See a fish, eat a fish

We headed out to the New England Aquarium for our 2nd day here. It was pretty good, but we experienced something a bit strange there. One of the main supporters of the aquarium was a restaurant chain called Legal Seafood. They must have some sort of subliminal ads inside the tank water because by the end of our time there we both wanted some seafood for lunch. And wouldn't you know it, there is a Legal Seafood restaurant directly across the street from the exit doors of the aquarium.

The menu should have just included a live video feed of the critter you were about to eat happily swimming around the aquarium. I'm surprised there weren't signs at some of the aquarium displays saying, "Sorry, penguin display temporarily closed because to many people across the street had a hankering for deep fried wings"

-Ryan

Fresh Boston on a Half Shell

We crammed a lot of Boston into our first day here. The first thing we learned was that the city is pretty small. Despite my total ineptitude at navigating new places (both in video games and real life) I was able to figure things out pretty quickly.

We took a tour on a DUKW (pronounced duck) and saw a lot of large buildings that were either the blah blah Federal building or some version on a John Hancock insurance building.  There were also many many places that either Paul Revere or JFK had lived in, had a sandwich in or maybe just passed by and looked at once.

We knew who JFK was, but not Paul Revere. Turns out Bostonians are pretty proud of him and weren't impressed when Mel kept asking about his axe and giant blue ox.

After seeing some sites we decided we should taste some of New England's fare. We stopped in at the Union Oyster House. Allegedly America's oldest restaurant. We had some lobster, and some Sam Adams, and then I decided I'd like to try out a fresh oyster. I convinced our waitress to just bring me ONE to try. Then a bit sheepishly asked her what the hell I was supposed to do with it. Now you'd think that a waitress in a touristy New England restaurant called the OYSTER HOUSE would easily be able to field that question. If you thought that, you'd be dead wrong. Her response was something like, "Oh, I don't really know. I'm not really a seafood person and I've never tried an oyster."

WTF? You work in a landmark oyster house and you've never tried one? That's got to be like a geek at Future Shop not really being an electronics person and having never watched a minute of TV.

I ate the oyster without a tutorial. It was alright, but I didn't have any more.

We concluded the evening at a comedy play called Bye Bye Liver. It was a good show, but I think the way they ID people was also a bit of a joke. It went like this:

Bouncer - "Can I see some ID please?"
Ryan - hands over driver's license.
Bouncer - "Anything else? "
Ryan - hands over a second piece of photo ID
Bouncer - "Anything with America on it? "
Ryan - "No, if I had that it'd definitely be fake. "

Fortunately he found that funny and let me in.

So overall a very good first full day here. Much better than the travel day.

-Ryan

Fuck United

Fuck this airline. Worst airline ever. Ran by a pile of idiots. That is all...

... well maybe a bit more now that I have some time to rant. The first leg of our flight was Saskatoon to Chicago then on to Boston. As of 10pm last night all was on track and on time. Woke up this morning to my phone telling me the flight from Saskatoon to Chicago was cancelled. Called American Airlines since I booked my flight with them. They told me to call United because since they were the airline that caused the canceled flight it was their responsibility to get us back on course.

As could be expected, calling United was futile. They said call American. I called back to American after suggesting the agent I had on the phone should probably quit his fucking job and work for someone other than United.

The next American agent tried for a bit to figure out new flights, but as United had changed our first leg to Friday and just abandoned our second leg on Thursday (did they expect us to time travel to make our connection in Chicago? ) he couldn't help me out before the taxi was at our door waiting to pick us up.

Hoping for better luck at the terminal we left home. There were a lot of stranded people at the United desk and only 2 rookie (or maybe dumb, slow, or just trained by their company to be useless) girls at the desk.

After nearly an hour of waiting and doing our own research at the other airlines to find out what other options were available we simply TOLD the United girl (a 3rd, far more competent one) how we'd like to get to Boston.

Flights were rebooked with Air Canada and off we went. We ended up going west first to get east, which will take longer, but on the bright side we got executive class seats from Calgary to Toronto.

We'll see what adventures await us on the way home!

-Ryan

p.s.   As I was writing this United replied to tweets from both Mel and I, as if their numerous problems could be fixed, or even LISTED in 140 characters or less.

250 Beer Selection...in the Grocery Store Bar?

Only in 'Merica can you find a grocery store with a bar in it. I say this idea is brilliant! The prices are all the same as the retail prices so instead of buying your booze and drinking at home all sad and alone you get to buy it and drink it right in the store beside your cart of milk, bread, and veggies. And instead of finishing your shopping sober you get to do it drunk.

Don't know why stores at home haven't hit on this yet.