After a couple of hours of planning, checking and replanning, I decided on an itinerary for each day in Boston (check out yesterday's blog). Gina told me to start out early to take in the most activities. So I started out at 8 am and took the hotel shuttle to the subway. On the way, We drove by the NECCO factory...you know NECCO wafers.
Apparently, NECCO stands for New England Confectionary Company. The headquarters is in Revere Mass, just outside Boston. I never really liked NECCO wafers, but it was cool to see the factory.
The driver dropped us off at the airport metro stop and off I went. After a couple of tries, I finally got a day pass. Today is green day, so all my destinations are on the green line. Ok, off to the Museum of Science. The Museum of Science is like the Maryland Science Center, I think bigger. one of the first displays I saw was related to something we just learned in science class - the principle of conduction. There were three squares, one copper, one wood, and one granite. The copper square appeared to be the coldest, but they were all the same temperature. Since copper is a good conductor, it pulled the most heat from my hand, making it appear to be the coolest square.
I walked by another display that I never thought about being scientific. Remember view masters? It never occured to me that science was involved in those 3D images. Of course, I haven't seen one since I was a kid, so why would I have thought about the science behind view-masters?
The mathematics room had some interesting exhibits including the pinball vortex looking thing that simulated the orbit of the planets in the solar system. As I watched the silver ball go round and round, I felt like I should place a bet... black 17. It took about 6 minutes to finally go down the hole. Next stop, animals live. It was a mini show with a live animal. This was clearly a show for young kids, but hey, it sounded interesting. Right behind my seat was a glassed in display of bats. Needless to say, I didn't really need to read about nor see any bats. I've already seen too many as it is. The featured animal was ground hound aka the wood chuck and before you ask, yes the host did bring up the infamous question, "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" To set the record straight, woodchucks can't chuck wood at all. I was kind of disappointed to hear that, but hey, what are you going to do?
There was another exhibit about the human body and where babies come from. They showed the female reproductive organs and male reproductive organs. There was even a video with a real child birth. There was a little boy about 9 or 10 who declared that only the girls needed to see that video. I opted out. One of my last stops was the Theatre of Electricity. It was really cool. They simulate electricity and create an indoor lightning storm.
Ok, off to destination #2... Museum of Fine Arts. E line to Arlington, transfer Heath line. The Museum of Fine Arts, located across from Wentworth Institute of Technology, is a grand old building that from one side looks like an old municipal building. They're building a new wing, but I have no idea what it looks like, I wondered over there, but go so turned around and lost. Anyhow, inside, they have two rotunda areas that jet off in several directions with halls with art from various lands and times. Of course there was european art from the 16th through 19th century. There was one thing that I noticed about museums - the lighting is different in each room. The dark paintings of plump naked white people are kept in darker rooms. My first thought was that it would lessen the chance of you noticing just how naked these white folks are. Question, what was the deal with naked white folks. They were always fainting or looking very tired. They were in a pre-fig leaf frame of mind because it didn't seem to be a big deal that
most of the people in the paintings were naked. Although there was one painting where a man was trying to cover up a lady who was nude, as if to say, "DUDE!, you can't paint my women in the nude!"
Now the folks who did have clothes on seemed annoyed that they had to sit for the painting, no one looked happy or interested at all. They kind of looked like me after I had seen about two rooms of naked people...bored. I know it's art, but it's just not the kind that I'm terribly interested in. There was one painting that I did find interesting out of all the European art exhibits. There was one of Salome, from the bible. She was being handed John the Baptist's head on a silver platter. Now, this painting was based on the account from the gospel account according to Luke, where King Herod is hosting a birthday party for Salome. He promises her anything she wants and because John the Baptist made it know that Salome's mother and King Herod had married on unscriptural grounds, Salome's mother told Salome to ask Herod for John's head on a platter. It's interesting because I did something in the museum that I never did before. I listened to music on my mp3 player. As I was walking to this painting, I was listening to evanescence's song Missing.
"Even though I'm the sacrifice,
You won't try for me, not now."
When she sang those words, I felt so bad for John the Baptist.
After evanescence and the european paintings, I headed for 19th and 20th century american art. Dave Matthews' Before these Crowded Streets was my soundtrack and I really felt like it added the experience. During my trek through the 20th century I saw a Joanne Hawkins look-a-like. She's a lady from work. I didn't think much of that except for the fact that she really looked like Joanne's twin. I wanted to take a picture, but there was no discreet way to do it. Of course, when I went through the main hallway and saw another person who looked like an HCC employee, I started to worry that my subconscious was missing work. Again I tried to shake it off and then low and behold, I saw a VK look alike. Well, that was more than enough for me. I went to the gift shop, picked up a couple of things and left the museum. I don't know why all those HCC employees had to follow me to the museum. They weren't going to get me to help them with their web pages, I didn't care what they said. No help desk calls on vacation.
Before I left, I did go through a great photography exhibit for Laura McPhee. She is really good.
My final destination was Boston College. I read that there was a Nurembego Park Exhibit at the John L. Burns Library. When I got to Boston College, I discovered that no one even knew where the Burns Library was located. I got there and I have to say that I was mildly disappointed that the exhibit was a bunch of old post cards and flyers in a glass case. I was in and out in 5 minutes.
I made my way back to the hotel in about an hour and finally got off my feet. They weren't quite on fire but they were close to it. I sat on the bed for while and answered some email. I don't understand why I've gotten so much email in the past two days.
Tomorrow is the Red Line day.
