Day 13 Friday 3 October

Today started with a bit if a ridiculous trip up Cadillac Mountain to watch the sunrise. It's the first place in the USA to see the sun and it's the thing to do there with some people going up every day. Sadly, the mountain top was in cloud, so we had to turn around and come back to join many others triple parking in a layby. There was a low cloud line on the horizon which meant the sun appeared a bit later, finally peeking out for a short while. It was all a bit of fun, if a tad chilly.
Back to the hotel for breakfast with six eagles soaring above us.
It was a quiet morning, with more sunshine, as we were driven down to Freeport and its shopping mall. Ian and I had no particular desire to go shopping but looked for things for small people in the L L Bean store. It had lots of lovely things but all the wrong shape, so it was quite frustrating. Abercrombie also had no jeans that I was confident would fit Laura, so all we bought was lunch.
More miles - the final leg to Boston where we ended up back at the Holiday a Inn for lots of sad goodbyes. I dug out maps and we worked out that a taxi would just get stuck in traffic. So with the company of Monica, Radhika and Anja, and with them to show us the way, we had our first encounter with the T metro system. This meant that we were able to move around easier over the next couple of days.
Off at Haymarket station and a couple of blocks round the corner we found our studio apartment. We had to check in at the Bricco restaurant, then were taken down an alley, where the bread bakery and salumeria are to the entrance if the building behind. Our one room was at the top, up 42 stairs and fortunately, our cases were carried up. We were on Hanover Street, the centre of North District and Little Italy.
Although it seemed quite early, restaurants were buzzing and many were full. One of the podcasts that Chad had played suggested Salem Street rather than Hanover Street would be better for food. As it was very close by, we walked down it but didn't find a restaurant to serve us a pizza until back on Hanover Street. Our waitress worked so hard all the time we were there and she was quite happy to serve us one of everything to share. There was a single man at the next table who wanted to chat, which was fine. He said we should visit the south-west if we wanted to see the real America.
Back to our eyrie for an early night