For those of you who haven't been keeping up, my wife and I have entered that glorious phase of life known as retirement.
We have both retired from our paying gigs and are now doing what most retirees do: go to the store, go to the doctor, and go get something to eat.
We decided we wanted to celebrate our newfound freedom from meetings and PowerPoint and go on a cruise.
We went on an Alaskan cruise ten years ago, and it was fun. We saw bald eagles and rode a train. We also heard an elderly man bellow to his family on this train, "I'VE GOTTA POOP." That was probably the last thing I'd thought I'd hear in Alaska.
When it came to this year's cruise, we decided against going on a Caribbean cruise. I had several trips to the dermatologist last year, and I didn't want to develop any more skin cancers. I know, I'm such a chicken.
Plus, and I know people want to thank me for this: I don't particularly like to stroll around in my bathing suit.
So, we looked around and found our cruise: New England and Canada in late September. The leaves would be changing. We would sail out of Boston.
Neither of us had ever been to Boston. But I had seen all the TV shows that present Boston as a hick cousin to New York City and/or present Boston as the upper crust of society. The society that came over on the Mayflower and celebrated the first Thanksgiving with maize, which we now call corn.
I will always remember the first time I ever encountered a Boston accent. It was in eighth grade, and a girl named Lynn moved to Marietta from the Boston area, which must have been a culture shock. I had seen film clips of JFK in which he said we chose to go to the moon because it was "HARHD" and Russia was putting nuclear weapons in CUBER. But I had never seen any person speak like this. And she spoke just like that.
Our flight out of Atlanta was uneventful. It is no longer a gigantic pain going through TSA. It was just a little pain.
We took Delta to Boston. They were ready when we were. Unfortunately, they placed our luggage, along with several others, on the flight to Boston before ours. This wasn't nearly as bad as we feared. Our luggage just got to Boston before we did.
Boston is crazy expensive regarding hotel rooms, but we had some friends who live in Boston, and they kept us for a couple of days. On our first night, they took us to Sail Loft, which claims to serve "the best clam chowder in Boston". My wife had it, and there was no argument from her.
From there, we went to an Italian bakery, Bova's. Being from the South, I wasn't too familiar with Italian bakeries, but we each had an Oreo cannoli. Yes, always leave the gun and take the cannoli.
The next day we took a "hop-on, hop-off" trolley through the city. We saw all of the major spots in Boston, including the TD Garden. This is where both the Celtics and the Bruins play.
From there, we went to the Holiest of Holies: Cheers.
It is now fading in our memory, but the TV show "Cheers" was about a bar-Cheers- and the various characters who hung out there, particularly two of the greatest characters in the history of television: Norm and Cliff.
Of course, there wasn't a bar named "Cheers". It was based on a Boston bar called "The Bull and Finch", but ever since the show went off the air, someone decided to rename it Cheers, and now it is a tourist trap, but it is a nice tourist trap.
The bar sells bar food, beer, and T-shirts (which are sold upstairs in what the TV show said was a fancy restaurant called "Meville's".)
Everybody in the bar was nice. I have never heard the phrase "Boston nice", but maybe there should be. Just about everyone we met in Boston was nice, even if we didn't always understand what they were saying.
We shared a bowl of chili and an order of onion rings. It was a little pricey, but it was in line with what you get in any major city downtown.
We went to the port the following day. Again, all of the port workers were very nice and soon we set sail for ....Rockland, Maine.
(Next: Rockland, Maine)
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