Boston, MA
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The infamous "Kazoinga Red" bathroom, painted by my esteemed hostess. Tales were told of it. It's not actually as pink as this picture looks; it's a quite cheerful fire engine sort of color. What I found somewhat... disturbing... was that the wall behind the toilet (to the right of this picture) was decorated with framed movie posters from the 50s advertising films involving women of ill repute. Which is to say, three pin-up types are staring down at you whenever you want to pee. It's a little unnerving. |
| This church stands across Mass Ave from the street I stayed on. A helpful landmark on the way back from the T. Pretty, too. |  |
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3/19- Mount Auburn Cemetery
Both the snowy weather and my cold had subsided, so I ventured out in search of the Mt Auburn Cemetery. It is aparently the oldest "garden cemetery" in the US, and has elegant landscaping and plantings as well as many famous people buried there. I paid my quarter to get a map, and read the listing of noteworthy graves; unfortunately, most of them were famous people I'd never heard of. |
| The notable exception was Longfellow; Henry Wadsworth is buried at the center of this little plaza, with four relatives (whose names were mostly hidden by the snow) at the corners. As a veteran of Longfellow Intermediate School, I sought this out and took several pictures. |  |
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The tower at the center of the labyrinth, tee hee. And there was also a sphinx. Her caption reads: AMERICA CONSERVATA
although I am not entirely sure why. No history lessons, or even dates, were included for the unenlightened. |
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| Scenic Boston, or "I was just walking down the street, and there was this dead fish in the sidewalk": |  |
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3/20-- The New England Aquarium:
The aquarium has lots of fish and other water-creatures, mainly in small displays on the outsides of the building and connected by a winding spiral ramp that curls around the multi-story ocean reef tank at the center. We were in time for several attractions: |
| The penguin habitats surround the bottom of the ocean tank, so that you can look out at them from the other side of the ramp as you ascend. On this occasion there were lots of people with scrub brushes cleaning off the rocks, and we caught a bit of a presentation explaining that one sort of penguins were beginning their yearly moult, where they spend about two weeks on land re-growing their feathers, and consequently don't eat at all until after they're done. I did not photograph the penguins we saw mating, either the pair who appeared to be successful, or the pair where the male seemed to have difficulties with his balance, and kept falling off his mate's back before accomplishing anything. |  |
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This is Myrtle, whose "birthday" they were celebrating. Although this sounded a little odd with the explanation they kept giving just after that they thought she was about 65 or 70 years old, and had been rescued from misfortune in the wild when she was an estimated ten years old. We did not stick around to see what they were going to serve her for birthday cake. |
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We're pretty sure that the lower downward pointing jellyfish in this picture was actually dead; not only was it completely relaxed and drifting with the current, it didn't move even when the other jellyfish brushed past and bumped into it. |  |
Having done lots of museums the last time I was in Boston, I didn't make it back to any of them this time. Despite plans to do so, we also missed doing the freedom trail, on which my hostess (though a resident of Boston for three years now) had never been... Although I did not regret missing a second time at the Bunker Hill Monument, a spire (somewhat along the lines of the Washington Monument, though much smaller) with nearly 300 steps spiraling around the inside. The last time I was in Boston, a friend and I were standing at the bottom reading the sign telling us not to attempt the climb if we had weak hearts or were pregnant when a lady in a track suit carrying a water-botttle came down the steps and said to us, "What are you waiting for, girls? I've been up three times already!" And we started up, without really thinking hard enough about what 290-something steps meant...
3/28-- Harvard (and vicinity)
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Walking through Harvard Yard to the library, there's a fence closing off a sunken courtyard. Two stories down, with windows around it and a large tree growing, but there's no door. We walked all the way around to check... And then there were the statues covered in custom tarps... |
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"His" and "hers" tombstones. For the couple who had everything. I'm a little confused about the stone that appears to have a bullet hole in it... |
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In this location Carmen Sandiego would probably steal: the Freedom Trail