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Lightning Swans

We're getting better at planning our Boston trips, and the girls are getting better at walking longer distances without much complaint. For the most part, they're pretty happy as long as there are things to look at, talk about, and discover. Remaining in good humor is essential, of course, when you plan a nearly 12 hour day trip.

Taking Fridays off in the summer is not the same as taking a week or two off. In many ways it's much more efficient, if you have a plan and the weather cooperates. The bang-for-buck ratio of daytrips itself is huge compared to going away. It can't completely replace trips where long travel is required. Nor is it the same as a relaxing getaway where the point itself is to be isolated from distractions. But if family fun, learning and bonding is the goal, it rocks!

On Friday we hit the Swan boats, Chinatown (for soup dumplings, of which I am the only devotee), The Harvard Museum of Natural History, a peek into the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (not to be confused with the Peabody Essex Museum), The CambridgeSide Galleria and the Boston Museum of Science.

Highlights

• To our shock, we were asked to pose for a museum brochure picture at the Peabody Museum. We were disheveled from our exhausting on-foot travels, and Maggie and I gave each other incredulous looks when the woman asked us. I don't think we actually believed her until the photographer moved his setup and the coordinator gave us the release form. It probably had something to do with us being the only family around, and the photographer needed to round out his shots for the day.
• Worst moment toss-up: Being stuffed into a Green Line train after two trains were taken out of service vs. getting caught in the late-night roadwork traffic on the southeast expressway. Good times! Small bumps in the road. AKA adventure.
• Swan boats were relaxing, if not exciting.
• Paying only around $33 bucks for a big meal for the 4 of us at the New Shanghai Restaurant in Chinatown. The scallop noodles were excellent.
• Finally seeing the BMoS lightning demonstration all the way through. Although at home on Sunday we got as much lightning as we wanted.
• A long conversation with a stranger who has prosopagnosia (face blindness) about interesting cognitive problems.
• Arriving at CambridgeSide with two tired kids and leaving energized, FTW!
• The fabric store in Chinatown that had to buzz us in and out of the store, causing much confusion when James attempted to casually wander in to see where Maggie was, and then wander out again. No casual wandering allowed! It was like a high security prison.
  

Technorati : boston, lightning, swan boats

Posted by James at July 28, 2008 3:58 PM
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