One day in Boston, Massachussetts

In August I went to Boston with a couple of friends. To give you an idea, it
takes six hours (without breaks) to go from Newark, DE to Boston, MA, without
going over the speed limit (well, kinda). We were well on our way, when, /of
course/, maybe 80-100 miles from Boston, traffic jams appeared from nowhere. As a result, instead of arriving around 1:30-2:00pm, we arrived around 4:30-5:00pm. But it's alright !

The first evening (instead of first afternoon) we just walked downtown. We had
decided to see a bit more of the city the next day, and visit one or two
museums. I was saying exactly that to S., who had already visited the place. His
answer was brutal: if we didn't follow the red line the next day, he would make
unspeakable things to all three of us when we would come back. After a short
discussion with my friends, it was decided that following the red line was worth
a try.

How do you know a city is really old and cool ? Easy: just try driving in there. Then you notice there are streets too narrow to turn in with your car, one way streets like crazy. Oh, and the GPS thingy has a strange tendency to give nonsensical directions. There is also a decent, relatively cheap subway system.

HARVARD

Guess who this is :-)

We also had enough time to visit the (rather small) campus of Harvard the first evening. Not much to say about that. The red-brick buildings are not really nice to look at, the overall environment seems ... I don't know... "constrained", and not even really pretty.

RED LINE

What you might not see on the picture: we are soooo wet.

In other news, we did follow the red line... But we did it our way. Once

downtown, we started following it. A short moment later, rain decided to do

likewise. Oh joy. Under a heavy rain, we engaged on sidewalks, bridges, roads...

to arrive ... at the beginning of the red line. Well, yeah, when you start from

downtown, and you don't check where is the real starting point, you find

yourself a little bit silly. Did I mention it was heavily raining on top of that

? So we backtracked (was there any other choice ?), then found a nice little

italian restaurant (but which only accepts cash, grrrr). However it rained so

much that all of us were drenched. So of course we went to a souvenir shop to...

buy dry t-shirts.

This is my look when I had ~ 200 gallons of water on my head in 30 seconds

The right end of the Red Line

MIT

 After the red line, we still had enough time to go see the MIT campus. We did
not really see many things to tell the truth. To be a bit more precise, at the
corner of a building, we fell on a really peculiar street, filled with odd-looking buildings. Each building had its own architecture. This building would be "transparent", this other one would have a peculiar architecture, kind of weird. I took a picture of the street, but it is on my cell phone. One day I will understand how to transfer the pictures to a computer, and I will add them here (yes, it may take a while).

Notice the change of colors in the meantime. Yes, this is a Harvard t-shirt while I'm walking the streets of the MIT Campus. What can I say, I'm a rebel.

Tell me this is not a strange building... I like it.

OK, but other than that, how did you like it ?

Yes. I liked the city a lot. Call me a pervert or a masochist if you want, but
Boston is a city with its weird people, which is a thing Newark is sorely
lacking. As a big city also has its homeless people, its
bitter/irritable/stressed people, etc. In a way, I miss that. :-) Boston feels
like a city with a past (as it should, since, with New-York, it is the oldest
big city of the US).

Many thanks to B. who took the pictures you see (there are many others on the Internet, but I won't tell you where, muahahahahahaha).