Boston or Bus

Despite all of the hoopla Philadelphia attempts to generate surrounding its Independence Day celebrations--the official website of which is called "America's Birthday"--I ended up having a rather lackluster Fourth. As the day was Shabbat, I went to synagogue in the morning and was pleased to be able to find a Conservative/Reconstructionist shul in Society Hill I had remembered visiting a few years back when I had a job interview in Philly. The job didn't pan out, but I had liked the congregation and wanted to make sure to come back there if I was ever in town.

Following synagogue, I came back to my hostel, to find that my alarm clock, which I had not used since leaving Russia, was broken in such a way that the battery kept coming out. As I needed to go up to Boston the following day, I was forced to go out in search of a new battery (the old one having apparently rolled into some crevice in the floor my oh-so-nimble hands couldn't find) and some masking tape, to keep the new battery in.

The actual evening of the Fourth, I walked down (up? west?) to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway with some other hostel guests to see the concert and fireworks. I wanted to go the concert because Sheryl Crow was the advertised headliner. It took more than an hour for them to bring her on; by the time her face flashed across the jumbotrons on the Parkway, it was past ten. Knowing that I had to get up and travel in the morning--my bus was to leave at 11:00 AM, but I wanted to get there early as I knew crowds were likely on a holiday weekend--I decided to walk back to the hostel before the fireworks began. I did manage to see a couple of fireworks flashes as I passed City Hall, roughly the center of Center City.

When I booked my bus ticket on Thursday night, I had carefully weighed all the options for coming up by train and bus. By train, of course, there was really only one option: Amtrak. The only remotely affordable trains between Philadelphia and Boston left at ridiculous hours of the morning, so I chose to abandon my plans of taking the train up and instead resorted to the bus. Through a site called busjunction.com, it is now possible to compare the various choices for bus travel in what has become a highly competitive market on the East Coast.

For those of my readers who do not have the good fortune of living on the East Coast of the United States, the bus situation at present is this: about 10 years ago, your choices in bus service were limited to Greyhound and various regional operators that had ties to Greyhound. Then, suddenly, a lot of busses running between Chinatowns of various East Coast cities started to appear. These "Chinatown buses" are able to undercut Greyhound's prices because they do not use central bus stations (except in Boston, where they are now forced to by a law heavily lobbied for by--you guessed it--Greyhound). Even more recently, Greyhound and some of the established bus services have started fighting fire with fire, offering streetside pickups and drop-offs on newly branded buses called Bolt and MegaBus. These new services are currently runnings deals for as little as one dollar--yes, you read that right, one dollar--between New York and Philadelphia (though to get the dollar fare you have to book pretty far in advance).

Busjunction.com and some other websites now allow East Coast bus passengers to compare available bus options and find the best fare and time of day for their travels. My search for a ticket to Boston yielded an interesting result. I ended up paying $14.00 for a Philadelphia-New York trip and $20.00 for New York to Boston--so a total of $34.00--to ride on Greyhound and Peter Pan (a smaller, regional bus company affiliated with and partly owned by Greyhound). This compared to $66.00 to book a full through-ticket from Philly to Boston, even though a through-ticket would likewise have involved a transfer at the Port Authority in Manhattan. Go figure.

On reaching the Greyhound counter in Philadelphia, I was issued a ticket for Philadelphia to New York but not a ticket from New York to Boston. I was told I had selected an e-ticket from New York and would have to print the ticket at a Kinko's when I got there. Ah, the wonders of Greyhound customer service.

The ride up to New York from Philly was short (less than two hours) and pleasant. I was pleased to be riding in one of Greyhound's newer buses, which the company advertises as having more leg room. On reaching New York, I ended up having to scramble to get to a Burger King (yes, a Burger King) where I could print my ticket to Boston. But I somehow managed to find said Burger King, print the ticket, return to the Port Authority, grab a sandwich, and find out which gate my Boston bus was leaving from, all in under an hour. I had scheduled a two-hour layover just in case there were problems on the road up from Philly. Not knowing what to do with my second hour, I went to where my bus was eventually to leave and fortuitously found out that, as there were open seats on the Boston bus just then leaving, I could travel an hour sooner. And so I did.

Though long (over hour hours), the trip to Boston was also quite pleasant. The day was sunny, and I was able to pass the ride reading a book about the Harry Thaw-Stanford White murder at the turn of the century (more on this later). The ride was "direct", meaning there were to be no stops. So at one point I got the thrill of trying to go to the bathroom as the bus rounded a curve at 65 miles an hour.

Finally arriving at Boston's South Station a little after 6:30, I got a taxi to my hostel, deposited my bags, and went for a walk in the immediate neighborhood, an upscale area known as the Back Bay. I eventually went as far as the southern edge of Boston's Public Garden before heading back to the hostel.

Tomorrow, I'm returning to the Public Garden to ride the famous swan boats before heading off on the Freedom Trail. But first, off to bed.