There is bad timing, and there are things that happen - not necessarily bad things. These two trips are an example of that. A non-profit I work with had a meeting on 5/14 with a potential church partner, and I wanted to attend. On 5/19 our granddaughter CC's Pre-K school has a "significant person day" which we want to attend. It would be nice if the events fall on the same weekend, but that's not to be. The logical thing for me to do is to stay in Boston for the week, and for Anne to join later.
Meanwhile, my high school and college classmate Johnny will be in the NY area, and we had arranged to meet up on May 17. So I ended up making two trips, and starting this blog entry on May 16. That would explain why I have trouble with what tense to use; not that I am always grammatically correct anyway.
Saturday 5/13. Anne drove me to the airport and she then proceeded to Hoboken: she had baby sitting duties that afternoon/evening, and would stay over.
UA502 would leave from Terminal A. My first encounter with the terminal was last month, coming back from Charlotte on American Airlines. My remark was the true test of an airport was when things went awry, and Terminal A failed. Today was a "normal" travel day, and things went well. It took perhaps 3 minutes between getting off the car to getting through security. The flight was so uneventful that I have completely forgotten about it. (Or my short-term memory is really bad.)
Joe Jr's household was to have a busy weekend, so I was pretty much on my own the whole time.
As there was no need to rush, I stopped by Stephanie's for a snack (and I hadn't had lunch). I had clam chowder, chicken wings, and an iced tea. With the Priority Pass credit of $28, the net still came out to $12, tip additional. And the food was not that great compared to before.
To get to the Uber lot takes about 5 minutes. I decided to give it a try. It worked well today as cars were there waiting for passengers.
Joe Jr and family had a church event. Harrison decided not to go, so he and I walked over to Assembly Square looking for dinner. At 5:30 pm most places had a wait time of about an hour. Legal Seafood could seat us outside right away, so that's where we ate. And it was quite expensive: $75 including tips. I had the fish and chips, and Harrison something from the kids' menu.
We noticed these planes that fly very close to us, so I opened the FlightRadar24 App and spent some quality time with Harrison identifying the planes and their colors as they flew by.
I noticed that BA212 between Boston and Heathrow used an A380.
Terminal A was a mess when we landed a couple of weeks ago. Today things worked much better. This is the check in area. I checked in online, and didn't need to check luggage, so no idea how long the wait times were.
It took all of three minutes to get through security. This is right after the TSA checkpoint.
After security one takes an escalator to the main terminal.
Gate area.
One issue, it is easy to bang one's head against the shelf if one is not careful.
Someone posted the menu of Stephanie's on Google Maps. Lately the quality of the food has deteriorated considerably in my opinion.
BOS's futuristic looking International Terminal (E) reminds me of the old JFK TWA terminal.
Enjoying dinner with grandson. We spent a lot of time watching planes fly by after dinner.
Fish and Chips at Legal Seafoods Mystic.
I am starting a "collection" of all the F&C I have eaten.
Accommodations: Putnam Road, Somerville (1 night).
Sunday 5/14. Emmie had a soccer game in the morning at Capuano Field. I went and watched the game for about 50 minutes, and then tried to get an Uber to go down to Quincy. While waiting for the Uber I heard a huge roar: the other team scored a goal.
When I checked the App a few minutes prior, Uber showed a fare of $25 (approximately), and a wait time of less than 5 minutes. When I actually tried to book a car (a little before 11 am), it was $40, and a wait time of around 8 minutes. My experience was if one kept refreshing, there is a good chance a lower fare would show up. When the fare dropped to about $25, I requested a ride. The driver started being 5 minutes away, but for some reason the car (as shown on the App) kept moving away, and the wait time got longer and longer. In any case, there is the cancel feature on the App, and when pressed, gave an option of requesting another car, which I did. That was much closer. The whole process made me late for the meeting for about 20 minutes, and I expected to be there 10 minutes early.
After the meeting in Quincy, Chris (a young man attending the church) and I had coffee at Panera Bread and chatted until about 4 pm, time for me to head to Logan Airport.
I had originally booked a flight leaving on Monday, hoping to make use of United's same-day change policy. When I tried to change my reservation this morning (within 24 hours of flight) I got two "free" options: leaving at 10:30 am or 8:50 pm the same day. There were a couple of options for a later Monday flight, which I wasn't interested in. And I could stand by for some other flights during the day; I didn't pursue those; to my mild dismay those options went away after I changed my flight, after which they would should up as flights that cost between $100 and $200.
My idea was to go to the airport and then try get on an earlier plane in person. Given the time I got to the airport, it would have to be a flight at around 5 pm or later. The 5 pm flight was delayed, so the realistic one to try was the 6:20 pm flight. Meanwhile, the 8:50 pm flight got delayed; and when it got pushed back even more, United sent me a note saying I could now try to rebook. Which I did, for free.
I had just enough time to get clam chowder and fried calamari from Stephanie's. The calamari was a disappointment: too soggy.
That turned out to be a full flight, so I am glad I rebooked when I did. The flight was smooth, with a flight time of 53 minutes, for an early arrival (by about 10 minutes). It happens quite often with flights that get in early: no gate available. This was no exception. What happened afterwards: we were assigned another gate, that plane was delayed for 15 minutes, we had to get out of its way when it left the gate, we were behind two planes to get to that general gate area; the first plane was stuck because there was no ground staff to guide it in; all said and done, we sat on the tarmac for more than 45 minutes (per my texts to Anne, we landed at 7:47, door opened at 8:34). Technically only 30 minutes behind schedule. The flight attendant announced that a few people had to make tight (even tighter) connections, so some courtesy would be appreciated. After a while, it looked like everyone had tight connections. All behaved in a civil manner, so the passengers had that going for them.
Meanwhile, Anne waited in the Turnpike rest area, and got some food for me.
The 8:50 pm didn't get in until around 12:30 am.
The first driver seemed to be further and further away. I discovered this feature on the App that allows one to rebook with a different driver. That this was the first time I had to do so speaks to how well the App works, generally.
Things were not working smoothly this afternoon for the BOS-EWR route.
This message, time stamped at 5:04 pm, came at just the right time.
Time of screenshot 8:11 pm. We landed at 7:47 pm, and were going in the wrong direction!
All that, the plane was technically only 32 minutes late.
Johnny did come by on 5/17 and spent a few hours at our place. He and I had known each other from our high school days, and were roommates for a couple of years at Cornell.
Thursday 5/18. We flew on the same flight that I took the last trip. I got upgraded, Anne got the seat. The flight was packed, four empty seats per the Seat Map. Everything worked on this flight. Joe was nearby and came to pick us up. Since I had not eaten lunch yet (the plan was to eat at Stephanie's), I was dropped off at Kelly's. It is a 3/4 mile to walk to Joe's house from there. Jess took Harrison and CC swimming, so Joe, Emmie and we had dinner at Yoki's, and got takeout for the other three.
Accommodation: Putnam Road, Somerville (3 nights).
Friday 5/19. Our main reason (not that we really need one) for this visit was to attend "Significant Person" day at CC's school. At our stage in life a school is a school, but we can see it's important that CC's significant persons show up - a couple of kids had no one, and even with teachers as stand-in, one could sense some level of disappointment.
Lunch was with Joe at Danny C's, and the rest of the afternoon was filled with errands: Costco groceries, CC pickup, and cooking. Dinner was rack of lamb.
Selfie with CC at Eliot Pearson.
Concentrating on a game of math/go fish.
Met this couple, their grandchildren know our grandchildren both from EPC and from Healey.
Fish and Chips at Tony C's at Assembly Square.
Saturday 5/20. Anne and I just hanged about the house Saturday and Sunday. Partly because Joe and Jess are busy driving the kids around. We did stop by Super 88 to buy food ingredients for a hot pot dinner.
Hot Pot dinner with ingredients purchased at Super 88.
Sunday 5/21. The plan for the day had us going to CBCGB, leaving the house at 10:45 am. Joe was to take Emmie to a soccer game early in the morning, and should be back in time so we would have enough seats to go. Anne and I drove to Dunkin Donuts and got coffee and breakfast (including strawberry icing with sprinkles for Harrison and CC). Joe had a flat tire on the way to the game (and managed to get another parent to pick up Emmie, and a stranger stopped by to help him change the tire), and didn't want to drive on the spare tire for too long. He rented a car at the airport (nothing else was available), and I dropped him off. On weekends one of the tunnels (Callahan or Sumner) was closed for repairs, so I had to find an alternate way to get home. Google Maps gave me directions which I often missed, so I ended up back at the airport. Turns out the detour was simply to take Interstate 90 and then join up with Interstate 93. That part of it is the Ted Williams Tunnel just added to the confusion. Once I got that, it was easy enough to get back. One lesson is Car Play nowadays is critical, my situation was not helped by my having problem with steadying my cell phone.
Upshot is Anne and I went online for Sunday Service - St. Pauls Bloor Street in Toronto.
Joe came back to have dinner with us, at Kelly's. He was thinking of dropping off us at the airport, and it was a good thing he thought better of it. Congestion in the morning became gridlock when our Uber driver got close to the airport. He said he would just go to Uber's parking lot and wait out the congestion.
The Chase Lounge at Logan opened a few days ago. I couldn't really find a review of it. The one report was for a preview, and the reporter had a lot to say about it. The lounge is located between Terminals B and C, and a brisk 5 minutes walk from our gate (B27). We were curious enough to give it a try. Given how quiet the terminal was (which doesn't explain why traffic was so bad), the lounge was surprising busy. The hosts were pleasant enough, and we got souvenirs (luggage tags) as welcome gifts. The review I read said the food was to "die for." He should go out more. I tried the meatball sandwich, and the parfait. The sandwich was so-so (on level what's on offer at WaWa's, and the refrigeration for the parfait was inadequate. I do think it will give Stephanie's a run for the money - especially since the latter's food quality has declined considerably recently.
The Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club at Logan opened on May 16. Many reports were regurgitations of the news release. Given how quiet the terminals were, I was surprised to find the place quite busy.
Towards the "non-food" end there were plenty of empty spaces.
A seat by the windows provides a nice view of the tarmac.
Food was supposed to be good at this lounge. My experience today was only "so-so." Perhaps things will improve on a subsequent visit. Paid admission to the lounge is $75 per visit.
At BOS, CLEAR stops running at 6 pm, and TSA Precheck at 7:15 pm. Lines were not too long, and with Precheck on our boarding passes we didn't have to take our shoes off, or go through the scanner. That we thought it took too long (less than 15 minutes) is an indication of how far airport screening has come, a credit to those working in the area - even though some agents are not the friendliest.
We got upgraded to first class. The seats were quite comfortable on this 737 MAX 9. We took off on time, touched down at 9:50 pm (schedule was 10;30 pm), but didn't have a gate until around 10:10 pm. Uber was returning fares of about $110. We decided to take NJ Transit, at $12.35 each, and luckily caught the 10:31 pm train with a couple of minutes to spare. Anne waited at the plaza while I walked/jogged back home to bring the car around. Worked out fine.
A new one for me. The fuel truck was right in front of our gate (C109). It took a few minutes for someone to move it so our plane could park.
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