Day 16 - NYC to Boston

I had the morning to fill in before catching my afternoon train to Boston and, since it was nearby, I decided to use the time to explore more of Central Park. I started once again at the 103 St entrance (as I had on Wednesday) and this time headed south. The plan was to walk down to Strawberry Fields at, 72nd St, and back again.



The Swiss Cottage

 It really is a magnificent park, and well used by a host of local walkers, exercisers, cyclists, joggers, tourists, families and child care groups. There was always activity in view somewhere, but due to the scale of the park I never had the feeling that it was crowded. I continued south around the Reservoir and came to the Swiss Cottage now used as a marionette theatre. I climbed up via the Shakespeare Garden to the high point of the park - Belvedere Castle - which offered views back over the Turtle Pond and Great Lawn to the north and The Ramble to the south.

One of many...

I continued on through The Bramble, which is the name suggests is a jumbled collection of paths through a heavily wooded section of the park. This brought me to The Lake near Bow Bridge. Following the waters edge I came to The Boathouse which was the subject of a noisy picket line by a collection of aggrieved former employees, so I suspect the proprietor was not in the running for Employer of the Month. Next came Bethesda Terrace, which I recognised from scenes in many movies, and was equally popular with tour groups at the time. This brought me finally to Strawberry Fields, a memorial to John Lennon who was shot and killed at the entrance to his apartment block on nearby Central Park West Avenue in December 1980. The only part of the memorial garden actually alluding to him is a mosaic containing the word "Imagine", a reference to his famous song of that name.

By now it was getting close to the time I had planned to be back at the hostel, so there was clearly not time to walk the return leg. Catching the subway instead simply involved a short walk to Amsterdam Avenue and a trip of just four stops back to 103rd Street. I bought some lunch from the local supermarket to eat at the hostel before collecting my gear and catching the subway back down to Penn Station on 34th Street.

Amtrak trains seem to have some sort of talent for making up time. Although my 2:00pm train departed almost 10 minutes late, and was reported to be running nearly 25 minute late at one point, we reached my designated stop ("Route 128" - what kind of name is that for a train station?) at 6:10pm which was only three minutes late.

Here I met Lee whom I had not seen in over 23 years, and the last "old friend" to be graced with my presence on this USA leg of the trip. Given that Lee has always been the world's least reliable correspondent there was plenty of news to catch up on. This we proceeded to do as we drove off (in a Mini Cooper, how nominatively apt!) towards her partner Nina's house while looking for a place to eat along the way. I can report that on this occasion it was Smart Phone 0, Ashley 1 as we ended up at a Thai Restaurant that I has spotted while the "Smart" phone was sending us in circles looking for something else. Of course some things hadn't changed and squid was one of the very nice dishes we ordered to sate our appetites. The desserts were nice too.

From there it was a short drive to Nina's house (on Ash Street, driving still in the little Mini Cooper). Introductions were done and plans made for the three of us to get an early start to Cape Cod in the morning. I was worried about who would be riding on the Mini's roofrack until is was explained that we would be taking Nina's car which afforded much more room. Part of the evening included introducing Lee to the John Clarke and Brian Dawe sketches, given her memory of the Fred Dagg routines I used to have memorised.