Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Boston and Home

It has to be said that this is the longest it has ever taken me to bring my blog up-to-date. It is amazing how much I was hampered by not being able to reliably edit photographs and upload them due to the terrible internet connectivity we had in Pittsburgh. I was working on it very piecemeal and lost momentum.

Paramount

After leaving Pittsburgh, we landed in Boston and had a three-day break there. Neither Dingo nor I really took to Boston and I have to say that we felt very out-of-place there... a real shock considering the warmth we had felt in New York, Pittsburgh and Touchstone. We just didn't quite fit in with what I viewed as a very "preppy" and very divided city... perhaps I am wrong and this is the jet-lag talking! I am happy to be persuaded otherwise.

The main things of interest we found in Boston were the amazing glass flowers in the Harvard Museum of Natural History, the sort of antiquated museum that I really like. The flowers were made by the legendary Blaschka family as a teaching aid for Harvard University and are really quite incredible:

Glass Flowers - 2

Glass Flowers - 3

Glass Flowers - 5

On the following day, we went to the Museum of Science, which was great and actually occupied us for the full day. The highlight for me was this dish served in the exorbitantly expensive museum canteen:

Chicken!

You would have thought someone might have known better in a science museum!
Anyone visiting the museum should certainly go to the "Lighting" show and see the enormous Van de Graaff generator and Tesla coils sparking away spectacularly. No matter how naff the commentary or music, the show is brilliant:

Tesla Coils - 1

By accident, we managed to see it twice!

The next day, we had a day wandering about town and then flew home.

I've not much more to say about the three days we spent there, so a couple of photographs for padding!

Live Poultry Fresh Killed

Theatre Front

Tomorrow: Essex and back to Glasgow.