Escape from Surreality

Day 4 – Wednesday 6^th April 2011

 We wasted time this morning, and we had lots to waste. Our bus was at 12.15 and was, as we had found out the day before, leaving from only a few yards away from our hotel – quite a bonus for us as it was particularly busy out on the sidewalk and our cases would have been too cumbersome to drag through the throngs of New York.

We arrived at the bus stop in good time and the Boltbus appeared not long afterwards. Luggae stowed we were soon heading off down 7^th Avenue and hit the Holland Tunnel which had out on the Jersey Turnpike road in no time at all. Looking left out of my window I could see the Manhattan skyline standing majestically and it reminded me of the opening titles of the hit TV drama, The Sopranos, where it shows Tony on his way home to New Jersey and the sights along the way. They changed the title sequence some two or three series in because the earlier episodes showed the Twin Towers but later ones removed them from the shots for obvious reasons.

Baltimore was reached in good time and we were soon enjoying a taxi ride with Joy who was at pains to point put the areas of town that we should not venture into unless we wanted to be relieved of our wallets. Tonight, she told us, was also a big baseball game in Baltimore. We pondered on it but decided that we did not want to go and watch a few men play rounders so gave it a miss opting for a couple of drinks and a meal in the bar with our polish host, Yvonne who we found out was from Gdansk and her husband was from Poland too. A look at the internet told us that our boat has sailed (on 4^th) and will dock in Baltimore on 13^th which realistically means that we should be able to collect on 14^th. Tomorrow’s jobs are to a) look for car hire, b) repack the bags so that we can leave our luggage with the concierge until 14^th, c) rebook hotel for 13^th & 14^th  d) start working out a route south (also pleased today that the Garmin sat nav map of USA works fine in my Sat Nav so at least I will some idea where I’m going !).