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 Day 3 - Boston









„Today we first med with William or better said picked him up at the north station. William is a longtime email friend of mine and a very likeable JFK expert from Maine. We organized a rental car that we needed anyway. Together we went to the Kennedy Library. However, that was not as easy as thought: there was a marathon in Boston and many streets were closed. So going there took about an hour instead of the usual 15 minutes.

In the afternoon we went to a birthday concert in Hyannis. That was really great. And on the way back we went to dinner to our landlord and his wife. Very nice people. But now off to bed.“

Our visit at the Kennedy Library was planned, too, of course, and thus we were already expected by executive director Steven M. Rothstein. We had the opportunity to talk to him for a while and then we strolled through the library with William.

In the souvenir shop we let our credit cards glow. Busts, books, coins and many other items accompanied us from that moment back to Germany, bringing our free of charge luggage weight to its limits. During our visit we noticed, that outside behind the building there were flags run up and down all the time after waving only for some minutes. We found out, that at this weekend 100 of those flags were sold with a special certificate – of course also to us.

After we had left William at the hotel in the afternoon, we started off to Hyannis. There was a concert of the Cape Symphony on the occasion of the 100. birthday of John F. Kennedy in the sold out Barnstable Performing Arts Center. We had not really expected much and it was thus even better that we got surprised: it was a great and very entertaining evening. The life of John F. Kennedy was divided into different sections and topics. Different people first held some short speeches about the respective topics (members of the Kennedy family, the NASA, the congress, the senate, etc.). Then there was music, alsways suitable to the topic, such as from the musical Camelot or Frank Sinatra’s changed campaign song „High Hopes“. Unfortunately we were not allowed to record the music or make a video and there are no official records for sale.

Our landlord from Boston Johnathan Frank lives in Plymouth, Maine, about half way between Boston and Hyannis. After he had heard about our daily plan, he invited us for dinner at his home on our way back home to Boston. Of course we could not say „no“. I cannot explain how I bethought, but in front of my inner eye I saw a single, putting a pizza into the oven and we would be on the way again after half an hour. The reality was completely different: Jonathan is living in a beautiful house with his wife, with a great location on a riverside. His neighbor also joined us for dinner. First we had prawns as an appetizer. The starter was a chicken soup and the main dish fantastic spareribs with potatoes, beans and salad. For dessert we had fruit salad. We actually stayed for some hours and is was a great evening. So it got quite late until we were back in our apartment in Boston.

Next: Day 4 - Washington, D.C.