2016 Holiday Day 1 - Boston City Tour and MIT

Having arrived yesterday with a reasonable (if a bit choppy) flight, today was about getting up and getting on with the the business of being on holiday! For this leg of our trip we are staying at the Dan'l Webster Inn at Sandwich, MA in a Fessenden Suite which is located in the house of a former Sea Captain built in 1820. It means Matthew gets his own room (in the living room area there is a pull out sofa bed) but as there is only one air conditioning unit, gets the cooler room to sleep in. Whilst the air con does drift through the open door, it is still a bit warm in the bedroom

We had breakfast in the hotel's Conservatory restaurant, as we will do every morning we are here. Sandwich is a small place just inside the neck of Cape Cod, and whilst there are a couple of other places to eat, we will stick with the hotel as the food here is just so good and there is such a good variety to eat. More on the that later. Anyway, American breakfasts are something we enjoy and so yummed down the food and got going.

We drove up Route 3 to Braintree, MA to get the T into Boston (the Boston subway network, Braintree is the southern-most station on the Red Line). We got parked, got the tickets and waited about 10 minutes before we were trundling through the city suburbs towards Boston. The Boston Comic Con was on today, so there were plenty of people riding the T dressed up as super heroes and comic characters, which was fun to see.

We arrived at State station and headed to Feneuil Hall to get tickets for the Boston Old Town Trolley Tour, briefly stopping to have a picture with the statue of Samuel Adams - revolutionary and inspiration for fine beer!

The next trolley was imminent so we dashed across to Stop Number 1 and boarded. We enjoyed a pleasant hour or so cruising round the sights of Boston and made mental notes about the places we wanted to return to. Unfortunately, when we crossed Commonwealth Avenue, we hit a police roadblock and were significantly delayed - we think the roads had been closed for an event but it was difficult to tell and we couldn't see anything about it anywhere... So we spent another hour picking our way through traffic, with the driver apologising. We got to see a lot of expensive brown stone houses in this part of the city, so it wasn't a total dead loss, but not quite what we expected!So we had to skip a chunk of the tour, and cross the river to Cambridge.

At this point, we were getting increasingly hot and hungry. It was a very hot, sunny day with high humidity that made the warm weather even warmer! We were planning on visiting this part of the city anyway, so we hopped off at Stop 13 and headed through the MIT campus to search for the MIT Museum. We had a pleasant 10-15 minute walk through the campus, spotting some of the famous research buildings, before arriving at the museum. After a burst of very pleasant air conditioning we inquired as to the whereabouts of food and beverages. Now most museums in the UK have somewhere to get food and drink, but not in the place, but the nice lady pointed out a few local places to get food and we settled on a short (and now increasingly hot walk) to Darwins.

It was a real student place, with very friendly staff and a long bench full of students eating and drinking with their laptops open and research papers and Skype on the screen. Clare had a cup of Jasmine tea and a macacon, Matthew opted for a Coke and cookie and I went for The Mass Ave sandwich (Smoked Turkey Breast with Avocado, Mayonnaise, Lettuce, Tomato, and Herb Vinaigrette) on the recommendation of the server after asking for a good turkey sandwich, plumped for wholewheat bread (out of the seven varieties) and a Coke and it was absolutely delicious. I'm not in the habit of photographing food, so just imagine an overflowing sandwich stuff full of turkey and avocado and you're there! And Coke in glass bottle... Classy!

Suitably refreshed, we headed back to the MIT museum and had a very enjoyable wander round. Unlike most museums, the exhibitions change frequently and we saw ones about the history of robotics, kinetic sculptures and holography. 

Source: From the MIT Museum website (http://mitmuseum.mit.edu/)

We enjoyed them all, but one of the best ones was a photography exhibition where we got to sample photography techniques pioneered at MIT. As well as trying them, we could upload them to the MIT Flickr account to preserve them for all time (and maybe help with future experiments!). Here are a couple of ours:

After exploring the museum, we hit the shop and boy did we spend out holiday money! Matthew bought a small robot to build and some souvenirs, Clare bought some interactive coasters (drinks mats) and I bought a load of books from MIT press and a hoodie for Matthew and I.

At this point, we could have elected to get back on the trolley and finish the tour, but we decided we were a bit too warm and tired and we'd head back to the pool. Coming out of the museum into the street was like coming out into an oven - it was super hot! The weather man had said it would be hot, but the humidity would make it feel like 102 degrees and it sure did! We staggered to the T station and to our relief a Braintree train was arriving in 1 minute and we headed back home.

Once back the the hotel, we hit the pool to cool off for a bit and then the Tavern for some food and drink. Matthew had the hot dog (which was OK, he said, but not the best), Clare had a Pan Roasted Statler Chicken (Stuffed with soft, unripened goat cheese and green apples. Served with an herbed chicken jus, beet reduction, parsnip puree and Aleppo pecan potatoes) and a Tiramisu and I went for a superb Chicken Noodle soup followed by a Green Salad with grilled Salmon.

We then retired to watch some Olympics having had a great day...