The Boston Chapters: A Tale of Two Cities

Separated by a mere body of water, the cities of Boston and Cambridge are so spatially near, yet beautifully independent and distant from one another in terms of culture and heritage.

My first experience with both cities couldn't be more on the opposite ends of the weather scale as well. Fighting through a heat wave as we were given a walking-tour about Cambridge on the first day of our actual orientation, I clearly remembered swearing to myself as I recalled the Director's words of *ahem* wisdom; those which clearly stated that "it's better to bring a jacket along during June, as it can still be cold if it gets windy."

I remembered sweating profusely under the sweltering heat as we made our way within and without the MIT campus, invading the other university in town (*ahem* Harvard), before ending off at Harvard Square, which was probably somewhat considered the town center of Cambridge and very much within walking distance from the rest of town. In fact, almost the entire area was within the realms of "walking distance".

Cambridge was a quaint little town, with the short little buildings wearing the faces of its heritage clearly on their walls. The town made no effort to disguise the fact that it was essentially a University-town, with the general populace mostly of the expected age as well, and almost all bearing somewhat intellectual mugs.

Reminiscent of Nikko (Japan), Harvard Square seemed to be the area in which most of the roads came together in a crossing, and resulted in a natural choice for the emergence of the shops that surrounded it. Speaking of which, the shops, while hardly bearing the extensiveness and variety of those in a fast-paced metropolis, had their own laid-back, low-storeyed, lazy-flavour that held true to its "slow-paced, small town" roots.

Not Pictured: Profuse Sweating

A refreshing change of pace to what I've been used to back home, all would have been well have with the hospitable welcome into the "Land of the Free" save for the fact that we were made to walk more than 3 hours in the sweltering heat; so much so that we had to take refuge in a little teahouse to wait for the sun to set on us, and at this time in this part of the world, the sun sets no earlier than 8 and rises no later than 5.

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