Boston: A review

[UTUSN]

See the "Mary Baker EDDY" entry (below).

Below are NOTES that accompany tourist pictures, which I'm not posting because everybody here has seen the sights. If anybody wants specific ones, I'll Reply with those pics.

The one in the o.p. are something not everybody might have seen, Ms EDDY's burial place.

But my first impression of Boston was: OMZ!1 What over-abundance of one place!1 What?!1 80 colleges within ONE municipality?!1 Anyway, excuse my provinciality!1


1st of 12: GETTING THERE, AND AROUND IN IT
Top: the sky bridge connecting terminals at Logan airport and view of the city through it. Logan is where the 9-11 hijackers flew out of and the landings and take-offs are over water. I don't remember, but I guess the planes that took us to and brought us from Vietnam were, too, over water, in San Francisco.
Cuz gave us the tip that the subway has a 7-days, unlimited rides, deal for $15, and we certainly made the most of it. It got to be harder as the days went on, especially when some of the stations had stairs only, not escalators/elevators, plus the scrambling for seats and standing up with the thing throwing you from side to side.
Oh, the other way of getting around is by my foot (very bottom). I realize that not everybody appreciates my brand of humor. And there is the infamous NON-bunion. The number 1 thing my pre-trip research gathered was that "Boston is a WALKING town." Wrong. The red brick or cobblestone sidewalks and subway stairs were murder! Somebody also said "You can WALK ALL OVER Boston in a few hours"---what LIARS!

CHEERS
Top: Some customers of the "Cheers" bar. Actually, the dog (long haired, white hair) was at Salem, where I called out to the dog's owner and pulled down the (fellow traveler)'s hood to show the similar hair color and style. OH, you KNOW it's funny! Anyway, (Mexican border tourist town) the merchants call the Winter Texans "Q-Tips" because of the same thing.
I forget which is the "real" Cheers bar, the door one which is down some steps or the one on ground level (bottom

MARY BAKER EDDY
The first night, the really biggest, most imposing, impressive thing was this church. I assumed it belonged to one of the “major” religions. Wrong! The next day I found out it is the world headquarters of the Christian Scientists, founded by Mary Baker EDDY. I had heard of her but hadn't paid attention before this.
The top pics are actually 2 pics but joined to show the humongous reflecting pool, which is actually overflowing all the time. One of the tour guides, an actor type, said he resents HER because they tore down six theaters to build it.
So somebody told me that if I thought THIS was great I ought to see her BURIAL temple. They didn't tell me where it was, but I finally tracked it down to Cambridge. The bottom two pics, also joined, show her temple/burial, at Mount Auburn cemetery, which is 175 LANDSCAPED acres, absolutely gorgeous vegetation, but she got the big pool. After the traffic noise of Boston, this place was meditatively silent. Many other celebrities are buried there, Buckminster FULLER...

JFK Library
Whoops, didn't take a pic of the outside (Google it!). Gotta say it was a letdown. It's showing its age as a building and you only go to two floors for ($20?) or was it $10, I forget. There were lots of videos of his speeches, and I have heard his voice and the stories all my life so I didn't stop for those things. There were a few of the gifts from heads of state---a miniature copy of Pieta given by Paul VI and an engraved silver platter from LOPEZ PORTILLO. There was only one skimpy little dress of Jackie's. I'm told her REAL wardrobe is at the Smithsonian. The LBJ Library is really better. Poor Lady Bird DOES have her dresses there.
The subway route to there showed a "normal" side of Boston--industrial litter, weeds.
The top, some campaign props, and a really big space called the pavilion with the cityscape of Boston visible. Bottom, (one of?) his boat(s). I thought his was named the Honey Fitz. This one is named “Liberty” or somesuch. As for me, more interesting than the Presidential Seal is the "messenger bag" I acquired over there. I got tired the first couple of days of carrying jackets and stuff around and lots of the students/men all had these bags. I swore at the girls that they had BETTER NOT call it a PURSE. One of them did it ONCE.

HARVARD 1
1- Cambridge, outside of the university. Actually, this is NOT Cambridge. This is the street fair at Salem. I mislabeled it originally.
2- The kid/guide of the walking tour of Harvard. He and his girl partner were WAY flamboyant, gesturing and joking with a necessarily canned spiel. He was an English major (I mean, "concentration"), she/statistics, but they were basically street performers. The passing "SERIOUS" students gave them some disgusted, almost contemptuous looks. When it was over, the women gushed over them, "interviewing" them and found out that he is from MEXICO CITY
3. More than one guide on different tours told us that this is "the statue of 3 lies." It says, "John Harvard, founder (of Harvard), 1638." The 3 lies are that he didn't found the thing; it was founded in '36 not '38; and nobody knows what he looked like and a student modeled for the likeness so IT'S NOT HIM.
4. Not a church. It's a veterans' memorial hall, of the Civil War.

HARVARD 2
1- Entrance(?) to Harvard, looking from the inside out. We were told that a tradition is that the students are only supposed to use the big gate twice, when admitted and when they graduate. 2- Gate at the other side, where they supposedly gather the last night of two weeks of studying for finals, do a cheerleading yell, then run through the gate and all over the campus, naked. In the cold.
3- It's not me that matters in this pic. This is Harvard Yard. But it's true that by this stage of the trip I was dragging myself around, had trouble walking, weak legs, painful foot. At least I had the correct color shirt.
4- The cemetery in Cambridge where many Revolutionary personages are, Samuel ADAMS...

SALEM
The devil dude was the first of many dressed up all over the town, witches, whatever. It was mostly a street fair type thing, with witch knick knacks and food booths. The black house is The House of the Seven Gables. The bottom two are just picturesque, great pics if I say so myself. We rode the commuter train from Boston to Salem and the scenery was pretty bad after all the gorgeous things in the city. We rode a ferry back, which was relaxing and smooth.

DOWNTOWN
1. Feneuil Hall, site of hundreds of years of history, most recently where KERRY gave his surrender speech in '04. Center of a tourist shopping area, like a street fair type thing except VERY clean.
2. State street subway station, but other history (there's history everywhere).
3. I was stunned to see this Mexican style mercado right in the downtown, and the pic does NOT show how packed and crowded it was, complete with smelly garbage trucks. One woman had already gotten lost at Harvard a day or so before, so this is where the other one got lost in the crowd, or actually both of them got lost from me and then one got lost from the other. Lucky for cell phones.
4. Up to the north of downtown, the U.S.S. Constellation, "Old Ironsides," the oldest still commissioned ship in the Navy.
Just one or two more of these spam to go!

COPLEY SQUARE
1. Boston Public Library.
2. Trinity Cathedral (Episcopalian)
3. Even a plain little building gets attractive through a pert presentation.
4. The sparrows are incredibly tame.

STEEPLES
Who knows what they are. They're around every corner. Postcard pictures everywhere. The closest things to UGLY reality were on the way to the JFK library and to Salem, where there were urban litter, blight, and weeds. Everybody --the tour guides in the daytime and the drunks at the bar in the evening-- complained about the high taxes and the Big Dig.

WET REFLECTIONS
Mostly around Huntington Avenue except for #2, which is Back Bay subway station, the headquarters near where the women were staying.

RHINO, BELLIES, GEESE, AND BELL
Like trips being OVER, yay when the pics are over!
Rhino, geese, bellies, and bell---YOU decide which is which.

[Kat45]

1. Some comments from a local.

Mary Baker Eddy's monument at Mt. Auburn Cemetery is incredible. I've seen wedding parties have their pictures taken there. That cemetery is so beautiful. On nice spring and summer days, I often go there to walk, enjoy nature, and look at the birds. (It is a stop for migratory birds.) Longfellow is another famous person buried there.

Years ago, my uncle was one of the groundskeepers there. He was an Italian immigrant. Several of my relatives are actually buried there.

Boston is a fairly small city and it is a good walking city, though the cobblestones can make things difficult. Wearing heels is not a good idea.

Faneuil Hall was developed into the tourist marketplace it is today in the years leading up to the bicentennial, which as you might imagine was a huge deal in Boston. At the time, the butchers and such who were located there were displaced. At the time, I was in a school program that followed the development in its early stages. It was quite interesting.

You didn't mention the pigeons. lol

Did you go to the Boston Common and the Public Garden?

How long were you in the area? I hope you enjoyed your time here. Oh, btw, it's the USS Constitution (not the Constellation).

[Alexander]

2. Boston is definitely not a good driving city, that's for sure.

I love Boston, being the New England Yankee that I am, but hopefully I will never have to drive through the city ever again.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

3. There's a Dunkin Donuts every 50 yards or so.

[Captain Hilts]

4. It's that way in Providence, New England in general and Toronto, oddly enough. Lotta doughnuts. nt

[Captain Hilts]

5. Thanks for your trip summary. It sounds like you had a good time.

I've only spent about 2 days there and was surprised to realize it's actually smaller in real life than it is on a map, unlike DC, Toronto or Moscow.

Sounds like fun!

[jonnyblitz]

6. Did you see the cheesy Elizabeth Montgomery of

"Bewitched" statue in Salem?

[graywarrior]

7. What, no MIT? No visit where Bill Gates got started?

No Duck Tour?
Top of the Pru or Hancock? Chinatown?

Trinity Cathedral is the best thing about Boston. Well, sort of.

[UTUSN]

8. OMZ!1 How could I type "constellation" instead of USS Constitution?!1

I knew the name of the ship!1 What kind of brain fart did I have that would come up with "constellation"?!1 And this means that these notes, which I sent out to friends and family, some of whom would KNOW the correct name, did indeed GO out there that way!1 (Nobody has corrected.)

Anyway, to answer some of the other questions: MIT: Well, there *was* a little drive through on one of the tours. One of the tidbits, that calculus and other yucky things in that category are required of ALL (first?) year(s) students.

How long there: 5 days. 2 more days for traveling in and traveling out.

No duck tour: Well, the salesman for the trolley tours was really good. He said that the ducks would only show you things from a distance, that you can't get off and resume your extended pass.

Fun? Well, it broke a 9 yrs' rut I was in. It was tiring and a foot problem flared up painfully, which looks to be permanent and resulting in a change of foot lifestyle and research that doesn't sound good: That foot surgery is almost as delicate and to be avoided as spinal.

Common/Public Garden: Yes. The Ducklings. Tortoise/Hare (at Copley). But the statue of the rhino (don't know where) is where I got my pic taken.

Smaller than Toronto, DC, etc: Yip, I was surpised at the compactness, if you will. Harvard's perimeter is tiny compared to my state's public universities.

Bewitched statue: Nope.