Harvard
The teachers were incredible. You think they should be because of the expense of the conference, but often college professors are not that interesting, though of great intelligence not necessarily able to communicate effectively. That was not the case with these. Even in a couple of presentations where the actual topic was not terribly applicable to my particular situation, the teacher made it interesting, and they worked to make it applicable. These are teachers of teachers so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they are good at their craft. They were engaging, entertaining, knowledgeable but not to a "nerdy" level, and stayed to talk and visit casually during breaks and our receptions.
Harvard itself was beautiful. There is the old part that circles Harvard's "Old Yard" which is a big lawn crisscrossed by intersecting sidewalks, and there is the "New Yard" which is simply newer but with the same look. The "New" one I think was established, or built up, during the 1700's. Harvard started in 1636, I think.
The architecture was consistent and stately. All of the freshman dorms circle the Old Yard area.
Though November, many of the trees still clung to their colored leaves, a lot of reds. The weather was not particular cool, sort of rainy, until the last day when it was perfectly crisp. What I wanted in a fall day, that was the last day.
The campus has spread out considerably from the "yard's" but there are now many more of these green spaces between buildings and in the center of squares.
Encircling the older parts of campus is a wall with several gated entrances. The gates are named after famous people who attended HU. There are quotes engraved into walls, doors, gates, sidewalks.
Harvard Square is the hub of the area and also a convenient stop on the subway line. The "square" is a convergence of several roads into one large area in front of the campus and it contains restaurants, most with seating outside, the aforementioned bookstores, a couple of unique shops that just sell magazines and daily editions of many, many newspapers including newspapers from other countries. They both also sell Diet Coke. There was a stationary store, the Harvard Coop which sold all things Harvard, a store that sold beads, an old timey movie theatre, coffee shops, and other places enticing one to linger.
From the square center, the roads lead to other quaint parts of the university and historical sights like a cemetery with gravestones from the 1600's and the church attended by Washington at the start of the revolution and the tree, an elm, under which he assumed command and surveyed his troops, at this time a tattered bunch.
It was a great place to walk, and I did much of that at night since the Inn at Harvard, where I stayed was adjacent to the Harvard Square. I didn't have to waste time getting to the school since I was there and could explore.
For the most part I ate at one of a kind, unique places except one late evening the smell of pancakes and maple syrup drug me into an IHOP as I walked past the Charles River, a bus stop, and a house-turned-computer shop. There, I sat next to five college girls talking about guys and food and the football game against Columbia and the volleyball game against Princeton and a girl who dressed cute but was otherwise not very popular, apparently. I am sure I appeared to them just what I was, a tourist, since I had three maps out, my Harvard Square map, the subway map, and my plastic fold up map of Boston and vicinity. I am a map nerd.
M.I.T - Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sits on Massachusetts Avenue about two miles north of Harvard. Architecture is imposing granite with a lot of columns. OK, so I only drove past MIT and didn't walk it, but the one drive through the campus provided my best view of beautiful trees of yellow with an understory of smaller trees with red leaves. This I saw on the last day, the best fall day, so that magnified the beauty of it - leaves blowing, people sitting on the lawns, riding bikes, working on their graphing calculators.
That is enough for tonight.
The teachers were incredible. You think they should be because of the expense of the conference, but often college professors are not that interesting, though of great intelligence not necessarily able to communicate effectively. That was not the case with these. Even in a couple of presentations where the actual topic was not terribly applicable to my particular situation, the teacher made it interesting, and they worked to make it applicable. These are teachers of teachers so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they are good at their craft. They were engaging, entertaining, knowledgeable but not to a "nerdy" level, and stayed to talk and visit casually during breaks and our receptions.
Harvard itself was beautiful. There is the old part that circles Harvard's "Old Yard" which is a big lawn crisscrossed by intersecting sidewalks, and there is the "New Yard" which is simply newer but with the same look. The "New" one I think was established, or built up, during the 1700's. Harvard started in 1636, I think.
The architecture was consistent and stately. All of the freshman dorms circle the Old Yard area.
Though November, many of the trees still clung to their colored leaves, a lot of reds. The weather was not particular cool, sort of rainy, until the last day when it was perfectly crisp. What I wanted in a fall day, that was the last day.
The campus has spread out considerably from the "yard's" but there are now many more of these green spaces between buildings and in the center of squares.
Encircling the older parts of campus is a wall with several gated entrances. The gates are named after famous people who attended HU. There are quotes engraved into walls, doors, gates, sidewalks.
Harvard Square is the hub of the area and also a convenient stop on the subway line. The "square" is a convergence of several roads into one large area in front of the campus and it contains restaurants, most with seating outside, the aforementioned bookstores, a couple of unique shops that just sell magazines and daily editions of many, many newspapers including newspapers from other countries. They both also sell Diet Coke. There was a stationary store, the Harvard Coop which sold all things Harvard, a store that sold beads, an old timey movie theatre, coffee shops, and other places enticing one to linger.
From the square center, the roads lead to other quaint parts of the university and historical sights like a cemetery with gravestones from the 1600's and the church attended by Washington at the start of the revolution and the tree, an elm, under which he assumed command and surveyed his troops, at this time a tattered bunch.
It was a great place to walk, and I did much of that at night since the Inn at Harvard, where I stayed was adjacent to the Harvard Square. I didn't have to waste time getting to the school since I was there and could explore.
For the most part I ate at one of a kind, unique places except one late evening the smell of pancakes and maple syrup drug me into an IHOP as I walked past the Charles River, a bus stop, and a house-turned-computer shop. There, I sat next to five college girls talking about guys and food and the football game against Columbia and the volleyball game against Princeton and a girl who dressed cute but was otherwise not very popular, apparently. I am sure I appeared to them just what I was, a tourist, since I had three maps out, my Harvard Square map, the subway map, and my plastic fold up map of Boston and vicinity. I am a map nerd.
M.I.T - Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sits on Massachusetts Avenue about two miles north of Harvard. Architecture is imposing granite with a lot of columns. OK, so I only drove past MIT and didn't walk it, but the one drive through the campus provided my best view of beautiful trees of yellow with an understory of smaller trees with red leaves. This I saw on the last day, the best fall day, so that magnified the beauty of it - leaves blowing, people sitting on the lawns, riding bikes, working on their graphing calculators.
That is enough for tonight.
posted by Brian Miller at 4:17 PM
1 Comments:
Sounds like an absolutely wonderful trip and so you.
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