Day 18 - Ice Hockey Hall of Fame, Boston, BBQ

This morning I pack my things and head into town with Warren as I'm taking an afternoon flight and it will take too long to go back out to home and into the airport. We take a risk that there is somewhere at Union Station or the first stop I can drop my bags for a while but alas we are mistaken (Amtrak did in Philadelphia!) so I'm wheeling my suitcase around town.

Our morning is spent at the Ice Hockey Hall of Fame which to be perfectly honest I know nothing about.

They had two very interesting exhibits. The first one wasn't strongly aligned with Ice Hockey but very interesting none the less, a complete collection of the Olympic medals 1896-2008. It was really interesting to see what the host cities chose over the years, most being fairly traditional solid metal, but some were a bit out there with glass etc. Warren and I both agreed that if I won an Olympic medal, we want solid metal!

The second and truly awesome part was the Stanley Cup. Now I imagined it would be behind some bullet proof glass case with some guard dogs and a moat with sharks with lazers for good measure. But low and behold it's sitting in the open and with the watchful eye of a staff member you can take photos with it and touch it!

With some more browsing of the museum and some lunch thrown in that pretty much covers the time I've got until needing to head to the airport and I part ways with Warren and Toronto.

I make my way over to the city airport where Porter flies from and settle into their nice lounge and use up the free wi-fi. Porter is a great airline, I want to own shares in it. It's fairly low cost just like a JetStar but they are going for a business feel to it. There is a nice lounge at the Toronto airport where they are based with free coffee/soft drinks and biscuits etc and good seating which makes it feel classy but wouldn't cost much. The planes are all small propeller based but when its only an hour flight anyway, who cares. The seating configuration is 2x2. On both legs I had two seats to myself to spread out (hmm, maybe it isn't a good investment if they arn't yet filling the seats!). They serve a very basic snack on the plane which makes it feel better than having to pay to eat on a Jetstar.

Anyway, back to holidays.

I arrive at Logan Airport in Boston and as luck would have it came in just behind a couple of european flights and the line at Immigration is disgusting. One hour later I've snaked my way to the front of the queue. The only positive was the captive audience of the hot chick in the line behind me but by mid conversation I discover she's engaged anyway, doh!

After clearing customs with the wave of a hand (if only Immigration was like that!) I get the shuttle bus to the train station and head out to Tim and Vanessa's place on campus at Babson College on the outskirts of Boston.

It's now late evening when I arrive and we head out the back for a BBQ dinner with Enrique and catch up.