US / Canada / French Canada Tour 09

The Margaritas and beer from last night were sort of catching up with me the following morning and I had to do some panadol. Chris, who is currently working at U-Haul, had to leave really early on Saturday morning (stepwid early) – so we didn’t have a chance to see him again.

At about 9am – Ant tried to make contact with Samara via text for her to come pick us up (she was living with her mum at New Canaan so she would need to drive over) so we had a bit of time to kill.

It was a really beautiful area, lots of big foliage and colours and precipitation. Lots of precipitation. Chris bitched last night that about 4-5 days per week is raining.

We let Izzy go mental for a bit out in the woods near the house. Although it was very pretty – it also felt a bit sinister in a Friday the 13th sort of way. You could imagine some homicidal manic waiting in the bushes with a machete whilst you were taking a shower or something. Also - I swear I saw multiple squirrels getting rapped by each other in the bushes.

Samara came to rescue us (again) around 10ish – and we drove for a little bit. Ant had confided in Samara the night before saying “your driving scares me shitless”. She took this on board and said “I’ll pay attention to my driving!”. Although there were some slight improvements in her driving – I still think Ant was fairly close to wetting himself.

We drove to a diner (which felt like in the middle of nowhere Friday the 13th style). It was quite busy and had to wait for a table for about 5 minutes. Once seated – the menu at the diner was typical diner fare – calories with saturated fat. Samara did her thing of hostage negotiating with the waitress (who was fully deadpan) some alteration to the menu. I just kept it simple by ordering a “He-Man” (French toast with bacon, eggs and sausages… I’m sure He-Man wouldn’t look so hot if he kept eating this on a regular basis). Ant the American way by also attempting to alter something on the menu but he was very intimated by the old dead-pan waitress and somewhat scared.

After breakfast (which was good in a fatty/calorific way), we did a bit of a car tour of New Canaan. As Samara described it – New Canaan was full of shops selling bits and pieces for your home. Because you had a super-sized mansion around New Canaan – you had to fill it up with stuff. The mansions around New Canaan were big and everyone around here are millionaires. Of note -someone out the front of their house had a “Obamacare is Suicide” billboard (Americans are totally crazy about this health care debate at the moment. The right and Fox News are worried that Nazis might ride on dinosaurs with lasers if Obama passes his health care reforms).

Anyhows – we headed to the station around 1ish (as Samara had an appointment to get her roots done). It was really cool catching up with Chris and Samara if only for a really short amount of time. I hope it isn’t that long until we catch up again – and wish them both the best for the future. Hugz.

We caught the train back in the direction of NY – to nearby Stamford where we bought an Amtrack ticket to Boston (our next destination). Stamford sort of seemed to have the same vibe as Campbelltown does with Sydney… ghetto baby. On a grey Stamford morn, another baby is born in the ghetto… In the ghetto…

Anyhows – our Amtrack train to Boston (although sort of delayed) was fairly comfortable and relaxing and about 3ish hours.

There was lots of foliage to see in this part of the world. Speaking of foliage – local news stations have a “Foliage Report” as part of their weather report – reporting on the state of foliage around the area and where it is most prettiest.

We arrived at Boston early evening. I was feeling a little flustered because my backpack was giving me spinal injuries due to the amount of NY shopping. It took us a bit of time to get our bearings at the station and how we were going to get to our hotel (Doubletree Downtown). We hoped on a subway (which was sort of confusing because it would have a “Silver” line and “Red” line – but everything was in an 1970s futuristic orange colour.

Anyhows – we made it to our hotel which was opposite a big hospital near Chinatown. We had booked this hotel with Hotwire (the website where you don’t know what you are booking until you have paid for it with your credit card) and it had some pretty bad Tripadvisor reviews. One was talking about it being really sleazy with prostitutes everywhere. But sometimes you need to take Tripadvisor reviews with a grain of salt – because it wasn’t sleazy at all and the hotel room was really big, clean and nice.

We headed out in the direction of Chinatown and had dinner at Pho Pasteur restaurant (a Vietnamese restaurant). The service was a bit rushed but the food was really good (big bowl of Pho for about $6US) and it hit the spot. Until next time - xoxo...