Following on from my earlier post I have to confess that the adventure did have its physical impact on me. Not that I am complaining as at nearly seventy I am hardly as resilient as I was when a lot younger. So my body and mind are taking a few days to recover, work out which time zone I am in, and whether I need to prepare myself for further challenges. 

Travelling on my own in such circumstances as Boston allowed me the freedom of not needing to worry about how the other person/s might feel in such situations, but there are also incidental and ordinary downsides of lone travelling. Although there were the extraordinary elements to the trip, there were also the ordinary ifs, buts and where's that you encounter when travelling, especially if you have not been there before.

I do not like dining on my own and only really go for places where I think I will not stick out like a sore thumb. But that means there are a lot of interesting looking places I am not brave enough to go into. Lone lunchtime snacking is easy, most are doing it. Evening dining is something else, or so it feels to me. This was so in Boston and Montreal but of the two evening meals in each of the two places only once did I come seriously unstuck. In Montreal there were some fantastic looking places which were humming with people, which was part of the problem for my sensitivities. 

On the last evening I opted for a restaurant not too crowded with singles as well as couples and small groups eating. I reasoned that it must be ok given the numbers, it looked clean and smart, and I went in. It was an Italian restaurant in Montreal, and I would have preferred French Canadian food, but there you go. Now I have to say that I have no idea what the other food being consumed was like but mine was one of the worst meals I have ever had. I opted for Cannelloni, one of my easy favourites because it is so reliable, but how wrong can you be. I wondered where it had been for the last month, on the roof maybe. It seemed to be composed of a hard meat core, a bit like a skinless sausage, loosely wrapped old pasta, partly covered in a glutinous cheese and tomato sauce, all microwaved to extinction. Oh and decorated with a sprig of what had once been basil but now was more like green printed grease paper. I have no idea why I did not send it back. Instead I persevered eating about two thirds of it out of nutritional need rather than pleasure. I paid and got out quick wondering if I was going to suffer later for the experience. I did not thankfully.

With Boston it was will I be able to do anything in a place dealing with such an outrage. Maybe I also feel a bit guilty being there at that time and thinking of my own needs. But there was a distinct feeling expressed, by those I spoke to, that the world of the city's normal activities had to continue almost because of what had happened. In a way that was best expressed by the three runners in the marathon who concentrated on that experience for them rather than the bombing. There were a heck of a lot of law enforcement people around, as well as army who were patrolling the underground system, from all sorts of different agencies, but they were relaxed as well as watchful which allowed the city to function much as I imagine it normally does. So I feel I was privileged to be there to witness that while wending my way round some of the city, enjoying the bright sunshine, taking in the feel of a fascinating place and a whole different way of looking at the revolutionary war between us. As for food there it was good, with the best/iconic bit being indulging in a lobster salad roll in the Quincy Market Hall.

One final food item, my failure anywhere to find a decent cappuccino.

Being There

This is for those of you who have a sense of adventure, appreciate the unusual circumstances that can come along, but also wonder at the wisdom of it all at the time.

For some time I have wanted to visit my cousin Arthur and his wife Jodie who live in New York. Arthur's mother and mine were sisters, Arthur's mother moving to New York in the 40's and Arthur being born, bred and grown up there. The two families remained close and have visited each other as often as they could. Both mothers died recently so for both Arthur and I, cousins and only children who look on each other as quasi brothers, it is important to us, as well as the rest of the families and themes of our parents, to keep the relationships close and active.

Hence my desire to visit. An opportunity arose the other week for a trip so I took it. Because Jodie and Arthur are younger than me, lucky them, they are still working and very busy, so I devised a plan where I could have an adventure but minimise the impact on their work commitments. Apart from seeing them I wanted it to be an adventure and boy it was a lot more of an adventure than I expected or in some respects wanted.

So to start. You have all heard now of the bombings in Boston and that they happened during the Boston marathon and were deliberately targeted at the marathon event. You may know, though not many outside Boston do, that the race is always run on Patriots day, the day that celebrates the start of the American revolutionary war against us Brits. Not even other Americans are familiar with the connection and Patriots day only seems to be celebrated in and around Boston.

When I was working out my trip, and thinking of making it an adventure, I thought it would be a good idea to do a stop over on the way in and also on the way out of New York, so where to go. I thought that a two night visit to each of interesting walk about cities on the way in and out was manageable and sensible. You, I hope, are ahead of me but how far ahead? Yes I chose Boston and the bit you likely won't guess, Montreal.

I flew Air Canada which also meant a four hour wait in Halifax, Nova Scotia, airport. For anyone who has been there you will know it is in the middle of nowhere, is a vast airport but with little or no facilities. A waiting room at the end of the world. The flight was also quirky as I was allocated a window seat, got a window seat, but perversely no window just blank external wall. I won't talk about the food on the flight, I do not want to depress you.

Timing is everything they say so, after my time at Halifax listening to locals talking about the problems of moose, in the vast landscape, wandering onto the long, straight mostly empty roads causing accidents and generally being a pain in such a seemingly deserted landscape with its see for miles roads between small communities, I took off for Boston on Patriots Day. Yes really. I landed shortly after the bombs had gone off but knew nothing of it until we were taxiing to the arrival gate and an American sitting near me got a text telling of the terrible events. To my amazement, and despite the horrible realization of what had happened and what needed to be done, the public transport system remained open apart from the immediate location of the outrage. This meant I was able to get to the b&b I had booked into on the other side of town with remarkable ease. I will not dwell on the bombing, its aftermath and the remainder of that story as it unfolded after I left as you will all have your own reactions to it and not need me to add to that. But I will say that I was oddly privileged to witness how they handled their emotions and reactions to it all. The b&b I stayed at, The Morrison House, had three runners in the marathon staying there and so I had the chance to talk to them about the run and the bombings. Even they were calm about it all concentrating on what, apart from that, had been a fantastic event for them, talking of their times and whether they would be entering next year.

What was really odd about my timing, apart from trying to find accommodation during the marathon period and no wonder I found that difficult, was going there around Patriots Day, going on the heritage trail, and reading incessantly how dastardly we Brits were and how heroic the rebels were. Only an idiot with poor research skills could come up with that sort of clash. I knew I was safe and amongst good people, what was difficult was knowing family and friends would be very worried and getting the messages out that I was safe. My impressions of Boston? Another time maybe, but good.

On to New York but by a different airline with a different flight number going to a different arrivals gate in a different terminal than on my itinerary, oh and paying extra for my luggage. Why, I have no idea, confusing yes. Great, just what you need when travelling. So what chance did Jodie and I have of meeting up as planned. We did meet up but only after some stressed and unhelpful advice, technical language and some judicial phone calls. It did not help that they closed all the parking lots at the airport that day. Was someone trying to tell me something. Anyway after the traumas a great time with Jodie and Arthur going to a Ball Game, my first, and watching the Mets, Jodie and Arthur's team, at the Mets new stadium, beat the Washington Nationals 2-0. A hotdog at the game, very iconic. Going to the 9/11 memorial, very elegant, meaningful and moving in my eyes, the High Line http://www.thehighline.org/ again elegant but also beautiful and really enjoyable, walking through Central Park a long standing desire, a visit to MOMA and much more including some of Jodie's and Arthur's favourite restaurants.

But then sadly it is time to leave and Jodie deposits me back at the airport on the first day of the US budgetary cuts, unintended on her part. Which means less air traffic controllers, which means less planes in the air at the same time but still try to fly to the pre-cuts schedules, which means the airport being a crammed parking lot for planes, which means I eventually take off after I should have landed in Montreal having slowly shuffled along in an seemingly endless queue of aircraft pumping vast amounts of polluted jet exhaust into the atmosphere while going nowhere fast. Still enough of that.

So I arrive in Montreal later, much later and what do I find, they have just arrested in Montreal a potential bomber of Canadian Trains. It takes me a while to work out what I need to do to get into town near my pre-booked b&b by public transport, but I do it marvelling on the way at how all their disturbing amounts of elevated roadways and spaghetti junctions stay up despite terrible cracking and spalled concrete. I find later, in a local newspaper article, that some have fallen and some been condemned before and during construction. Fortunately the towering buildings and more modest abodes do not suffer similar problems. Orientation, not usually a problem for me, is an issue when I get off the bus from the airport. But I eventually find my bearings and make it to the b&b Le Simone. Again I have struck lucky and am greeted with a warm, friendly and informative welcome.

I spent two days walking Montreal and find it an extraordinary place but am really challenged linguistically as not only is it French speaking, sometimes exclusively, but I was crap at French at school and still am. The most extraordinary thing about the place is the strange, to me, relationship between the above ground world of big buildings for shops, offices, university, government buildings, accommodation and hotel tower blocks with the underground world some two or three stories going down of vast shopping centres, innumerable food courts and underground rail lines. Sore feet, fascination, and an adventure sadly nearing its end.

So back to the airport with not so much fear but certainly trepidation as to what the next challenge will be. I was allocated a seat in the rearmost row on the plane, any further back and it was the crew jump seats or food lockers. But I did get a window seat with two windows, good food, happy helpful cabin staff and a travelling companion Steve who seemed to share many of my views on the world around us as well as my sense of humour and comedy heroes. He is Canadian, a chemistry lecturer at a Nova Scotian University, and so able and willing to put me right on my perceptions of Canada and Halifax airport's departure lounges. When he heard my tale of my trip he did wonder at the wisdom of being on the same plane as me. Neither of us has a good record of sleeping on planes and spent much of the flight talking. Thank you so much Steve for a great encounter.