Dissertation Hiatus

So I recently decided to ditch the books in (well for the most part) and take a quick week off in Boston in the good ole' US of A. I have only ever really had one reason to go to Boston and that has been to see my best friend since the 7th grade. Katie is a junior at Tufts University and this year I decided that I would head back to Massachusetts to see her again. The first time I was in Boston was two years ago, but did not get to see as much as I would have liked. This time around I decided to remedy that. While much of what I did would not constitute an interesting post - namely singing a lot of Elton John in public (Bbbbbennie and the Jets)  and buying dinosaur mood rings and raccoon finger puppets - there were a few days where I ran round the city on my own having some  fun. 

The first of these interesting days was when I was dumped in Harvard Square in the middle of the afternoon. Now, I am the kind of person who can find stuff to do for an afternoon, especially when it's sunny and I'm on one of the oldest university campuses in America. After a very intimidating hour and a half walking around the Harvard Yard I came to two conclusions: (1) I'm really glad I don't go to Harvard and (2) I think that the University of Manchester (a) needs more grass and (b) needs brightly coloured chairs to relax in on said grass. 

As you can see, the second thought was just out of pure jealousy of how happy those students looked. In regards to my being glad about not being at Harvard - I think the amount of pressure that there is on students at Harvard is immense and I think that if I were to actually go to there I would probably break down in front of a tour group at some point. However despite this, I imagine that Harvard is a hard place to say no to. The prestige alone gets to many people, and I like to believe that the sheer amount of Harvard University related merchandise you can buy really persuades a lot of kids.*

After my self tour (I couldn't bring myself to follow the crowd for two reasons: it wasn't free, and I risked looking like a tourist - which granted I was, but I don't like looking like one), I decided to head towards the Charles River. I'd purchased some snacks and a second hand book so thought that I could definitely kill a couple of hours sitting by the river bank. Needless to say when I got there I discovered something even better: the Harvard 'crew' teams were practicing. I put 'crew' in quotes because quite frankly the Englishwoman in me just calls that a rowing team. I watched them for about an hour in the late afternoon light and spent a good deal of time taking photos as I walked from the boathouse down the river.

'Crew' Team

The Harvard boat house

My next solo outing was a couple of days later on a day with decidedly different weather. Now don't get me wrong, I live in England, our weather is nice and rainy most of the time, but this rain annoyed me as it rain-out the ball game we were going to (I adore baseball and was ticked off to say the least). 

Rain, rain, rain. 

However the rain meant that I could spend more time in the Museum of Fine Arts. I think in order to get around to all of it you need about 4 or 5 hours. I however was incredibly distracted by the European and American art. In the American wing I got to see a number of works by artists I have admired for years including Edward Hopper, Scott Prior, and Norman Rockwell. One of the more interesting things was my discovery of what in Boston is a popular painting - 'Boston Common at Twilight' (1885) by Frederick Childe Hassam. 

Overall I found the MFA to be a great museum, kind of like the kid sibling to the Met in New York. Museums are one thing that I find that the American people do very well - the Getty Center in Los Angeles is also amazing.

While the rain hindered our plans to visit Fenway Park to see the Red Sox (or as my mother (a Yankees fan) calls them the 'Red Sux') - Katie and I finally found something I'd been looking for all week. In  1941, Robert McCloskey wrote and illustrated one of my favourite books as a child - Make Way for Ducklings. In 1987, a statue was erected to celebrate the story which has since been declared the official children's book of Massachusetts. I had been looking for these ducks all week after purchasing a nice second hand copy of the book. Luckily by the time we reached the ducks it was the evening, it was raining and there were no small children around which meant that a small photo shoot of the ducks ensued. 

I was the ninth duckling

Definitely not the first and certainly not the last to do this

After all, what's Boston without riding a bronze duck? Nothing, nothing at all.**

*I don't actually believe this. But I was blown away by the amount of crap you could buy.

**Boston is also good if you go on the Freedom Trail tour with a man dressed up in costume, this is also more amusing if you are the only two people on the tour. This was the situation two years ago.