Wicked Awesome!

My arrival back in the United States was very eventful. The main thing centered around my parents surprising me by having my sister in town. The funny thing is that we like to surprise each other by showing up in different places (I have shown up at a show she was playing in Las Vegas and made her cry, she showed up at a restaurant in Tampa and made me cry, you know things like that), so they tried to do that this time..tried being the keyword.

I got off of the plane in Tampa, got on the tram and headed to the main terminal. At the Tampa Airport, when you get off the tram you walk directly through the families that are waiting and my family was not there (Which is not uncommon, we typically do not do the meet in the airport meeting area, we meet at baggage.). So I headed down to baggage just a little sleep deprived and hungry. As I was walking to the belt to get my luggage I saw this cute dog and thought, weird, that looks like my sister's dog Quito... then I followed the leash and thought, weird, that looks like my sister. Then I panicked and thought I got on the wrong plane and was in LA (yes I was that tired, 20 hours traveling can do that do a person), finally I realized it was my sister in Tampa.

In the end I surprised her! They didn't know that my plane had arrived and my mom and dad must have just missed me and were waiting upstairs and then my sister was going to surprise me at the belt. :-) So in the end I got to surprise them all.

The next two weeks were a blur hanging out with my family, seeing my friends, and getting my final papers done to turn in.

After all of that I headed back to the airport to head to Bahston to meet with Lindsey, Michael (her boyfriend) and Michel (her roommate) and to head to some of the amazing cultural spots... like the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (which happens to be the scene of the most notorious art crime in history).

I REALLY enjoyed the Boston accent. One day I will get to pahk my cah in hahvid yahd. :-)

This is the Boston MFA.

We spent a good amount of time at the MFA. They are remodeling so things were a bit jumbled which made it a bit more difficult to stay focused, but I think we hit the high points.

Michael really loved this lady.

This is the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum. This museum is wonderful for many reasons. Reason number one it is the site of the largest art theft in history (arguably the largest theft in history). (maybe I shouldn't say that is why it is wonderful... maybe that's why it is so interesting?) Find out more here Isabella Theft.

Another reason I like this museum is that is was the complete work of one woman. Nowhere else is there a museum that was designed, created, curated and named after the same woman. I am confident that if she was still alive I would want to hang out with her, since she seems to have had the perfect balance of culture and crazy fun. Her museum is wonderful because everything in the museum was placed by her and is not allowed to be changed. If you don't like white walled gallery space museums you will LOVE this museum.

I may also be a bit biased towards the museum because one of our professors from this summer is the head of security and pretty entertaining, so we get a pretty cool tour.

You aren't allowed to take pictures inside of the museum, so to see images go here.

After the museum we all went to dinner at this fantastic Italian Restaurant and got dessert at Mike's Pastry. Yummmy cannoli.

We didn't enjoy amazing weather while in Boston, but had a lot of fun. Here are some random night shots of the city.

Oh the Boston accent, it even makes it on their signs. The boys trying to point out the spelling take one.

A slightly goofy take two.

The haaabah.

Lindsey had to use the restroom and they have these really cool freestanding restrooms that you can use for a quarter... but she wasn't exactly sold on the idea. Here she is reluctantly waving goodbye.

After you use the restroom the entire thing gets sprayed down. We were listening to make sure that really happened.

The Aquarium!!

We made friends with the penguins. They were adorable.

Here are some jellyfish. They tend to creep me out, but I acknowledge that they are pretty cool.

A different kind of jellyfish.

Close up... creeeeeepy!

A seahorse. I think seahorses are awesome! Two fun facts: seahorses typically mate for life AND the males carry the eggs until birth. Niiiice!

A sea turtle.

In the middle of the aquarium they have this huge cylinder aquarium that goes from the ceiling to the first floor. There is a spiral ramp that goes around the entire thing with lots of observation windows. Each time we would move windows in one area this little fish would find us.

Outside of the aquarium. Another beautiful day. :-)

I really enjoyed that the buildings disappeared in the clouds. That is too cool. I want to be on the top floor of one of those buildings.

Oh... and you have to love the rainbow duck tour vehicle. :-)

So that was Boston. I didn't get to take as many pictures as I wanted to because of the rain (I didn't want to ruin my camera).

There it is, the first non-Amelia blog. I promise to keep trying to do cool things so I have something to write about. :-) I have some interesting things planned in the months ahead, so we should be good!

Ciao ciao!