Well, I have to catch up on picture-blogging one of these days, so I might as well start now!

One month and one week ago, Sara and I headed to Massachusetts. We spent 5 days in some of the hottest summer weather Boston has experienced. We started off by following the popular Freedom Trail, which takes you by some of the most important landmarks from the US's formative years. I have pictures of some of the oldest churches in America and some important peoples' grave stones, and then of Sara and I cooling off at Harvard, but those things are as easily conveyed by words as by pictures.

The next few days were packed with sight-seeing. We headed to the beautifully-sited Institute for Contemporary Art, where they had a really cool (and quite accessible) exhibit of works by Anish Kapoor (most famous for Chicago's Millennium blob). We went on the excellent Sam Adams Brewery tour and sampled several beers at the end. We went to the beautiful Arnold Arboretum and hiked to somewhat of an overlook, pausing by a huge quantity of beautiful roses several times:


We found our way to the first house I ever lived in, at 44 Ivaloo St in Cambridge:


We spent some time with my good college friends Kit (who was generous enough to host us), Ashley, and my fellow ukulele band ("The Foppish Lads") members Elton and Steven, but sadly I didn't get any pictures of them. A highlight was a restaurant and bar's trivia night, where Elton, Sara and I finished in the middle of the pack only after earning lots of points naming the first five Roman emperors after Julius (Octavius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero). And we ate tons of ice cream, especially at the Scooper Bowl, where you paid $8 for all you could eat. They had Ben and Jerry's, Edy's, Breyer's, Hood, some gelato place, and just about any other national or Boston-area brand you could imagine. It really was magical:


On our final day, we finished up the Freedom Trail with the Bunker Hill monument and the USS Constitution. Here's the view from the top of the monument:


(My next post should include the view from the top of the Galata Tower in Istanbul: add some red roofs and minarets, and this could almost be the same picture.)


At the end of the week, we headed for Western Massachusetts for the wedding of one of Sara's friends. The town, Northampton, was quite nice (and well-off...) and had a beautiful, massive park. Sara and I spent some time walking around there, and noticed that in Western Mass, unfortunately, they don't let you throw your dogs away just anywhere:


Finally, I have to show off the car Sara and I rented to get to Northampton. We'd booked pretty much the cheapest we could find at Hertz, but when we arrived they said they didn't have any of those left and wondered if a Mustang would be okay. After careful deliberation, Sara and I agreed to the compromise. We were nervous the rest of the weekend that we might damage such an expensive car, but the worry was worth it for the chance to take this photo in the style of the senior pictures of half of Grinnell High School's class of 2001:

More later!