Well, I made it to Boston safe and sound. As most of you know, I left June 1st for my trip. The plan was to fly to Boston via Ottawa. I managed to (barely) make it in time to the airport in Winnipeg and as far as I can tell, I packed most of what I need (I tend to pack last-minute and so also tend to forget things). The only really important thing I forgot was my international license (which hopefully will be mailed to me) and an international adaptor, which I can buy here. I had a nice surprise when I left Winnipeg as my two best friends and a bunch of my family members came to see me off. This time around, I didn’t cry as much.
And to my joy, another friend of mine who works at the airport came to see me off at the gate. It was nice to have someone with me right then, as I was kind of nervous and 1% of me was wondering if I should have just stayed home. But I ignored it and the plane took off and everything was great. Then we got to Ottawa and there was a storm so we couldn’t land, nor could the other planes ahead of us, and we didn’t have enough fuel to wait that long so we were diverted to North Bay, ON. Finally after 30 min of sitting there, we refueled and made the trip back to Ottawa, where we couldn’t land for a second time because they had given us too MUCH fuel.
We circled around for a while and then finally landed. Well, by this time it was 7pm (Ottawa time), which is what time I should have landed in Boston. Needless to say, I missed my connection! And of course there weren’t any other flights that night, so I had to stay overnight in a hotel, which Air Canada wouldn’t pay for because it was due to “weather” and not a technical delay.
The hotel I found (at a “discounted” rate of $79) didn’t offer free shuttle service, so I had to take a taxi there, which took about 20 min and a lot of speeding (way more than I ever do, we were going 130km at one point, and the speed limit was only 60) to get there, for a total of $20 each way.
It was definitely an expensive night, especially since I only spent about 6 hrs there. My new flight was at 6:55am, which meant I had to be at the airport at 5am, so I didn’t get much sleep. I managed to make it to the airport on time (after sleeping through a few alarms), and we took a small plane which only fit about 40 people. Finally, finally, finally, I arrived in Boston and surprisingly enough found my way easily to MIT where the friend that I’m visiting works.
I dropped off my bags and went for a walk around the waterfront of Cambridge and Boston, which are separated by the Charles River. I walked probably 2 or 3 kms. It was very pretty and without trying, I managed to find all kinds of historical sites and landmarks! Now we’ve just had lunch and I’m heading out to tour the campus. Until next time…
View of Boston
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