Lizzybear
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2006
- Messages
- 2,955
5th October
Up at 5:30am, sort of an improvement on the past couple of days I guess! I phoned my mum around 6:30 and Steve was up by 7 so we went down for breakfast. Filled our boots today as we have a drive of over three hours before dinner! After breakfast we got showered, dressed, did our last bits of packing and stored the cases at reception as we had a few hours before our car hire pickup time. We went to Old Navy to exchange my two tops for two cardigans and Steve got some boxers, T-shirts and a coat. Next we got the subway up to Central Park to ride the carousel (well, only I did that!) The detail in the building and in the carousel itself is incredible, even the ironwork of the fences has carousel horses in it.
We had a final wander in Central Park before stopping in a posh stationery shop for some New York themed Christmas cards (they were reduced!) and some envelopes for my mum (she does cardmaking) We took our last subway ride back to the hotel area where I made my final New York purchase: two fridge magnets! We picked up the cases from the hotel and walked to Hertz on 34th Street (not far from the hotel so we didn’t bother with a cab) I had booked an intermediate car and was first offered a Toyota Yaris (yeah OK..!) and another similarly tiny thing before agreeing to a Toyota Corolla: Not entirely sure it was equivalent to a Mazda 6 myself but we only had to leave the car with the cases in it once and that was in a secure multi-storey car park. If we’d done a holiday more like last year’s in California where we travelled round a lot (we got a Sebring there which fitted three cases in the boot) I would have been more apprehensive. The Corolla had Canada plates on so I’m guessing Hertz try and send rental cars back to their ‘homes’ through future renters rather than doing it themselves, maybe I should have asked for a discount on the one-way fee! It wasn’t a bad car to drive and I soon got back into the swing of driving in the US, the drive out of New York was easy as it was a straight shot to the 195 which doesn’t have the risks of copious pedestrians and mad taxi drivers.
Bye for now New York!
The journey to Providence was very smooth (dread to think how long the equivalent journey at home would be!) and we arrived and parked up around 5:15pm. Providence seems a nice city, though a little sterile in my opinion, but it was a chance to ‘tick off’ another US state (Rhode Island) and they have a Cheesecake Factory which was our dinner choice for tonight. I ordered the steak diane and Steve got his usual ‘the incredible grilled eggplant sandwich’ Both mains were delicious and we were stuffed so we got raspberry chocolate truffle and peanut butter cheesecake slices to eat later in the evening. Bill was $65 including tip.
Steve was very excited to spot this!
We were a bit early for the more dramatic leaf colours but they were very pretty all the same.
I have an odd fascination with these water towers in the US!
Waiting for dinner...
CAKE!
Some historic building in Providence
More Providence
After dinner we returned to the car and drove the last hour to Boston: By now it was pitch black and a bit scary to drive in an unfamiliar area at night, plus I swear some of the road markings must have been done by drunks! We arrived at the Holiday Inn around 8pm and after some initial confusion as to how to get to the car park we took a back way through a retail park and were soon parked up and checked in. We unpacked a bit, I did some laundry and we were in bed by midnight, a late one for us!
Up at 5:30am, sort of an improvement on the past couple of days I guess! I phoned my mum around 6:30 and Steve was up by 7 so we went down for breakfast. Filled our boots today as we have a drive of over three hours before dinner! After breakfast we got showered, dressed, did our last bits of packing and stored the cases at reception as we had a few hours before our car hire pickup time. We went to Old Navy to exchange my two tops for two cardigans and Steve got some boxers, T-shirts and a coat. Next we got the subway up to Central Park to ride the carousel (well, only I did that!) The detail in the building and in the carousel itself is incredible, even the ironwork of the fences has carousel horses in it.
We had a final wander in Central Park before stopping in a posh stationery shop for some New York themed Christmas cards (they were reduced!) and some envelopes for my mum (she does cardmaking) We took our last subway ride back to the hotel area where I made my final New York purchase: two fridge magnets! We picked up the cases from the hotel and walked to Hertz on 34th Street (not far from the hotel so we didn’t bother with a cab) I had booked an intermediate car and was first offered a Toyota Yaris (yeah OK..!) and another similarly tiny thing before agreeing to a Toyota Corolla: Not entirely sure it was equivalent to a Mazda 6 myself but we only had to leave the car with the cases in it once and that was in a secure multi-storey car park. If we’d done a holiday more like last year’s in California where we travelled round a lot (we got a Sebring there which fitted three cases in the boot) I would have been more apprehensive. The Corolla had Canada plates on so I’m guessing Hertz try and send rental cars back to their ‘homes’ through future renters rather than doing it themselves, maybe I should have asked for a discount on the one-way fee! It wasn’t a bad car to drive and I soon got back into the swing of driving in the US, the drive out of New York was easy as it was a straight shot to the 195 which doesn’t have the risks of copious pedestrians and mad taxi drivers.
Bye for now New York!
The journey to Providence was very smooth (dread to think how long the equivalent journey at home would be!) and we arrived and parked up around 5:15pm. Providence seems a nice city, though a little sterile in my opinion, but it was a chance to ‘tick off’ another US state (Rhode Island) and they have a Cheesecake Factory which was our dinner choice for tonight. I ordered the steak diane and Steve got his usual ‘the incredible grilled eggplant sandwich’ Both mains were delicious and we were stuffed so we got raspberry chocolate truffle and peanut butter cheesecake slices to eat later in the evening. Bill was $65 including tip.
Steve was very excited to spot this!
We were a bit early for the more dramatic leaf colours but they were very pretty all the same.
I have an odd fascination with these water towers in the US!
Waiting for dinner...
CAKE!
Some historic building in Providence
More Providence
After dinner we returned to the car and drove the last hour to Boston: By now it was pitch black and a bit scary to drive in an unfamiliar area at night, plus I swear some of the road markings must have been done by drunks! We arrived at the Holiday Inn around 8pm and after some initial confusion as to how to get to the car park we took a back way through a retail park and were soon parked up and checked in. We unpacked a bit, I did some laundry and we were in bed by midnight, a late one for us!
