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Despite my travel fatigue I have still seen and experienced a bit of what the cities of Boston, Chicago and Wichita have to offer.
Most of my time in the Boston area was spent in Cambridge, as I was studying at MIT. Cambridge is a super chilled student suburb. It has a relaxed vibe and many gorgeous old buildings. I stayed in central Cambridge, this was exactly half way between the campuses of MIT and Harvard. So of course I made sure I checked out both.
The city of Boston is across the river from Cambridge and is bustling in comparison. Boston has the nickname ‘Beantown’ which links back to Puritan times when people were not allowed to cook on Sundays. So on Saturday they would prepare a large pot of beans, that were slow to cook and leave them on the pot belly stove overnight so they were ready to eat on Sunday at mealtime.
It was rumoured that the sailors could tell when they got close to Boston because of the smell. Though it is unclear if it was the smell of beans cooking or the results of eating the beans. I think we will leave that up to your imagination.
Being yet another big city I found that there wasn’t much I wanted to see in Boston, though I did follow the first half of the historical ‘Freedom Trail’. As someone who is not interested in History, I don’t have any fascinating historical data to share. However I did find it a pleasant way to wander the city and check out the interesting old architecture and sculptures in the area.
My time in Chicago really was fleeting, I only spent a half day exploring the city. I wandered down the Magnificent Mile (main shopping street) and down to Millennium Park where I saw the sculpture I had always wanted to see, Cloud Gate, known colloquially as The Bean.
I really enjoyed the chilled out vibe at the park and surrounding area. I enjoyed a delicious sandwich and beer, not to mention an open classical music rehearsal.
I hear that doing an architectural boat tour down the river is an absolute must, but I didn’t get around to it myself.
Strange as it may seem, I made the trek to Wichita, Kansas to spend time with a very close friend. Wichita itself is a sprawling city, that is very flat and doesn’t seem to have a huge variety of activities on offer.
Despite this, it’s a very chilled out area. The riverside has lush green lawns and would be a great spot for a picnic. The riverside area is home to the indian sculpture The Keeper of the Plains, which is pretty cool. The city itself has many gorgeous old buildings interspersed with modern sculptural artworks, an area worth exploring.
Around 30 minutes drive out of the city is an area called El Dorado where the is a lake, camping areas and walking trails. A great spot to spend time on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Travel fatigue, unfortunately but unsurprisingly, is a natural aspect of longer term travel. I have been on the road now for 3.5 months. I did back to back tours, quick family visits and then have spent the last five weeks bouncing around the U.S. attending meetings with schools, industries, going to workshops, conferences and courses. Particularly the amount of learning and high level of interaction that I have engaged in lately is what has worn me out. It has all been extremely beneficial to me both personally and professionally, but I am exhausted.
I now have a two and a half week gap between two courses, so you would think I’m off to race around like a crazy person cramming in as much sightseeing as possible, which is what I usually do.
On this occasion I am doing quite the opposite. I had a few days in Boston and honestly, I wasn’t interested in exploring the city (I saw the most important parts when I first arrived there). I am now in Chicago and other than an afternoon adventure to Millennium Park yesterday to see the Cloud Gate Sculpture, I have made no effort to explore what Chicago has to offer.
Should I feel guilty about my lack of enthusiasm?
Absolutely not. It is important be in tune with your body. Sometimes after periods of busy-ness you simply need to slow things down. Take some time out to do mundane things like laundry, read a book, catch up on writing blog posts, or maybe just nap. Perhaps pop out and wander the streets for an hour or so, sit down to soak up some people watching – just take it slow.
It is important for both your physical and mental health to take time out, stop and smell the daisies. If you give yourself the time to recharge you are going to enjoy your travel experience much more.
With one part of the study tour over and a short gap before the next part would begin. A colleague, Marie, and I spent four days exploring New York at our own pace. While there we also met up with Wayne, who I had been on tour with from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro in May.
Around New York I revisited some places I had already been, as well as seeing new sites.
Top of the RockThe Top of the Rock is an observation deck accessible from Rockerfeller centre. I got my ticket combined with a MoMA ticket for $45, but I believe entry to Top of the Rock by itself is around $27.
There are three observation levels at the top of the building, approx. 850 feet (260 metres) above sea level. The lowest of the three is predominantly indoor, but has an outdoor section. The middle of the three is predominantly outdoor but has a small indoor area without views. The top level is smaller, and is completely outdoor. The views from the building are absolutely spectacular. The view of the Chrysler building wasn’t fabulous, but the Empire State Building and Central Park had clear, uninterrupted views.
Something I love about Observation decks, is that once you are there you can stay as long as you like. A suggestion would be to arrive at the end of the day to experience the views during daylight ours, stay through sunset and then appreciate the night skyline. My personal choice, based on a friends recommendation was to see the Top of the Rock during the day and the Empire State Building at night.
Statue of Liberty & Ellis IslandIt turns out that if you want to visit the Statue of Liberty’s museum in the pedestal or to go up to the crown, you need to book a couple of months in advance. So as you can imagine, I didn’t do those things. For $18 I got a ferry to Liberty Island and to Ellis Island, with an audio tour for each included in the price. It probably would have been cool to go up to the crown, but I honestly didn’t feel I was missing out by not having done it.
The audio tour around the Statue of Liberty was really good. It was interesting information and it was well narrated, the audio tour on Ellis Island was less interesting to me because it was more of a museum with loads and loads of history. I also found the building much too cold, and I was tired by that stage so I had quite a short attention span.
It was really cool to see Lady Liberty, she was a gift from France to the USA. The Americans simply had to make a pedestal for her to stand on. She is made of very thin copper on an iron frame and stands 305feet tall from the ground to the torch. I find the statue to be elegant, and I loved running around taking pictures!
Wall StreetA quick stroll along Wall Street and around the Financial District was interesting.
The Charging Bull sculpture is pretty awesome, but the crowd around it is ridiculously dense. There certainly isn’t even a glimmer of hope to photograph it without random people photobombing.
Down the way from the Charging Bull, on Wall Street itself is the New York Stock Exchange. The building is rather grand and imposing in a beautiful way.
The Guggenheim MuseumI’m not an art or museum lover but I do appreciate architecture and atmosphere. The museum design by Frank Lloyd Wright is fascinating both inside and out. I found it a very pleasant art gallery to wander through. The use of lines, curves, light and shade were fantastic and I even saw some art along the way that I appreciated looking at! It was worth my $18 student entry fee.
The Brooklyn Bridge is a New York icon, so we walked from Brooklyn across to Manhattan. The bridge structure is really cool to look at, so many interesting lines and symmetry. The walk is very pleasant, not very far and certainly not in the slightest bit taxing. It also provides great views on the Manhattan bridge and general surrounds. You can also cycle over it, but we chose to walk.
I have mentioned it previously, Central Park is simply enormous. It is 3.41km2 public park. It has cafes, lakes, a castle and more. It is a great place to go for a walk, have some food and just enjoy the atmosphere. After two visits I have still only seen a tiny portion of the park. If you want to see more of it and don’t have days to do it, then I would recommend looking into bike rental costs. If I had had the time I would certainly have done it.
We visited the Empire State Building just after sunset, the queues weren’t excessive and soon enough we were at the top, enjoying stunning views of New York at night. The roads are buzzing red with traffic feeding the city with life. The whole city glows and buzzes with energy, it’s quite spectacular to absorb such an amazing sight.
Around New York there are loads of things to see: interesting architecture, cute parks, cool sculptures and funky street art. Some things I really liked were the Flatiron Building, the Hope and Love sculptures and the glass cube Apple Store.
I would also highly recommend Bryant Park, near the New York Library, it’s certainly not even on the same scale as Central Park, but in it’s small size and location it is a hive of activity. There are Café’s, Bars, outdoor reading zones, tables and chairs, lawn space and more. They also have a big screen set up for evening movies during the summer. It’s a brilliant spot to hang out.
Our stay in New York coincided with July 4th. We went out and bought ourselves little American flags and parked our butts near-ish to the waterfront of the East River on the Manhattan side to enjoy an evening of fireworks. We chose not to go too close to the waterfront because the crowds were just way too big and full on for us. So we sat a block or two back and enjoyed the views of the fireworks over the rooftops of the lower buildings. It was a fabulous evening!!!
Check out all my New York photos on Flickr
On arrival in Philadelphia I straight away felt as though the city was much more relaxed than some of the other big cities we had visited. It has a sense of calm (comparatively speaking, since it is still truckloads busier than Hobart).
The purpose of my stay in Philadelphia was to attend the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) conference, an enormous conference that attracted somewhere around 18,000 or more participants from all over the globe. In between workshops and lectures I squished in some teeny moments of sightseeing.
I’m really appalling with history, particularly that of a country that is not my own. In my understanding the Liberty Bell has a whole lot of history, but is significant as a symbol of American Independence.
In the movie Rocky the main character, who I assume to be called Rocky, ran up a set of stairs in front of the Philadelphia Art Gallery and cheered at the top – so I am told (I have never actually seen the movie).
So I actually made it to the Rocky Stairs twice, the first time I wandered over there with a colleague to see it and take pictures. The second time I went for a run (the US food is catching up with me and I don’t want to buy new pants). So I ran the 1.5km to the stairs, ran up and down them a bunch of times (did NOT punch the air in celebration at the top) and ran back to my hotel. I did bump into some colleagues just near the rocky sculpture and they took a celebratory and red-faced photo as evidence of my effort.
In an app I have on my phone, I came across a picture of a sculpture called the Freedom Sculpture. It was only four blocks from my hotel, so I went to check it out. It’s stunning, very well crafted and with a strong message. I took loads of photos.
Beyond these sights, I wandered the streets and saw cool buildings, funky old town sights, sculptures of people who are probably famous and various other things.
Check out all my Philadelphia photos on Flickr
No matter where in the world you are right now, it’s a good time to go on an adventure!
Check out the good deals on Lonely Planet Guides this July!
Our study tour group headed to Washington DC for a period of about 26 hours, to have a dinner meeting with Bonnie Bracey-Sutton. Bonnie previously worked as the technology in education advisor to Bill Clinton during his time as President. We met her at the National Press Club (not your average backpacker’s dinner destination, thankfully I had packed a dress!) and enjoyed some chats about equality in education, different types of technology as well as many other various and random things.
The rest of our time in DC was spent frantically cramming in the sights. We decided that the easiest way to do this was with a ticket for a hop-on hop-off bus (bigbustours.com). From the top of our bus we took photos of some iconic buildings and monuments, the Capitol Building, National Archives, Jefferson Memorial, the Pentagon, the White House, Arlington Cemetery and many more.
We hopped off the bus at the Washington Monument and strolled down through the World War II memorial to the Lincoln Memorial. All places were of course jam-packed with people, but I really enjoyed seeing these places and taking the time to soak up the atmosphere.
In the evening, we popped by the White House to get a few quick pictures before getting caught in a sudden downpour. Our time in DC was very brief, but we used it wisely!
Check out all my Washington pictures on Flickr
Between flights, train trips and business appointments I saw a snippet of New York. I will be returning, so don’t stress that I missed most of the major icons.
9/11, the day the twin towers fell, I think everyone remembers where they were that day. I had moved to the Netherlands, my first time living away from home ( I don’t do things by halves – I move out for the first time and move straight to the other side of the globe) and was on aol chat (yes, THAT long ago) to a friend from home who told me a plane had crashed into one of the towers. I laughed at such a preposterous idea, but as his insistence I turned on the TV and was shocked to see that it was true.
Some colleagues and I made our way to the memorial, which I think has been beautifully designed, very tasteful and respectful. We didn’t go to the museum, but we certainly took some time to think about how that moment affected so many people.
The Chelsea Market is not an outdoor stalls kind of market, but a permanent indoor ‘market’ of shops. The building used to be in an industrial district and the building itself used to be the National Biscuit Factory. The building now appears to be an apartment block with a market on the ground floor. The building interior has been stripped back to have a very industrial yet modern feel. I loved the exposed brickwork and steel features. I didn’t look in any of the shops, but simply ogled the awesomeness of the building itself. It’s absolutely worth a visit!
The High Line is just outside Chelsea Market (though its actual start point is a south of the market). The High Line is an elevated train line that was disused and had fallen into disrepair. Rather than going through the very costly exercise of destroying it, it was converted into a walkway and urban garden.
The High Line is quite long, it extends from West 12th street to West 33rd. Along the way are loads of park benches, sculptures and art works. At a few points along the way are shops. At two points we also found some icy pole carts – these were delicious!!
Wandering the High Line is a brilliant way to spend a few hours, the scenery and atmosphere is just gorgeous and walking the length of it is, of course, good exercise.
From the High Line we spotted some kind of street festival in progress and decided to investigate.
Folsom Street East was a street fair with the theme ‘The New York you were warned about’ and is the “largest fetish block party on the east coast”. It was predominantly males wearing all sorts of bizarre and interesting outfits, which mostly appeared to be bondage related. It was pretty colourful street fair to wander. While fetish and kink aren’t my scene, I appreciated the humour in the arse-less trousers branded Cellblock 13.
MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art is a large, very famous, art gallery. I’m not the biggest art fan and by this time of day I was exhausted. Nevertheless I wandered floors 5, 4, 3 and the sculpture garden. The museum has beautifully displayed artworks, both old and new. I really enjoyed some of the very colourful art.
Also, after having visited the Salvador Dali museum and beach house in Spain and the Dali Desert in Bolivia, I was very happy to finally see the famed artwork “Persistence of Memory”.
On the third floor were some cool technology and pop culture exhibits. I learned a bit of history about some of the technology icons and symbols we use today and saw some original code from the PacMan game.
Tickets cost $25, or if you get the combined MoMA/Top of the Rock ticket it is $45 (it saves you $10 off the two tickets separately, and the Top of the Rock ticket is valid for 6 months from the purchase date)
I’m not sure if Times Square has any specific significance, I know it’s where the ‘ball drops’ at midnight on New Years Eve. Otherwise the area is known for all the bright lit up signage.
Walking around Times Square is as bright as walking under a midday sun, except the light is artificial. It is loud, obnoxious and quite the experience. In the words of a colleague it “looks like it has been designed by a 12 year old”.
I enjoyed walking around for a bit of a look-see, but that’s really all you need. Then I sought refuge in the enormous M&M world shop. What an extremely overpowering sugar smell! I loved the M&M shop, it’s so colourful and fun. Though I demonstrated extreme self-control and didn’t buy a thing, not even one single M&M!
Central Park
Central Park in New York is HUGE!!! It’s a park in the middle of the city, with loads of grass, trees, rocks, wildlife and paths that you can use for recreational purposes or even hire a horse and buggy to show you around.
With our limited amount of time, we grabbed some food from a delicatessen and sat in central park for a picnic dinner and watched the sun go down. We had a brief wander of the southern-most section and appreciated the calm of the park in comparison to the hustle and bustle of the city.
For all my New York photos, check out my album on Flickr
Every so often on the study tour we have a snippet of free time. In Seattle we had a day off before an evening train ride, to explore the city, and explore is exactly what we did!
Pike Place Market has existed since 1907 and is one of the oldest farmers markets. There are loads of tasty treats and creative products to be found. It’s really interesting to wander from shop to shop seeing, and sometimes testing, what is on offer.
The fish market is a particular highlight. The staff are a fantastic demonstration of collaboration and team work, yelling orders and throwing fish. Fantastic to see!
Starbucks opened their first store in Pike Place Market in 1971. The original store is still open and retains its old-school signage, but the company has grown exponentially into a multi-billion dollar since then.
As a huge corporation I’m not the biggest fan of Starbucks or any larger chain. However I can say that when you are travelling and are looking for something reliable, something that you know, Starbucks provides consistent products and quality (by that I don’t mean the worlds best coffee by the way, I’m just saying the quality they provide is consistent globally) world wide.
As someone who appreciates coffee, I couldn’t walk past the store and completely ignore it. Though looking at the line, I certainly wouldn’t line up and order a coffee!
Just below Pike Place Market you can find a little alleyway called Post Alley. The walls of the alleyway are a kaleidoscope of colour, it’s very eye-catching. On closer inspection it’s actually rather disgusting and most unhygienic!
Post Alley hosts a gum wall, anyone is welcome to contribute. Some people just stick their wad of gum to the wall, others use it to stick their business card to the wall and others get creative, stretching their gum into shapes and letters.
Seattle actually has quite a crazy history. Loads of bad town planning decisions that resulted in the city being entirely flooded, having insane raw sewerage problems, the city later being burned down completely, the city rebuilding but in some bizarre dual level system. Ultimately this resulted in a number of streets still existing under the streets and buildings of the current city.
There is a cool Underground Tour that you can do, it starts at Pioneer Square and goes under the neighbouring city blocks. I found it quite fascinating. It wasn’t the worlds best tour, but I think a contributing factor is the guide that you get. There is the potential for the tour to be extremely engaging. Certainly the city has enough rich history to make it a fantastic afternoon adventure.
Tickets cost $19
Seattle has at least one iconic building, the Space Needle. Most people head up the space needle to get a view of the city. It’s quite an interesting structure and is taller than it’s immediate neighbouring buildings. However these days, it’s actually rather tiny in the scheme of the city’s architectural landscape.
Rather than go up the space needle, we found a taller building with an observation deck, and were able to view the space needle from across town. Our views from this height were uninterrupted.
The Columbia Center has a Sky View Observatory providing pretty much 360 degree views of Seattle City. The Observatory is on the 76th floor, just over 300 metres above sea level.
The View is fantastic and I would recommend a visit. Tickets cost $14.25.
As part of the study tour we did pay the main campus of Microsoft a visit. The Redmond Campus is absolutely enormous!! They have 5000 staff working there who consume 2 millions gallons of coffee (I think Starbucks) annually!! It was a fun visit.
For all my Seattle photos, check out my album on Flickr
As mentioned previously, I’m in the USA because I got a fellowship to do a study tour essentially looking at Tech in Education. This means I am not going to have that many awesome travel posts in the coming weeks. But I thought I’d provide a some quick snaps of some cool places I have been (Google, Apple & Microsoft).
