We arrived to the Harvard yard. The place was getting ready for the opening ceremony. Students were coming, teachers were watching and we enjoyed it. The buildings were open, therefore we decided to take a closer look at the place. Since the others were a bit afraid to enter the place, I wasn’t. I was not sure when I will have the opportunity to come back again, therefore I decided to discover it a bit. I entered the Widener library and tried to behave as I would study there. I did not make pictures to avoid being kicked out, therefore you can’t see it right now, however it was breath-taking. You had a feeling as you would be in England, on Cambridge. The hall was big, the walls nicely decorated and the smell was like from old books. As we were not spending much time in Boston, I spent there few minutes and left.
As the Harvard is really huge and we wanted to see as much as possible, we decided to continue our journey. I’m not sure how familiar you are with Boston, but prepared a small map to show you where we went.
The red point is the Harvard square where we arrived by metro. The black arrow shows where we were heading first. The blue arrow shows how did we continue. As you can see after leaving the main building we were heading to the Harvard – Kennedy school of law. Maybe I did not mention before, however after the high school, I wanted to go and study law. Unfortunately I haven’t been accepted, however later I was actually happy that I went to study Economy. No offense, but law seems to be so dry for me. Learing all law books was not for me. I’m not sure if you are aware, but here in Central Europe the students are learning the Civil Law, which is totally different than the law in US.
Anyway, we arrived to the school. Unfortunately it was closed, therefore we couldn’t enter the building. I thought all buildings will be open – even for public, however I was wrong.
After taking some pictures we continued our journey with crossing the Charles River and heading to the Business School. As I was a student on a faculty of Economy this place was very important for me. I was always dreaming about to spend 1 or 2 semesters on this school, however this did not happen. Therefore at least I could visit it as tourist and see all those amazing places which the students can enjoy every day.
Before reaching the Business school we were shocked by something else. Crossing the bridge and turning right we saw something extraordinary. It was a sport place with a size of a small village. The place is called: Soldiers Field Athletic Area and it has his own football stadium. I have never seen before that a school would have this own football stadium. It was magnificent. Of course we went inside to discover the place.
It was like in the movies. Inside of one of the buildings you could see trophy’s, lockers and all kind of rooms typically for US. For me, a central-European citizen it was like being in those movies I grow up with. I could imagine myself walking there with schoolmates, then after school go and do some sports. It was a great feeling just to stay there. Also if I compare this place with the majority of Universities in Central – East Europe then it’s 100 times better. It was just the beginning. After visiting few sports areas and watching that huge and amazing football pitch, we finally decided to visit the business school.
We crossed the North Harvard street, went by the Class 1959 Chapel and finally arrived to the Business school. The building was really similar to the others. Nice, well-kept building build with brown bricks typical for Harvard buildings. Inside beautiful long floors covered with paintings of former professors or famous people connected to the school. The library inside is like a dream. Great equiped with the best economy and business books. The furniture smells amazing, the couch made from leather and well-kept. You have a feeling that you are in a luxury building with antic furniture. Simply great. Definitively recommend to visit it. We spend 1 hour inside and walking around. There is a dormitory close to the building, however if you are not living/working there, you can’t go inside. Therefore we couldn’t stay and were heading to our next destination – MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
Luckily MIT is not far aware from Harvard. We crossed again the Charles river via Western Avenue and went straight forward to reach Massachusetts Avenue. Than turn right and went again straight forward. Finally we reached MIT. It was stunning. In front of us the beautiful Killian Court appeared, renamed Killian Court in 1974 after President James Rhyne Killian.
It was stunning, never seen something like that. Made several photos (selfies included) and went inside. It was stunning also from inside. We grabbed a coffee, enjoyed the building a bit, shoot some pictures and continued on our trip. We turned left and made some pictures in front of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory and continued our trip and continued to the Wright Brothers Wind Tunnel. It was fascinating.
After that we reached an architectural wonder – fascinating buiildngs as you can see on the pictures below.
After walking around for few hours, we were heading back to our hotel. We crossed the Longfellow Bridge and walked towards to the Boston Public Garden. It was a really nice park close to the river. We stopped by, had some food and enjoyed the green area with some nice statues.
Leaving the park we were heading the Boston Public Library. Unfortunately we arrived late and couldn’t enter, however at least we could enjoy another fascinating building. It was already dark, therefore we decided to go back to our Hostel. We found a nice restaurant close to our place, had a dinner and went back to our room. We were really exhausted, however happy that we could visit this amazing city.
Next morning we had another great breakfast at the hostel. As my 2 biggest dreams have been fulfilled already (visiting Harvard and MIT), I told to Adam and Eva to decide where they want to go next. Eva had no special needs to visit any places in Boston. Adam only asked to visit the Museum of Science. Therefore we were heading to it. It was a fascinating morning. After spending some quality time in the Museum we decided to have a lunch. I don’t remember exactly the place, but we had a great steak.
During the rest of the stay in Boston we were walking a lot around. We were visiting the Old State House, crossing the Newbury street, which is a great place for shopping and we went to see the Boston Waterfront. The time was flying really fast and soon we were heading back to Boston South Station to catch our bus to New York. However this is a different story. I will tell you more in the next chapter.
Treska - Travel Smart with Koloman 