Ok, after catching a bit of sleep I finally can share our travel tutti quanti (not that it’s particularly important, but it’ll help me not to forget some precise details in the future).
Boy oh boy, what an ordeal (mixed up with an adventure) it turned out to be!.. But first things first. We checked out from our hotel at the standard 11 a.m. and had a bit of spare time to make a final walk around Providence before the departure (our train was leaving for Boston South Station at 3:15 p.m.), and we surely did: L. and I climbed College Hill and had another glimpse at beloved Brown University and The John Hay Library, then decided to have another look at the Athenaeum: we’ve been there before, of course, and not only once, but it’s nice to come back to see great things again.
The Athenaeum remained as splendid in its Greek Revival glory as usual, and we proceeded inside in order to see the Old Gent bust, but here was a big disappointment: the statue was removed from the public eye, “returned to the storage room for the time being” or something like that. Ah well: their public space—their rules, but it made me quite sad. Anyway, we walked around the library (man, those squeaky stairs sound old, old!), and its cosiness fascinated me again: I envisioned Poe’s public readings in there quite vividly.
But tempus fugit, and we had to collect our belongings and go to the Providence rail station for our train to Boston. A bit of a critique here: during all the time of our stay, we didn’t have a normal mobile signal anywhere in New England, and I mean it: there was no usable cellular connection (mostly ”Edge,” which, quite frankly, I haven’t seen on any of my devices in a hot minute), and we were forced to seek free wifi elsewhere (we both remembered our first stay in Cromer in 2015 where we happened to face the same issues). It was pretty unreliable and drained our phone batteries too quickly for my personal liking. It’s fair to say that it’s not a specifically Providence problem: it happened to us in both Boston and Newport. Dear New England, as lovely and hospitable as you are, you should do something with this: please, resolve it before our next visit! Thanks in advance.
The travel from Providence to Boston went fairly smoothly (except it was slow), but then there was that shuttle bus to Logan Airport. Ok, it was crowded and a bit close, but it wasn’t exactly a problem: while pulling my suitcase from the luggage rack, my wrist was nearly shattered by a fellow passenger who dropped his heavy suitcase on me, mumbled “sorry” and disappeared into the blue in a second. That was painful, yikes! At first I thought (entering a full freak out mode) that he broke it, but, thank god, it was just a strong blow, not a twist, or a fracture, since I was able to move it and turn it in different ways.
But it wasn’t enough: then, after checking in, we were wandering around in order to find our mysterious gate “E1A” (a tiny, barely visible appendix beyond the normal “E1” gate), and it also made us freakishly nervous. Third time lucky: we found it just in time.
Our flight was mostly fine except quite significant turbulence in the second part (I assume, when we were flying over the Atlantic, and two weather fronts met) and a very (and I mean it) bumpy landing: London met us with thick clouds and the usual rains (I started thinking that rains were added to our travel package as a bonus).
Then, it was flooding in the Tube and our Cambridge train went out of power three or four times, which delayed our arrival significantly. But we are finally home, and this is the main thing. Our lovely journey belongs to history.
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