Boston: Day 2

Good Morning!

Once again, I blog to you from Beantown, USA. This is a great city, truly. It's not too big but it's still got lots of things going on and lots of people everywhere, which is good.

We'll start with my waking yesterday morning. I woke up and took a little jog. I accidentally found Tufts University and ran around their track for a while. Then, I took a little walk around the campus, which was fairly big. So big, in fact, that I couldn't seem to find the nutrition building. I gave up and jogged back here, showered, and I was off to the Diesel Cafe. A fine Somerville establishment only a block away from the Davis Square T stop. I had a coffee and worked on my history homework for a while, then I hopped on the T and headed to Copley. I really wish I could share some pictures with you guys because I took some neat ones yesterday. At Copley is the Boston Public Library, the first library in the country(or maybe the world?) to allow patrons to borrow books. It apparently houses over 60 miles of book shelves. On the top floor there's a hall with a huge mural all over the ceiling and walls. I'm not sure what it was called but it depicted this whole progression from the times of Jewish oppression in Egypt to the death of Christ. It was very interesting and very lovely. I took plenty of pictures of that which will be up next week on Facebook, of course. After leaving the library I took a stroll through the local farmers market and ran into two hippies from Nevada! They were travelling with their dog from way out west and they weren't sure where they were going to end up. I found them sitting by a light post, one was sitting down holding the sign with the dog and the other was standing, singing, and playing banjo. Obviously I donated to their cause because it sounded like fun and they let me take their picture for my blog. After that I made my way to Kendall to meet my brother for some delicious lunch. We ended up taking a walk around MIT and saw this really bizarre building called the Strata Center. Parts of it looked like somebody had sent it through a Cuisinart, others looked like it had been blown out of a straw, and others were just unnecessary (but still nifty!). My brother and I parted ways and I went out to Stony Brook to take the Sam Adams Brewery tour! I'd never been on a brewery tour but they're interesting. The first 45 minutes, which was actually quite interesting, was the tour part and the second 45 minutes was the free beer part. We got free 7oz tasting glasses and they filled them three times. First was Boston Lager which was tastier than I remember, then Summer Ale - a favorite, then Cherry Wheat - cherry coke diluted with hops basically. After the tour and some extra beer tasting, I made my way back to the T to meet my brother after he got off work. We walked from Kendall to the Central T stop, hit up a small record store and then hit up a bar near there. I think it was called Plough and Stars or something. One of the bartenders was Irish and the other was pure Boston, so lots of entertaining accents. Behind the bar they had 2 light switches for the place. One was labeled "Sconces" which was obviously for the wall sconces around the room, and the second one read "Plough", which was for the metal plough hanging from the wall above that was covered in lights. It was pretty funny. So anyways, we had a few drinks and then came back home via Harvard Square.
All in all it was a much more exciting day. There's something about roaming the city on your own all day that's really awesome. Anyways, today is a little more structured. I'm headed to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for my first internship tour this morning in about an hour and a half. I'm hoping it goes well. I'm definitely looking forward to it. As always, I'll let you know tomorrow.

Take care friends,
Eric