Day 6: Boston

Anja and I woke up wanting to make coffee at Arthur’s house, but were somewhat stymied by his lack of a kettle, and his complete and total lack of milk. So we ventured out in the car – Anja’s first trip as a passenger in my car! – to find milk. We asked a guy (Anja complimented me on my ability to eat my ego and ask for directions, and I commented on my lack of penis – it was a heartwarming exchange), found the 7-11, and were in business. When Arthur FINALLY woke up, he said he normally gets his coffee on the go, so he doesn’t really need milk.

Whatever. Philistine.

Arthur drove us in to Harvard for the day (that’s right, did you know? I went to Harvard.), because Anja really wanted to see the glass flower exhibit at the Natural History museum. I can post a link, but I have to tell you: pictures cannot do this exhibit justice. It is AMAZING that those things were made out of glass, over a hundred years ago. (Well, it’s amazing to me as a layperson; perhaps someone who actually knows anything about glass would find them fairly standard?) Then we looked at the creepy bugs and skeletons, and some awesome dioramas. The Peabody Museum, which is connected to the Natural History Museum and appears to be the part that contains the dioramas, includes kind of hilariously politically-correct discussions of the dioramas. Don’t get me wrong, they are right – they discuss how dioramas tend to present First Nations peoples (or Native Americans, as they say) as static, unchanging, and historical rather than a real living people – but the language is so very academically earnest. It’s hard not to laugh.

Interestingly, there were a few exhibits that had been removed for repatriation to the First Nations from whom they had been taken decades or centuries ago, on the basis of the Native American Graves and Something Repatriation Act, which I learned about last summer in my International and Comparative Intellectual Property Law program. Yay for real-life applicability of school!

After the museum we wandered around Harvard, bought some ice cream (you may notice this trend continuing…), laughed at Arthur as he tried to finish his RIDICULOUSLY spicy mango sorbet, and headed down to Boston Commons. We were going to roam around downtown, find a restaurant, and then watch the fireworks. We got a little distracted by Filene’s Basement (where I bought a watch to replace mine! And a bathing suit! For $23!), and then SERIOUSLY distracted by the rain, so we forewent the fireworks and returned to Arthur’s condo for dinner and movies. Anja picked Arthur and the Invisibles, which sucked. A lot. We said she was never allowed to pick the movie again, and then let her pick Starship Troopers. We’d all seen it before anyway, so it was all good.