New England Aquarium

I was not really that impressed by Boston's aquarium, although I suppose when you have been to the Atlanta and Monterey Bay aquariums (aquaria?) your standards may be a little higher. Nonetheless, it still made for a fun afternoon.

The second image below is Government Center in downtown Boston, where every year on the 4th of July someone comes out on the balcony and reads the Declaration of Independence.

Boston Duck Tour

A great way to see Boston is to take a Duck tour, which is a ride in an amphibious vehicle through the streets and down the Charles River. Some of them even go out to Boston Harbor as well. I highly recommend taking one if you ever visit the area.

The next-to-last picture below is an original, unmodified piece of the Berlin Wall.

Weekend in NYC

Kristen and I went down to visit Mallory and Derek in Manhattan last weekend, on what turned out to be the first nice day in the Northeast in about a month. We walked around Lower Manhattan, Battery Park, and the Financial District on Saturday afternoon, and planned to go see the Mets on Saturday night, but the cheap seats were sold out. Oh well, you have to make a $100 million payroll somehow.

Unfortunately, a lot of the pictures I took Saturday were too bright...I had my camera on ISO 800 all day.

July 4th in Hull

Kristen and I spend the 4th in Hull, on our friends' parents' boat. The weather was perfect for sailing, and it was a very exciting and relaxing day.

MIT

It was only a matter of time before I had to make a voyage to the Mecca of nerd-dom, just a short trip on the Red Line away. Fun fact: MIT has a football team. Their mascot? The Engineers, of course.

The middle picture below is the Green Building / Building 54, which hosts MIT's meteorology department. I couldn't get in there because of graduation-related activity, so I will have to go back some time and check it out.

Red Sox vs. Rangers

Since I rarely get to see the Rangers now that I live in RED SAWX NATION, I was excited when they came into town a couple of weeks ago for a weekend series. It was also my first chance to experience Fenway Park.
On this particular Sunday afternoon, Daisuke Matsuzaka gave up 5 runs in 5 and 2/3 innings, and Vicente Padilla was nearly thrown out of the game after hitting Kevin Youkilis, while Nelson Cruz fell a single short of the cycle. The Rangers ended up winning 6-3.