After I finished up work in New Brunswick, my first bus of the day would leave me in Moncton with a 45 minute layover. Seeing as there's an extremely convenient ANBL liquor store right in the parking lot of Moncton's train/bus station, I went over there and grabbed a bottle of champagne as tonight was the last game for all the marbles, Game 7 of the Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues.

Back at the station, my bus left on time and this put me at ease, but as we hit construction and people held up the schedule at stops, I started to stress out about getting to my motel in Maine in time for puck drop. There was also little I could do by this point, so I soon reclined my chair, tried to relax and lay back, immersing myself in my current read about travels in Siberia.

Stepping off the bus in the town of Woodstock, the local cab company was there within minutes and off I went with a friendly cab lady towards the States. This pleased me, since this was the final puzzle piece for so long - just how I was going to cover the 20km between the New Brunswick bus line here in Woodstock, and the Maine bus line over in Houlton. Thankfully, instead of walking 20km at 4 in the morning, I finally found a single Reddit thread with someone saying this cross-border taxi service existed.

We soon pulled up to America, where the border guard gave us no trouble, even as I interjected that I had champagne on me since the cabbie never asked. A few minutes later, she dropped me off at the Shiretown Inn & Suites out by the interstate in Houlton, and after wishing my Bruins luck, her cab was gone in a flash and headed back to Canada.

At this point I was extremely pleased with how the bus and cabbie had worked so well to get me here with a few minutes to spare. Going inside the lobby to grab my motel room in a flash, the clerk was instead committed to giving me a slow, friendly check-in. She asked about where I lived, why was I travelling by myself, is my partner my special person, etc., etc.

Meanwhile I kept glancing at the back of my wrist as if I had a watch whenever she looked away or went to get something from the printer. Yes, I understand how breakfast works. Yes, I understand that you have an attached bar. Yes, I have the WiFi password - my god woman! The Bruins are playing in the Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals!

Finally with the keys handed over, I exploded into Room 107 and raced to put on the TV, finding Chara skating his circles just seconds before puck drop. Everything had worked out so well to get me here on time and I couldn't be happier.

And then you may know what came next. St. Louis scored 2 quick goals. I sat in my Shiretown Inn & Suites chair staring angrily. Then St. Louis went into shutdown defensive mode, where the Bruins could get absolutely nothing done in the most frustrating game ever.

I vividly remember where I was when the Bruins lost to Chicago in 2013, and now I remember Houlton's Shiretown Inn & Suites in the same way.

The next morning it was time for the sketchiest bus of the trip. With a website straight out of 1995 and very few online reviews, I was worried. I made sure to ask the Shiretown Suites about the bus schedule, as well as the staff across the street at the Circle K. I wanted to ensure I wouldn't be caught off guard by some schedule change where all the locals know, so they don't see a need to update the website. Things are incredibly rural up here until you get to Bangor, so I was left wondering what kind of bus and how tight of ship this Cyr Bus Lines was going to run.

Coming from Caribou Maine right up at the top of the state this morning, a full-sized bus pulled in a few minutes late and about one-third full. We went through some rural places, making stops in Sherman and Oakfield, but they got me down to Bangor on time, all for $20 for a 2.5 hour ride. They showed me.

The Bangor bus station was pure pandemonium in comparison to the Circle K's we'd stopped at in places like Medway, so I hurriedly fired my bag under the next bus as it didn't seem like there would be enough seats.

I was now on Concord Bus Lines and would be here for 4.5 hours for $44. Grabbing a window seat, someone had to sit next to me as the bus was full and even though he was a smallish guy, it still wasn't the most comfortable - I guess I'd grown used to the empty seats on Newfoundland's DRL and those Charlottetown busses.

Concord was fairly reliable too, picking its way through downtown Boston and dropping us off at South Station only a few minutes late. It was here, with my bag in hand and even though I love buses, that I was happy to finally be done with the journey.

I still had to appreciate how easy it was to get from Charlottetown to Boston via the bus. If we rewind only to New Brunswick yesterday, I'd boarded the bus at 4:15pm and now found myself in Boston at 4:00pm. That's under 24 hours total, via 11 hours of bus riding and a taxi!

Isy and I met up smoothly in the hectic station, then proceeded to head over to our AirBNB that I grabbed down in Dorchester. Along the way, she expressed her surprise that Boston wasn't ranked higher when I talk about cities, since she was seeing a grittiness that she thought I would appreciate.

I had to laugh because this was the grittiest I'd ever seen Boston as we went through some rundown subway stations and purveyed the goods at a nearby Dot Ave liquor mart...sorry, a Dot Ave "packie". And I mean, I guess the packie had a decent selection of 40s and some hobo got mad because I wouldn't look at the eyeshadow he was trying to sell me so I could gift it to Isy, so we were certainly in a different area of Boston than I'd seen before.

I could see what she was saying and this short trip probably pushed my Boston ranking up a few tenths of a point.

As for dinner, Isy gave me more than enough time to find something on Google, but eventually I gave up due to the annoyance of trying to figure out said things on a smartphone.

One thing I knew was that I didn't want something right back in the heart of downtown and that I wanted to mix it up a bit. The nearby JFK/UMASS subway station seemed to have some restaurants around and would provide another area of Boston I hadn't seen.

We ended up at your seemingly average Irish pub, which was a bit of a letdown, but later I was reading this newsletter from a Boston author I enjoy and in the newsletter he was lamenting all of the good dive bars that are gone from the Boston landscape. In said newsletter he interviewed Dennis Lehane, the author of Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, and Shutter Island. Lehane said that the final bar in Mystic River was based on the bar that used to be here before The Banshee. So while The Banshee has changed and now serves a nice Sunday breakfast, I still appreciated the tiny victory.

Isy's first trip to Boston would be a short one, although her early morning flight meant she explored a bit before I arrived. Coming home from The Banshee tonight, we went to bed early since we needed to catch an 8am bus out of South Station the next morning.

While we made it in time, there was a short delay in the busses. I used this time to run off towards the nearby McDonald's, where they gave us milk tubs after Isy's fancy coffee place forgot them. Soon enough though, the bus company moved us onto a different bus company & we were on our way to New York City. I had wondered if we should try one of the other bus line than Greyhound & now lo and behold we were on Peter Pan Bus Lines.

The ride passed pleasantly, the way they do on packed buses where you're travelling with someone so you can relax in each other's space. We were dropped off near the UN Building in NYC, then found our hotel only a few short blocks west.

Our hotel was the Seton Hotel, a conversion of an old 1930's NYC apartment building, that inexplicably offered clean and attractive rooms for only $170 CAD taxes in per night - which is damn good for New York City. Also of note? This was only 5 minutes from Grand Central Station.

Throughout my trip down and during my time in Boston, I saw that I was getting strange phone calls and without my knowing, the Seton Hotel was emailing me as well. Sneaking off to phone them so Isy wouldn't worry, they said my payment wasn't going through & I begged them to save my reservation, lest I be left in a lurch arriving in NYC without accommodations.

Walking into the Seton Hotel today, I thanked the girl working the desk for keeping said reservation and another girl in a back room yelled about how it was her and that she was so happy I didn't screw them over. Apparently with recently moving, my postal code was wrong on Booking.com and so, my credit card was declined.

This was all news to Isy. She told the two girls working the front desk that she had no idea about these worries or what was going on. I added that I didn't tell her because I didn't want her to worry, and then the girl at the desk, in a glorious New York squeaky girl accent, declared to Isy, "oh my Gawwd, you have the mossst phenahhmenal pahhntnah." LOL.

Now that we were here in New York, I was even more committed to supporting old dining and drinking institutions. I wanted us to only support places that've successfully fought off the ever encroaching Starbucks, CitiBanks & CVSs.

While our hotel couldn't have been more conveniently located in terms of bus stops and subway stations, the pickings were slim up here in Murray Hill in terms of old NYC. We weren't very far from Sarge's though, an old jewish deli like NYC used to have in a lot more places. Now it's limited to Katz's, Sarge's and a few others, so I appreciated that we had this New York-feeling place, opened in 1964, only a few blocks from us.

Tomorrow would be Isy's day, but tonight was my night & I was so excited for Mets baseball. And not just at the Seton Hotel or on the bus through Connecticut, but in the months prior to this trip.

The experience didn't let me down. Isy and I got good enough seats, where we were able to spread out in the gorgeous nighttime weather, while the Mets dealt with the formidable Cardinals.

The experience will always be seen in a negative light for Isy though. Maybe in a yellowish, or canary coloured light I'd say. So you know how we all have those things like dryer lint or napkins or nail clippings, that we find disgusting? Well that's mustard for Isy. So, this nearby lady was a bit chatty with us and upon my return with beer, the lady and her husband had procured hot dogs from somewhere, scarfed them down and sat back contented.

Except that this left the hot dog wrappers simply sitting in her lap in the windy second deck. Before we knew what happened, the mustard-soaked wrapper flew up and landed broadside on Isy, with the lady apologizing because she thought unsecured paper wrappers would simply sit on her lap in gusty winds?

For how much Isy is disgusted when I simply use mustard on my barbecue items at home, I was impressed with how well she handled getting this random lady's mustard on her.

After the game, my quest to only support old New York institutions quickly went out the window. Taking the subway back to our hotel area, we then walked a few blocks and found zero open bars. By the time we happened upon The Cock and Bull (est. 2012), I agreed that it was fine instead of gambling with more things being shut down for the night.

The Cock and Bull (not pictured above) ended up being totally fine.

Gambling on heading to another place, we ended up passing a new age gin & tonic joint that had a really nice decor and hey I could go for a gin & tonic I suppose.

I thought the fancy inside might've provided interesting history, but this space actually used to be Jack's - a gaudy 3-story dollar store. The gin & tonic joint totally created this interior space from scratch to create a gilded age atmosphere.

Only a stone's throw from our hotel was Zucker's Bagels & Smoked Fish, where the bagels were so good that we had them both mornings we woke up in NYC.

Even though this again failed in terms of visiting old institutions, I really enjoyed my "Leo", which was eggs, sauteed onions and of course, smoked salmon from Nova Scotia, lol.

Today we worked to move around and check out the things Isy wanted to see in The Big Apple. One of those things was the Empire State Building.

I appreciated that I can now say I've been to the Empire State Building both at night and during the day.

Another thing Isy wanted to do in NYC was go to a good fabric store. And since this was New York City, I thought to myself that we can do this big, that we can either find the coolest fabric store on Earth or one with notoriety. So one of the things I'd looked up prior to this trip was the fabric store that they apparently go to in the TV show "Project Runway".

As Isy loves to ruin surprises, she sort of figured out where we were going as we passed a sign for the Garment District, but I assured her that that wasn't the whole surprise.

So she kept on, kept trying to figure it out, kept trying to ruin the fun, all the way up to the door of Mood Designer Fabrics, where I waved my hand across like a showgirl and declared, "look Isy! It's the fabric store from Project Runway!"

Isy paused and blankly stated that she's never watched Project Runway in her life.

After a few hours spent at The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and stopping by Times Square to see my reflection in the giant Post Malone digital video boards, we were starting to get peckish and Isy reminisced about how much she loved getting Peking Duck at Chinese restaurants back in Toronto. In addition, we were also getting a bit thirsty.

A plan was put into action. First we went to a grocery store in order to grab some tall cans amongst the locals; locals which included Mickey from Seinfeld according to Isy. I have to admit, it was a possibility and he looked like Mickey, but I didn't study him enough to confirm it with certainty.

Anyway, with some cold ones in a plastic bag, we now walked just a couple storefronts down West 56th Street to Hunan House, where the interior made me want to eat inside, but again, other plans.

West 56th is only 3 blocks from Central Park and it was now time for Isy to see the crown jewel of the New York Parks system. This side of Central Park was perfect too, as it was littered with rock outcrops and plenty seemed quiet enough. We quickly found a rock face with a little shelf and a view out over a pond and some skyscrapers, then cracked our beers as well as our dumplings.

We were living it up and about the only downside was some nearby teenagers excessively dry humping. I didn't really care because really, where are teenagers suppose to dry hump, but Isy was a little more bothered, lol.

As we were sitting in the sweet summer light, catching a little buzz off my Tecate and remarking on these unreal dumplings, I thought about how we had no plans for tonight and wondered how Isy would feel about another night of baseball.

Soon enough we were off, taking a New York taxi for the first time in my life, then getting on the subway and arriving at Citi Field as the 2nd inning started.

I was hoping there would be some desperate scalpers afoot, but the walk from the subway station to Citi Field was quiet. Arriving at the ticket booth, I couldn't believe how much the cheapest tickets were for a game which I didn't think was near a sellout.

Oh well. You know how people spend money with that adage that "you can't take it with you"? I look at money spent on the mainland like that - "I can take it back to Newfoundland, but it's as good as not being able to take it with me."

As for the game, all I remember is that Marcell Ozuna let me down in fantasy & Isy got one of those ice creams that comes in a plastic helmet. I had no idea how much ice cream actually comes in those, but holy moley! I tried to help out, but it was just too much.

Anyway, Syndergaard went 6 for the Mets before getting injured. The Mets still won & the ticket prices were totally worth it.

Continue to Part 3...