read that right, though you might have to suspend your disbelief – I actually got around to doing something touristy, probably for the first time on the trip! Monday I didn’t do a lot. I walked to the local shops and bought a few thinks and also tried out a Dunkin coffee. It was actually fairly decent. I think coffee in the US is OK if you can get people to understand that yes I really do only what milk in my latte. When I first ordered she just waited and then prompted me for what I wanted the idea of only milk clearly seemed odd to her, but I guess that’s just US culture. they don’t seem to do plain coffee.
I slept in longer that I planned to on Tuesday but I decided I was still going to do what I had planned. There’s quite a few things to do in Boston so I had to pick a few. I decided to to the Freedom Trail that afternoon. There’s map of the trail here if you would like to visualise what I did. It’s cool, but also unusual – there’s a literal red line that runs along the pavement or road so you can follow the trail, and as you go along it you come to various attractions and significant locations.
I started at the Old North Church, because that’s where Google send me when I said I wanted to go to the freedom trail. I didn’t actually go into the church, because I wanted to pick and choose what I paid the entry fee for. After that there’s a big courtyard with plaques with information about significant people and spent a chunk of time reading many of those as it was quite interesting.
Next up was the Paul Revere house – I feel like that’s one of the must do locations on the trail. Sadly there’s no photography allowed inside the house, but it was still very interesting to see where he lived and learn more about his historic ride. Following the Paul Revere house it was time for coffee & a muffin!
My next stop was the old statehouse and this was really interesting. A chance to see the foundations for US independence and the original basis for the declaration of independence and the constitution. I went a little crazy at the gift shop here deciding I should probably buy some merch/gifts while I was in the US.
That concluded by tour of the freedom trail, and I headed home. However, I did buy a book at the Paul Revere house which has info about all the attractions on the freedom trail, so at least I can read about the ones that I missed. I do have some pictures, but I’m posting this on my iPad, so I’ll add a post later with some pictures. Well that’s it for Tourism101.
So I could type a post all about isolation but I figure nobody really cares and it’s not sometime I particularly want to memorialise. I think it’s pretty much the same as at home anyway except it’s more expensive and without the creature comforts. It was plenty of Uber Eats and TV along with some reading. I do find it ironic though, that my housemate ended up with COVID the same time as me despite the fact we’re on different sides of the world.
With my original plans thrown into disarray I needed to figure out how I was going to finish off my trip. I had already booked two nights in Venice Beach, LA as that was going to be then of my trip. I thought oh well. I guess I’ll just book another night, I can send a day or two on the beach and maybe actually get those OC photos I was chasing. But the more I thought about it, the more this didn’t seem like a great option. I’ve been to Venice Beach before, and OC photos are cool but highly unlikely to be the highlight of my trip.
I’ve always wanted to see San Francisco. Although I don’t have a lot of time I figured if I fly out on Thursday (early) I can get half of Thursday plus Friday and Saturday in SF. I’ve then got all day Sunday to get to LAX before I fly out at 11pm. This option made my much happier so I went with it. All my time isn’t locked down, but I’m flying across tomorrow, accomodation is booked, same place as I was staying at. All said and done flying from SFO to LAX seemed the quickest and not far off the cheapest option so I’m flying Delta down to LA late afternoon which will get me to LAX at a fairly decent time for flying back home. This gives me 2 full days and 2 more than half days in San Francisco. I’m still doing the Wine Tour on Saturday. I’ll probably do the Alcatraz Tour and check out Fisherman’s Wharf Thursday arvo. I’m still deciding if I want to do the Tech Tour of Friday or not. But I’ll figure it out and if not before hopefully do some blog posts and photos on the flight home.
Having actually done some touristy things now, look out for those in the next couple of blog posts. I’ll finish with a couple of photos of my Boston AirBnB bedroom like I said I would in a previous post. (sorry the focus is slightly out).
Before you get confused there’s no Stan involved, it’s just a word that goes with plans! So with my positive RAT test I couldn’t ignore it, sadly I had COVID, I had to make plans accordingly. Step 1, start cancelling. Wednesday afternoon was spend cancelling almost everything upcoming. Thankfully, most stuff I could cancel for free, or given the circumstances place were willing to waive the cancellation fee. I lost my airfare from JFK to SFO but I knew it was unrefundable. I also lost a small amount on the rental car which I new about – it wasn’t much but the airfare was $500 so it’s time to say thank you travel insurance!
I called AVIS and went through at least 3 people before they sent a tow truck to pick up the rental car that was supposed to be returned to JFK on Thursday, I’m still not sure what if any costs are associated with that. I emailed my AirBnB hosts, they were sympathetic but booked so I had to find somewhere else to day. I looked up the Massachusetts rules – it’s 5 days isolation, by myself not contact. Then it’s another 5 days of masks in public before I’m allowed to travel. 10 days is a big chunk of my trip. Symptoms started Sunday, so that’s isolation until Saturday and no travel until Thursday (23rd). I fly home on the 26th. So tentative plan; find hotel to isolate, find AirBnB to stay in til I can travel. Fly to LA have a couple of days at Venice Beach and fly home. Well the hotel was an expensive exercise – you really don’t want to try and find on the day before. US$1200 for 3 nights to get me through to Sunday and end of my isolation – ouch. I had two nights booked in Venice Beach so I only needed to extend that by one but I left that for now. I also needed to book a new flight, it probably make sense to leave out of Boston now. Partially pack & sleep.
Thursday, finish packing & leave. I found a hotel that I could walk too, but check in was 3 o’clock, so I walked slowly with lots of breaks – 500m was really taking it out of me. I wore a mask and kept my distance from everybody else. I checked into my hotel at 3 – a couple of days isolation to go.
