Will Write 4 Travel: Greetings from Boston...

Except that I am now back home in Albuquerque. I started this post when I was in Boston for most of last week and never finished it.

I took a red-eye flight (upgraded to first class between Albuquerque and Charlotte. Woohoo!) and arrived in Boston on Tuesday morning. I was in town for a professional development conference and we were told that we wouldn't be able to check in to our rooms until noon, so I had a couple of hours to kill.

I decided to stick around the airport for a bite to eat because I didn't want to lug my suitcase around with me and had nowhere to store it. I grabbed a mug of New England clam chowder from Legal Sea Foods. Clam chowder was definitely on my extensive "must-eat" list even though I eat it all the time, especially at Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes!

The conference took place on the campus of Northeastern University and our lodging was in the dorms at International Village. We had single rooms that shared a bathroom with a second room, but I wound up having no one as my suitemate. Score! It was still odd sleeping on a twin-size mattress though.

So blurry, sorry!

On Tuesday night, I went with some of my fellow conference attendees to dinner near the Prudential Center. It was a beautiful night and made for a nice walk.

Buildings in Back Bay, including the Prudential Building

First Church of Christ, Scientist

During the conference, we also took most of our meals in the dining halls. It brought me back to that one year that I actually lived in the dorms at UCLA!

One day I had a huge pastrami sandwich from the dining hall's kosher station.

One weird thing about the conference location was that they were doing construction in the building where all of our sessions were being held. I hope the conference organizers got a discount!

The conference had nothing planned on Wednesday night, so I could have either hung out with my conference attendees or skip out on my own. My loner self, of course, wanted to explore solo.

The Museum of Fine Arts is open late on Wednesday nights and also admission is by voluntary contribution that night as well, so I took advantage of the fact that we were only about a 5 minute walk away and spent a few hours at the museum.

The museum has a world-class collection that includes American Art.

Impressionist paintings like Claude Monet's Water Lillies.

Asian art, including a Japanese temple room

Contemporary art

Even a collection of Egyptian mummies and sarcophaguses (is that a word?)

and John Singer Sargent murals.

The MFA was holding a huge exhibition on the works of Katsushika Hokusai, the first internationally recognized Japanese artist. The works were almost entirely woodblock prints and were so detailed and beautiful to look at.

The combination of it being a voluntary contribution night and the last week of the exhibition, it was almost impossible for me to enjoy the works. I was also getting hungry, so I quickly browsed through the galleries. I wish I had had more time to really take all of them in.