Here we come, New England!!

We woke up quite early, being anxious and excited to start our trip to Boston. We decided to take advantage of the free made to order breakfast at the hotel before we packed up and headed to the San Francisco International Airport. The hotel that we stayed at was so close to the airport it was wonderful!!! I was so glad that we had our GPS though- but I have to say that SFO's signs are easy to follow.
We parked in long term parking, took the shuttle to our terminal and set ourselves to wait. Security wasn't as much of a nightmare as I expected. We had checked in to our flight 24 hours earlier online, so we already had our boarding passes. The line moved quickly and then next thing we knew we were sipping fabulous Peet's Coffee right at our gate! San Francisco is a pretty fabulous airport!

Our flight hit a bit of turbulence over the Midwest but nothing too terrible. I'm terrified of flying, but even I could handle it- I think because I was thoroughly enjoying the inflight movie of Ice Age 3!! We had great tailwinds so we actually arrived an hour early!!

So here's our first impressions of Boston. Follow the airport signs to transportation and the "T" connection. These signs got us outside but that was about it. That's where the signs ended and our confusion began. I knew that we'd be looking for some kind of shuttle to get us a connection to the "T" but I wasn't sure exactly what to look for or where we were supposed to stand. We found a ticket machine for the "T" and figured that we at least needed to purchase some kind of pass. We asked a gentleman standing not far from us (who oddly enough has been the passenger in the seat beside my husband for the whole flight) whether we were in the right place. He said we were and ended it at that- he was certainly not feeling very friendly, which I learned is normal for Bostonians and New Englanders in general.

While we waited for the bus to arrive we both noted the wonderful salty air smell- we live about 10 minutes from the Pacific Ocean so we're used to the ocean smell, but this was far stronger, so we're wondering if the Atlantic has a higher salt content or maybe the humidity made the smell more pungent? Maybe somebody knows. Anyway it was a great thing to be greeted with after a 5 hour flight with recycled air. The bus arrived, we got on and hoped for the best. Now I'm not normally one for eavesdropping on public transportation but we had to sit next to some Harvard students that had the loudest conversation I've heard in a long time, obviously feeling that it was totally necessary for the whole back of the bus to hear about their lives. That ride could have been 10 minutes and it could have been an hour, it felt like an hour because they were so obnoxious and annoying. All they talked about was partying, drinking and trying to get girls into bed. Here these kids are paying top dollar for a stellar education, probably future doctors and they're talking about so-and-so needing to go to the hospital to get their stomach pumped- not too encouraging.

We finally got to our T station connection, figured out where we were supposed to go and after a few transfers found ourselves at Copley Square. After getting a bit lost and turned around we found our Hotel, the Hotel 140. (see review).

We got in quite late to our hotel and although we were still on California time, we turned in early to get an early start on the Freedom Trail the next morning.