Spending the day in Cambridge, MA

Just a short blog this evening, I'm afraid - I'm leaving town tomorrow for Chicago, so I've gotta get everything packed back up and ready for the next leg of my great train trip.

Anyway, yesterday I took a trip out to Cambridge, MA,, home of Harvard and MIT. The place, like everything around here, it seems, is terribly pretty (although I have reached the conclusion that everything is more attractive with a coating of snow :P). MIT is the home of 56 Nobel prize winners, and its small museum is very interesting - everything from electric cars to sonar to holograms, robots and kintetic sculptures make an appearance, all of them coming from researchers and students working here.

Further along the Red Subway Line is Harvard, and its adjacent community, Harvard Square, which exhibits a now familiar pattern  of development - lots of bookshops, record stores, cafes and priviledged-looking, wealthy white people. Yawn. That said, the campus itself is beautiful, and the history in America's first college, a place which is over 350 years old, is undeniable. 

Coming back to Boston, I paid a visit to the Boston Fens (close to the famous Fenway Park Baseball Stadium). These form part of a network of parks known as the Emerald Necklace, designed by a man who is now officially a hero of mine (amongst his many achievements were Central Park in New York, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and one of the original layout plans for UC Berkeley). While I usually associate the term 'fen' with an ugly swamp, these fens are surrounded by beautiful, maybe 15 foot tall reeds, and in the snow are a sight to behold.

Today's exploits involved even more walking than usual which, in my case, is rather a lot of walking :P

Started the day out with a stroll around the Institute of Contemporary Art Museum in South Boston (Contemporary Art/Modern Art museums have somehow found my way onto my 'must-see' list, regardless of what city I'm in.), which is architecturally awesome, and, while small, had a couple of excellent exhibits. Walked back across the bridge to Bosston proper, and explored the North End of town. Traditionally the Italian part of town, the North End used to be cut off from the rest of the city by a great big, ugly surface freeway. After an enourmous, hugely expensive project to put the freeway underground (the infamous 'Big Dig'), this part of the city is once again connected and easily accessible to Downtown Boston. An incredibly dense, warrenlike connection of small, 3-5 storey buildings, the North End was also the home of famous revolutionary Paul Revere. More importantly, it's the site of any number of awesome Italian eateries - Boston's Lygon Street, if you like, and after an awesome sandwich in just such a place, I pushed on.

Last on my list for the day was the Bunker Hill Memorial, a 221 foot tall obelisk across the river in Charlestown. Commemorating the Revolutionary War Battle of Bunker Hill, the memorial is situated at the site of the battle, on top of..... Breed's Hill. Apparently, they decided to fight from the hill next-door. And no-one mentioned that when they named the battle. sigh. Anyway, Charlestown is another lovely, old-school New-Englandly city of the colonial era. Unfortunately, the stairs to the top of the monument were closed today, 'too icy', apparently :roll:, but the museum across the road was informative, plus it had dioramas - and I'm a sucker for a good diorama.

Anyway, that was more or less my last couple of days - I leave for Chicago in the middle of the day tomorrow, with an ensuing 22-odd hour train trip (which, strange as I am, I'm actually rather looking forward to - a good chance to relax, watch the scenery and catch up on some reading :P). I'll update again in a couple of days, live from America's second city.

'til then.

Jono