I had had three different people - all Americans - tell me to do a Duck Tour in Boston so that's the first stop today. Took a brisk, chilly walk along the Charles River - this is probably as close as I'll get to a baseball game...
..to the Museum of Science. This is as close as I got to that (besides the Duck ticket office)...
Unusual labelling in the drain - would have been odd if it said Tulsa drain or Ohio drain...
And the Duck.
Onto the Duck, which is a vehicle that goes both on land and sea - got its name during the war, originally DUQW. Our driver/guide was PJ. She has been doing it for 12 years and was fabulous. Full of all the important stuff - dates and history facts, and also the trivial stuff - like Boston was the first city to introduce the toothpick and that Paul Revere didn't actually finish the ride into town, he didn't actually shout, "the British are coming" and he was on a borrowed horse. He was stopped and sent back and one of the other guys he was with made it through. Longfellow just wanted to show what one man could do in his poem and Revere rhymed with more words than Dr Prescott (the guy who actually made it).
We went basically along the Freedom Trail, I didn't get photos of all of it - was too busy listening and looking.
Trinity church.
And Boston Common.
She told us the story of a song, Charlie on the MTS, where they raised the prices of the subway and he got caught on it - had enough to get on but not enough to get off. So he just looped around and around and every day, his wife would throw him a sandwich. As PJ said, why didn't she throw him the nickel he needed to get off? PJ said she told another group this story and one woman said to her, "you've obviously never been married."
And when they built the New State House, someone said they couldn't better the architecture of the buildings around so it's all glass, reflecting said buildings.
There was also the fact that Abbott and Costello were the first two non-baseball players, coaches or officials inducted into the baseball hall of fame for their 'who's on first routine' which they did at Fenwick Park. The other non-baseball member inducted was the guy who wrote that da, da, da, da, da-da tune on the organ at games.
Drive all over town and to Charles River where we drove into the river for an entirely different perspective on the town.
It was a great tour! Here's PJ - so called because she wears PJs due to her narcolepsy!
Back to Charles Street for lunch. Ordered a sandwich and got the side of a pickle. I had heard they like the pickles as a side here, just hadn't encountered it before. That might be why Maccas and other burger places always out in the pickles - it's more commonplace here.
I had asked at reception if it was possible to get to the two places I was interested in getting to, without a car. The girl said I could take the train across the road up a couple of stops to one destination and then back a few stops to the other. So over the road I went.
There was no one to ask questions of, and the signs are not at all clear - I was thinking about myki and the tourist and how well that would work when someone doesn't know the system...! I got what looked like the right ticket then down to the platform - where there is a passenger assistance intercom where you can ask questions - a bit late for that!
Onto the train and out three stops to Harvard (or Hahvahd). You literally walk out of the station and onto the university. Decided to take a student tour - as in a tour lead by a genuine undergrad.
I had a wee chat with him (Jay) before it started, he's studying Government (or Politics). I reckon he does this touring as a uni job coz it's practice in public speaking.
I asked about the current election for Boston mayor I'd seen some ads for. Mentioned that we'd just had elections at home and we had to vote, by law. I hadn't spoken much but he recognised firstly that I was Australian and secondly, that we'd had an election, that Abbott had won and that we'd had a back and forth between Rudd and Gillard. Said they liked it all coz it made their election system less embarrassing for a change. Shows they educate them Hahvahd young'uns good now.
Beautiful old buildings, lovely grounds, lots of history, like the student who smuggled an original book owned by founder, Mr Harvard himself, out of the library one night. The library burned down and he had the only remaining item of Mr Harvard. He still got suspended.
He told of life as an undergrad, and lots of stuff about the college. Also mentioned some of the people who had not graduated - Bill Gates (went on to bigger and better and has since received an honorary degree. Mark Zuckerberg - on to become one of the youngest billionaires in the world with facebook, and Matt Damon, who got an Oscar instead.
The science building designed to look like a Polaroid camera...
I like the story of the library. A family was travelling from England back home to the States, on the Titanic. Father and son gave up their seats on the lifeboat for their maids and went down with the ship. Distraught mother came to Harvard (where son had been a student) and wanted a memorial to him - she offered 3.something million, which was a lot of money then. (It's a lot of money now!)
Harvard said they would pull down the current memorial library and build one in honour of her son. Distraught mother noted the ease with which they were about to pull down someone else's memorial building and added three clauses to her deal (so they wouldn't pull her son's down at the next big cheque). First was that the building had to remain exactly as it was. So as the college and therefore the library have expanded, they've had to go underground - there's something like ten floors underground so what you see is just the tip of the iceberg - bad joke.
Second clause was that there's a reading room in the centre of the library with son's books and stuff. Only two people are allowed in - a curator to dust and put fresh flowers every day and her son's ghost. Yep...
Third clause is due to the fact that she believed her son would have been okay if he'd known how to swim...yep again. Not that it was freezing water, miles from anywhere, lost at see... So all Harvard student to have to learn to swim. This last clause has been allowed to relax a bit with disability equality coming in but the others must be adhered to. If not, all the funding and property reverts to the competition.
That was a long story but I like it. And here's the result...
Even at Harvard the tour ended in the gift shop!
Got back on the train and back a few stops, onto a little courtesy bus and off to the JFK Museum. This was an exceptional museum - really well laid out with great displays, starting from the run to candidacy, with old TVs showing shows like Leave it to Beaver with election ads - all captioned too, debates with him and Nixon, his inauguration speech, through the White House years, Cuban missile crisis, man on the moon, there's a section of Jackie's reflections on life with him. Photos of them at home and at state dinners. It's really good and very interesting.
Captions!
Through to a dark corridor labelled November 22, 1963 which just has a short newsreel playing over - the famous newsreader (so famous I can't remember his name) telling the world that JFK was dead.
And then, the gift shop.
Back to the inn for a coffee before heading out for a bite, a walk through Boston Common - beautiful...
..and coz I haven't had any theatre in a while(!) off to see Shear Madness. A very long running show - years - audience interactive show set in a tiny bar where the actors are three feet from you. For those who know these people - one is the spitting image of Chris Buchanan and one is David Parsons! It's a murder mystery where the audience vote on who the murderer is and act as eyewitnesses in the second act, asking any questions they like.
It was very funny - a couple of topical jokes that I didn't get, but only a couple, very well done and very funny. Though my pick of murderer wasn't chosen.
Just googled the newsreader from the JFK assassination - Walter Cronkite.
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