Boston is such a diverse city. There are a lot of foreigners due to the many universities. There always seems to be lots going on eg. Boston Film Festival, Boston Arts Festival, African Festival, etc. There's also a lot of experiments going on (you see the adverts in the subway) by universities asking for volunteers to participate.
A lot of things are also free. Harvard sponsors a lot of social get-togethers, public talks, etc. There is a Harvard Student Spouses Group, which get together for tea weekly and there are different groups e.g. music, arts, children's playgroup, men's group, etc. sponsored by Harvard. Even at the student housing there are welcome parties and other events constantly happening. Some museums are free for students and residents (and oh yes for military!).
The top universities attract a lot of politicians, international professors, speakers, presidents, celebrities, etc. and often they give a talk. The Dalai Lama will be visiting MIT in October. The presidents of Argentina and Greece have visited Harvard.
The Ig Nobel Prizes are fun awards given to academics (the prizes are presented by real Nobel Prize laureates). We attended the ceremony on 21 September 2012 at the Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, what a fun night filled with intelligent, off the wall humour! The 'Welcome, Welcome speech' was classic - as we all waited anxiously to hear the speech, the speaker took out her sheets of paper and started her speech, looked at the audience and said 'Welcome.........' then looked at the special guests on stage and said 'Welcome'. And that was it! Put away her papers and went to sit down... classic! The awards go to funny, interesting research eg. why a pony tail wags left to right while running instead of up and down, what happens to coffee when you are walking with a cup and to clever inventions like a bra than also acts as a gas mask in emergencies, a speech jammer which interrupts your speech with your own speech. Very smart ideas. There were 2 airplane deluges during the ceremony, where the audience must try throw paper airplanes into a human target on stage. Videos of the event are on youtube.
The age of instant gratification
Here there are so many choices - for brands, service providers, products, etc. Products also arrive when they say it will arrive, they provide constant updates either via email or sms. You can easily get your order the very next day, if you select that option.
I've used Grubhub, which is like Mr Delivery in SA. The one time our order was late so I called the customer service centre and they greeted me by name (must be caller ID!), asked me to hold while they call the owner of the restaurant and then apologised for order being late and said that they'd email me a $5 food voucher - what fantastic customer service. After every 3 orders, you get a chance to play 'Yummy Rummy' which allows you to pick a card from 4 cards and you can win a free drink or even a free meal.
We discovered that we can buy white board paper which clings onto walls with static - what a fantastic invention, Athol loves it, we've plastered his study walls with this paper so that he can go crazy writing up all his crazy ideas. Apparently, they even have white board paint, so you could paint all your walls with this special paint, so you can write on the walls since it has a white board finish - amazing!
Ordered ink from HP, it got delivered the very next day and shipping was free. It came with a free plastic envelope for me to put in my empty cartridges so I can post (free) them back to them for recycling... makes sense.
I've discovered that Amazon sell most things and often at good prices since they sell items on behalf of other companies. Also students get free 2 day shipping.
Returning items is easy, most shops allow you to print a return label or it is sent with the product then you can just drop it off at UPS or USPO. You can also return it at the store. No questions asked!
Amazon have Instant Video, so you can buy or rent TV episodes or movies and watch it via internet streaming. Youtube also have movies now that you can buy. Luckily interent is fast and reliable here so good enough for watching.
The Fall (or Autumn as we call it in South Africa)
People always rave about the colours of the Fall in Boston, so I was looking forward to seeing what all the hype was about. The other day I've noticed tree leaves which were very bright red, really beautiful! Our leaves back in SA just turn brown. Looking forward to watching all the leaves turn colour, the colours will be amazing.
Also the weather has become quite cold and it is not even winter yet. Its almost like our winters in SA. So from an extremely hot and humid Boston summer, we've moved swiftly to what I call 'SA winter' where the min temperature is about 10 degrees celsius and max 18 degrees - and it is only mid September! Am keeping my fingers crossed for a mild winter :)
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