wheeee! new bloggy format yet again.

so, back to work after a fun week in boston. i'd never been to boston before, and i really liked it! a lot of the old historical stuff was really very interesting to me... kind of because it puts it into perspective somehow. a lot of american history has always held some modicum of mythology for me, because i've never had a reason to specifically identify with it. don't get me wrong, i'm very proud of american history and have always been fascinated in the learning of it, but it was all so long ago... after being in boston, though, i got a very real sense of the history and the makings of our country.

(bear with me, this is going to be a long post.)

i got to boston early early on sunday morning... i took the redeye, and then stayed up to watch the movie on the plane, and then lost the three hours going east, so needless to say i didn't get much sleep and paid for it later. boston judy picked me up at the airport, and we drove up the coast around swampscott (what a cool town name!), lynn, salem, etc. it was early still so we wandered around the coastal area a bit, which was nice in the early sunlight and light traffic. we met judy's friend anthony for breakfast at a diner in salem, and then headed back to boston for a bit of sight-seeing. we drove around town quite a bit-- judy showed me MIT, boston u, northeastern, the fens, smoot bridge (ahh, MIT frat boys), the arboretum, etc. there's quite a bit of greenway in boston, which i thought was pretty cool. we headed back to her house in hyde park for a nap, and then headed out to faneuil hall and quincy market for some fun and dinner. we also stopped by the famous mike's pastry to pick up some goodies. judy's new roommate, stacy, moved in later than night (from miami beach), and she ended up being my sightseeing buddy one day.

monday: more walking! i went to the prudential center, the christian scientist headquarters (and man alive is it huge! i had no idea), the boston public library, the general downtown area around huntington ave and commonwealth ave. judy had to work so i did some exploring on my own. we headed up to cambridge and central square for some late lunch at a place called middle east, which was decent mediterranean food. i met up with meg later for dinner, which was great since i hadn't seen meg in years. meg was one of my camp counselors quite some time ago (1994, i think she said). she's on her last days in boston, though, as she has quit her job and is moving to new york city in the next month or so. she has been accepted into a masters program at columbia, although she's not certain she is going to take it. i think she's just ready for some change in her life, and ready for more time for herself (which her job wasn't allowing her). it was very good to see her...

tuesday: the most walking of all! stacy and i did the freedom trail, which is the tourist's easy tour around the historical parts of boston. i say "easy" because it's easy to follow-- there's literally a red painted/brick line on the ground! it starts in boston common and goes across the bridge to the bunker hill memorial (a mini-washington monument) and the uss constitution. stacy and i wandered around boston common and the gardens first, and poked our heads into cheers. the original cheers, as you can probably guess, looks nothing like the set on the tv show (except for the entrance), but they've now created a replica up at faneuil hall. we were walking down beacon street, and i noticed that the bottom floor apartment doors were very narrow access stairwells, and we wondered what the space was like (and how they move in, etc). so, we knocked on a door to see! interestingly enough, we appeared to choose exactly the right door upon which to knock. when the door opened, behind it was the 95-year-old face of Ed O'Donnell, the sweetest little old man you will ever meet. the man had been living in this small apartment for 50 years, had no family, and loved that we stopped in to see him! he invited us right in, and showed us around (even showed us the kitchen twice-- i don't think he wanted us to leave!). it was very cute. stacy exchanged numbers with him and will likely stop in to see him periodically. my favorite line for the day: stacy asked him if he did tea, as she would like to stop back by. ed says, "tea?" stacy: "yes, tea. do you drink tea?" ed: "nah, i drink booze!" heheheheh. what a great memory, this little 95-year-old scotch drinker on beacon street.

anyway, we continued on the freedom trail (it took us about five hours, but it can take more or less depending on what you do). near the beginning, we passed by this little old cemetery in the middle of boston's financial district. we started to walk by, not thinking too much of it. just past the cemetery's entrance, i noticed a headstone facing the sidewalk for the first mayor of boston. that's pretty cool, i thought. walked a little farther, and there facing me was the headstone for samuel adams. samuel adams! this was what i was saying about the reality of american history. i was standing in front of the gravestone for one of our country's founding fathers. very surreal. so we went into the cemetery, where john hancock, paul revere, and numerous boston massacre victims are also buried. anyway... also along the trail are the old city hall, the site of the boston massacre, the old south meeting house (site where the boston tea party was hatched and planned), the paul revere house, and faneuil hall (again). we also saw the old north church, whose restoration was the recipient of vickie's fundraising efforts when she was the national president of CAR. we headed up across the bridge to see the uss constitution, which we could only see from a distance because it was already about 7pm (everything closes by 5pm). but still, cool.

wednesday: judy and i took a tour of fenway park, which was very cool! i'm not a red sox fan, but it was definitely interesting to hear about all the history residing there. we got to go up in the press box, on top of the green monster (these are such cool-- and coincidingly expensive-- seats), down on the field past the scoreboard (the oldest manually-adjusted scoreboard still in use in MLB), and into the dugout. the tour guide (very cute, by the way) was born and raised in boston, die-hard red sox fan (as are many bostonians, i found), and man, was he bitter! i guess i would be, too, if my team hadn't won since 1918. only two teams have longer no-win streaks: the white sox and the cubs. chicago must be a pretty miserable city. ;)

after that, judy had to head to work in arlington for a few hours, so she dropped me off at harvard. man, what a beautiful campus. i love UCLA, but i think i may have considered the east coast schools if i had seen harvard. i liked it so much that i'm thinking about looking into grad programs there... although my grades probably wouldn't allow me admission to harvard. anyway, it was very cool. i wandered around the campus for several hours, and explored various buildings and such. i saw a bit of a women's choir rehearsal in memorial hall, and found a "garden of potentially-useful things" in the science center, and touched the foot of the john harvard statue (a good-luck thing). john harvard, by the way, was only 31 when he died-- he graduated from emmanuel college, and then amassed quite a library of books which he donated to the school to be built on the site where harvard stands. the school was posthumously named after harvard in recognition of his donation. i unfortunately couldn't go into the library or gym (you needed a harvard ID), but they were impressive from the outside. all of the buildings were... judy met back up with me and we had dinner and ran around harvard square for a while. it's a cool off-campus town, too.

thursday: we headed down to woods hole and cape cod for a day out on the coast. woods hole is a tiny tiny town with not much open to the public, but we went to the small aquarium and walked around some of the exhibits that were open. evidently most of the work that goes on at the marine biological labratory is in fact not specifically marine--a lot of it is disease-, chemical-, or nutrient-related. most of the marine work onsite is done by NOAA. it was still cool, though. we headed back to boston by way of plymouth, where we saw the mayflower II (an exact replica of the original) and plymouth rock. ah, plymouth rock. granted, it's about a third of its original size, but still. not quite the behemoth i was envisioning.

and that's about it! it was very fun, though... i loved all the old brick buildings and cobblestone ways, something you'd never see in california because of the earthquake danger. i'll definitely have to go back... :) and many thanks to judy for letting me crash at her house all week! :)

oh! and my laptop is on order! yay!

okay, must work now.