Boston ~ Day 3, UMass Tour

June 25~Woke up at around 7:00 in the morning again. Awesome! Bettina and I took another walk around our reservoir, only this time in the opposite direction. The weather was a lot sunnier, and since we set foot in Boston, we saw a bit of blue sky for the first time! Along the way we munched on an apple and a banana each, pacing ourselves so we wouldn't get stomach cramps. Afterwards I tried to call our friend Tamara by payphone to try to make plans to meet up with her at the Public Gardens sometime (remember they had to leave by Saturday?), and I got her husband Joe, and he said they already went and had a great time. Still, he said we could make plans to see them at the "Frog Pond" at the Boston Commons, so that was cool.

For most of the morning afterwards, all my twin and I did was hang around in our room planning out the days ahead and researching how to get to the various colleges we were to visit on this trip. I also used the free time to blog all about our first two days, which was fun to do. We also took a trip to the Star Market to get some sandwich stuff, because we didn't have anything else in the fridge besides fruit.

Anyway, at around 2:00 or so, we took the "T" down to Government Center, where we changed from the Green line to the Red Line and took that train to JFK/UMass station. It was a very long train ride, so it's a good thing we took a "Metro" newspaper so we could do the Sudokus and crossword puzzle.

When we finally got to JFK/UMass station, we had to wait for a free shuttle-bus that would take us to the college, but it didn't come until it was almost 3:00, which was when we had to be on the tour. The University of Massachusetts is a really impressive looking college with many well designed buildings, but we didn't know where to start for the tour, so we asked a couple people where we had to go, and we were pointed in the direction of the admissions office. When we got there, we asked the nice ladies at the desk if we were late, and they said only for the info session, and that we could wait a few more minutes until the actual tour. What a relief!

For about an hour thereafter, me and my sister, and quite a few other people, were led all over the impressive campus, and we checked out the library, the dorms, some of the classrooms, and the cafeteria. Connecting the many buildings was this awesome "catwalk" that has clear glass windows so you can see the view outside, plus it keeps students warm in the cold weather instead of having them go out to change from building to building. There were a whole bunch of cool looking statues all over the grounds, and Bettina took a lot of interesting photos. The college had a whole bunch of diverse majors, such as math, science, art, english, and social studies. The tour guide was very nice, and she was very enthusiastic throughout the visit, which is important on a good campus tour.

After the whole trip, we sat down at one of the benches and had our sandwich picnic. It was nice to have a picnic on the UMass campus, and the sunny weather helped matters too. When we were well-fed, Bettina and I decided to visit the JFK Museum/Library, which we heard was a short walk away. We had a map of the campus to guide us, but it was hard to pinpoint where we were in relation to the museum. We walked a long long time to get to some place familiar, and we eventually found out that the JFK museum was a lot further away than we thought. Still, it was great exercise (as if we don't get enough on this trip already), and there was a walkway next to a harbor, which made for a great, cool ocean breeze. We had a lot of fun walking and talking, and we still thought it amazing that we found ourselves in this great big city far away from home. Finally we made it to the museum! We felt so proud and happy of how far we had trekked, but then we saw that the museum hours were from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, and we got there 15 minutes too late! Big bummer :(

We took the free shuttle-bus from there back to the "T" station, tired as can be. An hour or two later we got back home, and Bettina and I just hung out, worked on our blogs, read a bit of Thin Threads, not doing much. Our resident musician, Jake, played some more songs of his, and we thought of calling it a night and hitting the sack. However, around 10:00, our dad Benny called us using Skype, and the ringing from the computer was enough to wake us up. He told us that he saw on the news that Michael Jackson died! It was shocking news, but it didn't really affect me that much when I heard it. I was probably too tired. But now I can say how very sorry I feel that we lost a great and talented American icon, and it's such a shame that he had to go out looking the way he did and being misunderstood by the general public. I really like his music, and now that I know he won't be writing anymore songs it's very very sad.