No, May and June are not our favorite times to travel, we didn't want to leave the garden right now, so lush and everything starting to bloom. But, it's business and, also, it'll be interesting to get back to New England after 10+ years.
It took us over two hours to get to Munich Airport by public transportation, but all went smooth. We were happy about our direct 8 hour Lufthansa flight to Boston, too, and about the late departure, which gave us a peaceful morning at home and no rush hour on trains. It's our 64th trip to the U.S., and on the was to Munich, we were wondering, whether we will ever reach the magic # 100... Sure hope so.
At the airport we lucked out: Though a new A-350 plane (pic) was standing at the gate for a long time, suddenly, an announcement was made that there are technical problems they still have to solve. Departure time was postponed a couple of times, until we’ve been told that another plane will be provided at another gate and - to make a long story short - at the end we were in the air at 7 pm, 3 hours late, in an older A340-600. Seat assignments were changed and instead of row 25 we got row 46 now, which was especially annoying since LH charges for seat reservations and we reserved early to get seats in front.
We were already starting to think about another overnight in a hotel in Freising (like two years ago), but at least it was "just" an annoying delay. Recently it happened quite a bit to us that planes were delayed or flights cancelled.
I watched movies about the founder of McDonald's, Ray Kroc, and Steve Jobs (Apple) - both strange, very egocentric and focused personalities. Food was so-so (ravioli on the picture) and flight was smooth. Touch-down at 9 pm, quick run through immigration (Global Entry), baggage claim and by bus to the rental car center where it took us a bit to get a midsize (!) car with a cruise control; seems like same rental car categories on the East Coast consist of much smaller cars than in the West - perhaps because distances are shorter and miles driven less?
Finally, we got a white Hyundai Accent - rather small, but brandnew - and around 10 pm we eventually headed out of Boston. It was pitchdark and we drove in the pooring rain - not really fun to find the way to Salem, about 20 mi north of the airport. Would have been a nice drive along the coast in daylight, but now, considering the time of the day and the number of hours we were up, we would definitively have prefered a closeby, easily accessible hotel in Boston downtown.
The Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, which was arranged for us, showed to be nice. It's one of the Historic Hotels of America, from 1925 or so ... but, for the moment, we were just grateful to have a comfy bed.
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