Day 12 - Boston Bruins Ice Hockey

Big travel day today with an early start to arrive at the airport in Nashville before 7:30am and then fly to New York, change to another plane and fly on to Boston. It was a bit bumpy both in the air and landing today but nevertheless we arrived safe and sound in Boston at about 2:20pm (having lost another hour).

We grabbed a shared ride (a kind of shuttle) to our hotel, checked in, and then set out to explore. It was raining but we really enjoyed the walk and finally reached our destination - Joe's Restaurant for linner at about 4pm. Carly had done her research and once again we were not disappointed - she had ribs and I had some yummy pasta (mainly as it had broccoli and I was craving vegetables).

We then decided to see whether we could get tickets for the ice hockey game that was on tonight so started walking towards the venue. By this time it was raining fairly heavily so we decided to try out the subway - what an adventure! After some false starts we finally found a lovely subway employee who explained how the ticketing works. They have a Charlie Card which is a bit like an Opal card, so we bought one and set out once again. 

We found the venue, grabbed some tickets, but we still had time to kill so we took off walking again to a marketplace which had some interesting shops and a replica Cheers bar. It was dark and still raining so we might go back tomorrow to check it in the daylight.

We decided walking was easier so back we went again and headed up into the nosebleed section to watch the Boston Bruins take on the Colarado Avalanche. 

The Bruins got off to a great start, leading 2-0 early in the first period and we felt that maybe our hoodoo and jinx wasn't going to be on display. But sure enough, the Colorado team scored 3 goals to ensure defeat for the poor Bruins.

The atmosphere was fantastic regardless. It seems that the main aim is to get drunk and rowdy in the crowd so that the camera shows you on the big screen - very entertaining to watch. I did have to restrain Carly who suggested we start a chant of "quack, quack, quack" and also stop her from yelling out that they should use the "flyingV" (for all you Mighty Ducks fans) but all in all it was a great night. Once again, as in the 49ers game the other day, there was a lot of mention of veterans due to it being Veterans Day yesterday. Heaps of uniformed personnel were there for free and there was a lot of focus on their sacrifice and service.

We decided it would be too crowded on the subway after the game so walked back to the hotel - it only took an hour! Boston seems like a great city to walk around in, so I guess we might be doing a bit of that over the next few days. Back in the room by 11pm and the in bed by midnight. Another big day tomorrow.