Boston - Fare Thee Well

Happy Dance

On the penultimate day of our stay in Boston, I visited the Museum of Fine Arts. It was somewhat difficult to find things to do that day since it was Labor Day and some museums were closed. Luckily this one was open. I spent hours upon hours wandering through the beautifully decorated rooms, admiring the art gracing the walls. This museum pays attention to details and it definitely shows. Each area that features art from different parts of the world are decorated differently. For example, in the Asian art area, the interior had an Asian-y feel to it that's hard to articulate. In the Islamic art hall, the windows had intricate designs in it. This was quite impressive.

The museum has an extensive collection of art ranging from European Impressionists to American colonial artists, African art and Asian art. In addition, there was a little area devoted to contemporary art. I'm glad the museum allows pictures, just no flash. The picture above for instance is of Renoir's "Dance at Bougival" (1883). This is one of the museum's most famous paintings. You almost see the movement in the woman's dress and the sweeping movement of their dance.

After spending 3 hours in the museum, we took the "T", Boston's subway, to the North End, where we wanted to get dessert for the day. My friend who has lived in Boston for 3 years told us about Mike's Pastry. Apparently that is where everyone HAS to go in order to get a cannoli. We wanted to be in with the "in-crowd", so off we went to Hanover Street to find Mike's Pastry and get us one of those desserts. Here's a picture of the two I ordered.


The filling was a too rich for me. I think I enjoyed the one on the right side more. The skin is similar to the skin used when making fried wontons in Chinese cuisine. So that, my friends, was the sweet closing to my little adventure in the city of Boston. Tomorrow I am off to Orlando Florida for one week of training.

The End

Miscellaneous weird tidbits:

1. On the plane trip to Boston, the flight attendants announced that the in-flight movie would be "Made of Honor", but actually they showed us "Kung-fu Panda" instead. This switcheroo was in my favor because I had seen "Made of Honor" already. "Kung-fu Panda" was pretty funny and actually had an all-star cast of voice over actors like Angelina Jolie, Jack Black, Jackie Chan and many others.

2. On the plane trip back to SF, there was a guy who was doing many stretching exercises in the front of the plane. He could have been an aerobics instructor given all the stretching exercises he knew.