Blogs from Boston, Massachusetts, United States, North America - page 18

Tonight I attended a truly unusual art event. A few years ago a pair of Canadians named Tom and Gary came up with an idea for a roving dance party. One would play music with a short range FM transmitter, while lots of other people played it on boom boxes. The group would form a roving dance party through the streets. Their events became a hit, drawing hundreds of participants across Canada. This year, they announced a tour through the United States. Any city where a group could pay their expenses could host a party. Tonight was Boston’s turn. They released the starting location and time one day in advance, the end of Long Wharf. Its a concrete and brick lined park that sticks into Boston Harbor. Walking in, the location looked exactly like where I ... read more

This morning we did a 2 hour tour around Boston - parts of the Freedom trail. Lovely town with some beautiful buildings with some old cobbled streets. This afternoon visited Harvard University...it would be a wonderful place to study. The freshman (first year, undergraduates) have to live on campus (is included in the fees) and after their first year, live in dorms off campus (also provided by Harvard - they own something like 400 buildings in the area). So, four years away from home - how's that kids...lol. Students eat together in common room (wasn't allowed in that section) which is attached to a memorial hall to remember those alumini that died in the civil war - all dark wood, with lovely leadlight and memorial plaques. Beautiful campus with pretty green park-like square. Saw the library ... read more

MATTHEW In the morning we met up with Dad's high school friend Stu and his son Will. We visted Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which is a very famous technical college. Stu studied there and says its better than Harvard University the other famous University in Boston. We saw the Musuem and they had a robot exhibition. There was one robot there which copies and responds to your emotions, called the Kismet robot. It is run by fifteen computers that allow the robot to notice its environment, understand it and react to it. There were other robots that you could make move but they were doing weird things, for instance a robot that had a chicken wishbone pulling it as it walked around - I think this was called kinetic sculptures. There were also some amazing ... read more

MATTHEW When we woke up I was suffering from extreme jet lag. I woke up at three in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. It was a down pour outside so we couldn't really do anything outdoors in Boston so we went to the Science Museum. We had an amazing entry after we bought our tickets because there was a giant marble contraption which had all of these pull balls and marbles running everywhere activating little bells and other thingys. Later we moved on and we went to see an electrical show using the first and biggest air insulated Van de Graaf generator spark - this was used to create lightning bolts indoors. The lightning was really loud, like cover your ears loud. The lady who was showing us the lightning put herself in ... read more

Last day in Boston. First stop is to Mike's Italian Pastry. Everything looked delicious!!... read more