Red Eye #1 & Boston day #1

8 hours before our direct flight to Boston JetBlue called and told us that our flight had been cancelled and that we had been rebooked on separate flights. We called and eventually got on a flight together, but one that involved a layover in Long Beach (travel advice: always sign up for free frequent flyer programs and when something goes wrong write and complain and you'll probably get a travel credit, like we eventually did). I lucked out on this 2nd Long Beach-to-Boston leg because the very Bostonian man sitting next to me a sleeping pill (this guy was 100% masshole, and would make these loud wise cracks, my favorite one being when he stood up and said "dang there's a lot of good looking people on this flight, and by good looking people I mean me") but despite his massholeness he was kind to offer me that sleeping pill that saved my ass and ensured a few hours of decent sleep. JJ, a few rows up, wasn't so lucky. So when we landed and our hotel room wasn't yet ready (thanks again for the room Mom and Dad!) JJ was barely hanging on. We walked around a few miles and eventually ended up at Boston Common where JJ passed out in mid-sentence. I thought it was very funny and captured the moment:

I eventually woke her up and we walked around for a while longer and saw a few more things, such as:

• this monument celebrating the world's first use of ether. "To commemorate that the inhaling of ether causes insensibility to pain. First proved to the world at the Mass. General Hospital in Boston, October A.D. MDCCCXLVI."
  

• Janet falling asleep again:

• An Edgar Allen Poe statue at the location where he was born (now a burrito shop)

• And the main branch of Boston Public Library. Really more of a museum than a library. The "tourist" sections, like the entrance, courtyard or areas displaying exhibitions were super nice, but the actually library sections hidden in the back (the stacks and anywhere with computers and desks) were in terrible condition. This is the courtyard:

• And this is from a nice exhibition on marionettes that they had on display:

Then we slept for a long while.

After we got up, and realized it was still day, we headed out to Cambridge to see MIT and Harvard. We walked across the Harvard Bridge, which has a great story of a fraternity hazing that I actually kind of a like. In 1958 a MIT frat measured the length of the bridge in the height of its shortest pledge, a 5 foot 7 inch guy named Oliver Smoot. So to do this they had Smoot laydown and would paint a mark for every 10 "smoots". The total distance of the bridge came out to be "364.4 smoots plus one ear":

 

And here's a picture of Smoot and company doing the measurements back in 1958:

 

The "smoot" has even become a semi-recognized distance and has been added into at least one dictionary and you can even convert distances into smoots with google. 
Anyways, enough on smoots. The rest of Cambridge was pretty impressive as you would imagine. Beautiful old buildings and squares and cemeteries, etc.
On our way back to the room we stopped in at the jazz club Wally's Cafe that a lot of the Berklee College of Music students play at (my friend Joel's excellent recommendation). The place was great and we got there right at the end of the really cool Jam Session hour. It was just two guys, one on drums and the other on keyboard and it was completely out there and we loved it. In the hour and a half break between sets we met three really cool people who were also traveling, two from Israel and the other from Argentina. They were super inspiring and have traveled all over and gave us some good traveling tips and recommendations. But then it was blues hour, which neither of us were really digging. I was worried when I saw that Blues was coming up next and that the musicians were not young students but older dudes in khaki shorts (this is unfair, I know). I mean I love old gospel or country blues but have a hard time with most of the rest of the blues that people still play. So we stayed for a bit to give it a fair chance and then went back to sleep even more.