Last weekend, another Techer and I drove down to New York City to spend a weekend visiting friends, seeing the sights, and eating food of course. Being that I am originally from the Midwest and go to school on the west coast, this is my first time really seeing the east coast and my first trip to New York City. We met up and stayed with a recent Caltech alum who generously let us sleep on her couch for the weekend. We arrived pretty late Friday night and just took the night to enjoy some Thai food and relax before a full day on Saturday.
So far in Boston I have visited two different art museums, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). Although the museums were fairly close to each other, I did visit on different days. Both are very accessible from the green line, which was super convenient considering how blistering hot Boston has been lately. Also, something I learned recently is that MIT students get into both art museums for free by just showing their ID, so of course I showed my very much temporary and very much not a student MIT ID and saved some money.
Ahoy! I just went to visit the New England Aquarium and of my Boston adventures thus far, it is definitely a highlight! Would highly recommend to anyone in the region or visiting the region, although it was kind of expensive (around $30 for a day pass). The aquarium sits right on the edge of the bay near Boston’s north end and was fairly easy to get to using the redline. Getting back however was NOT fun because while I had been walking around inside the museum, a classic northeastern downpour began outside. I’m talking a heavy, steady downpour that lasted for hours and left puddles the size of small ponds! Just a word of advice to anyone planning touristy day trips: always check the weather and be prepared.
Hello all! My name is Lexy LeMar. I’m a rising junior studying chemical engineering in the environmental track (ChE ESE for short). I am currently writing to you from Boston, Massachusetts where I am doing research this summer through Caltech’s SURF program. For those of you who are unfamiliar with SURF, it is a ten week research program over the summer that allows students to conduct research in a lab on campus, at the Jet Propulsion Lab, or in any other institute research lab in the world! Last summer, I did a SURF in the Seinfeld group on campus, studying volatile organic compounds and characterizing the fluid dynamics of the Caltech photochemical oxidation flow tube reactor. I had a really great experience both in the lab and going on weekend adventures around the Los Angeles area; however, being on campus for such a long period of time made me realize how much I wanted a change of scenery.