boston: good times, tired feet, & full bellies (day 3)

I’m sick of blogging about Boston. I thought about skipping day 3 all together but, for posterity’s sake, I will just give an abbreviated version.

Basically, Sunday was spent touring Harvard and walking the streets of Cambridge. We took this hilariously awkward and LOUD tour of the campus.

 

I endured the shouting and corny jokes because I loved hearing the history and back-stories to the campus. Curtis… not so much.

 

 

It was hard to tear him away from the random wood block sculpture. He found that more interesting than the tour.

 

While I thought Harvard was beautiful, it seemed to oddly fall short of my expectations. Both Curtis and I found ourselves thinking, “this just isn’t as pretty as Carolina”. Now, before you start thinking how egocentric and biased we are (“it’s not always about YOU and YOUR school, Chesneys”), let me tell you that there are a LOT of similarities to prompt this comparison.

Though Harvard was founded probably 200 years before Carolina,  a great deal of the HU’s growth came about in the same era as UNC’s. Hence, the similarities…

I can’t remember what they call it, but I’ll call it the Harvard “quad”.  It’s JUST like the ones at Carolina except with more trees. Also, there are two of them, like UNC’s “upper” and “lower”. Most of the buildings are even similar architecturally.

 

 

This is their version of Wilson Library. Seriously… a  huge, historic library on the “quad”. Ironically, we did not go in this library either. Carolina peeps: can’t you just see yourself posing for graduation pictures on those steps?

 

 

Lastly (and hilariously), Harvard too has a large 1960’s-style eyesore of a building, similar to UNC’s undergrad library or Venable Hall. Thankfully, Carolina had the sense to finally tear that one down and try again.

Honestly, though, I did like Harvard a lot... pretty campus, gorgeous architecture, cool town. I think what I realized, though, was that it didn’t need to be quite so high on a pedestal. We had it pretty great down in little old NC as well.

 

Two final impressions of Boston to leave you with:

First:  The dichotomy of old vs. new.  No matter where you look, you see both historic and modern; signs of the foundations and the future of our country.  I think that is what I will remember most about the city.

 

Second: THIS was the most common sight in Boston. I kid you not. Instead of a Starbucks on every corner, it was Dunkin’ Donuts. Dunkin’ Donuts after Dunkin’ Donuts after Dunkin’ Donuts. Who knew??