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Trip is almost over; I’m sitting in the Airport waiting for our gate to be called.

This morning Laura, Cian and Gar went to watch the Irish match and myself, Dan and Conal went back to the toy shop to get some more of the handheld media players. The shop was very pleased to shift six more this morning and I think Garth is going along to pick some up too. He left this morning to stay with friends. After the toy shop we went to a Barns & Noble and picked up a few books.

After that we went down to the Frog Pond in the park near our hotel and went ice skating. Some chickened out but myself, Colm, Ivan, Pili, Laura and Dan went. I had never been before and it has been many years since I’ve been rollerblading but it was still lots of fun. None of us had done it more than once before which made the playing field somewhat level.

I nearly fell once when I collided with a seven year old who went zooming past, and there were kids who must have been as young as four there. Laura left early and Cian got many photos of us (Dan even managed to get a video while he was skating). After a lap or two you do begin to get tired and so your ankles give in a bit and it starts to really hurt, thankfully there was very little walking after that.

So after that we went over to the airport and this leaves me here now. It’s been a great trip; we discovered that Americans put High-fructose corn syrup (which is loaded with GM) in nearly everything. Its come to the point where we are thinking of getting t-shirts with “I went to the US and all I got was High-Fructose Corn Syrup” printed on them.

Anyway, we’re being called to the gate, it’s been a great trip and I hope to come back here in the future.

Dan (Nagle) left early this morning to fly to Pittsburgh to visit friends and so our vice leader (leader in charge of Vice) Ivan took us to IBM.

Though that didn’t go quite as planned, after chatting to a rather ignorant security guard Ivan was turfed out of the building having been told that there may be tours but he didn’t know and wouldn’t be able to check. Laura was having none of this and so marched in and batted her eyelids and managed to get him to make a few phone calls. After all that we still didn’t manage to get in, and so we headed to the nearest mall (Same one as Tuesday) and lounged around for a bit.

Laura won tickets to the new Pink Panther movie; Cian bought a ridiculous hat for his skiing trip and myself, Dan and Gareth browsed around a toy shop, the apple store and a video game store. Purchases were made both for others and myself. I got a Picture viewer / Video player / mp3 player for my brother (who is also my God-son) for his birthday. Only when I got back to the hotel and Googled them did I realise how much of an ultimate nerd toy it was and so myself, Dan, Conal and Steve are returning in the morning to get more for ourselves. Oh, and they’re only going to work out to be a tenner.

After a rest and some astonishment at the new toy we went off to a bowling alley. All I can say is wow. These guys know how to impress; the place was like a mix between a nightclub and an alley. There was a bar, dance floor, large TVs above each lane, dim but not dark or dull lighting (and you could still see what you were doing) leather couches and a DJ playing good music. Oh, and it smelt nice, a rarity. This is how the game fared. Laura just watched due to her back and Steve stayed in the hotel and slept.

The game was split into two lanes with myself, Colm, Pili and Ivan in one lane and Cian, Conal, Dan and Gareth in the other. At the end of the second game Gareth had finished and Ivan was just about to take his last shot, he had 119. He got a strike and so two more shots, the first one getting five. All he needed to beat Gareth was 3 pins but he missed and so lost the round but still won the game.

I started very badly in the second game, missing the first and only getting a point a piece in the third and fourth runs. And it’s strange how my scores and Cians turned out so close.

After that we met up with three of Gareth’s friends for dinner in Cheers, the bar/pub which was the inspiration for the TV show. Dinner was extremely filling and so a doggy bag is sitting on the window-sil for consumption in the airport tomorrow.

This morning we (minus Laura as she has a bad back) paid the science museum a visit and I have to say it is a must for anyone with a good 4-5 hours spare in Boston. We saw a 3D presentation of the surface of mars, a planetarium visit to the world of Star Wars, along with many exhibits on things like a practical demonstration of the Bell curve, an animal show concerning an alligator, a large interactive Star Wars exhibit and an assortment of interactive exhibits based on the sciences.

When we were dropping off our coats and bags the attendant asked us where we were from. After showing her our jackets with the SkyNet logo and our usernames on the sleeve, she exclaimed “Why, you guys really are geeks!”

After the Museum we went shopping in what turned out to be primarily a clothes Mall. Myself Dan and Gareth found a Gadget store and passed the time in there. After this we headed back to the hotel for a quick rest and then went out to dinner in the same place we were in on Tuesday night. Over dinner many quotable things were said…

As it is Gareth’s birthday today we all went down to the Irish pub. Steve was the first to leave as he was wrecked again, then Dan, Colm and Conal followed suit, leaving myself, Ivan, Pili, Dan (Nagle), Gareth and one of his friends from Boston (who left before we did) Cian and Laura. After that we came back here and Laura and Gareth went to one of the clubs.

Which leaves me now, listening to the drunken nite-club goings on of Boston, yelp and scream. Even though I’m 11 floors up its no different from Ireland in this respect, the weekend has started and its only Thursday, God help the countries supply of sleeping pills tomorrow.

Up early this morning (eight o’clock) and after some suspicious tasting sausages in the diner next door we got the tube to MIT. Steve was wrecked and so slept in for the day.

The first thing that hit us was the size of the campus. Imagine if Trinity included everything from O’Connell street to Stephens green and your getting close to the length of it, its about half that in width. But despite the campuses immense size there are only 4k undergrads (and 6k post grads).

We walked from the on campus tube station (Kendall) to the main building, passing a lab on the way showing a sign on the window saying “Tapping on the glass may scare the animals”. Upon arrival in the main lobby area Dan, Colm and Gareth left for their presentations. We sat and waited for the on campus tour to start. There are two walking tours each day.

We were in a group with a few prospective students and a rather loud past student who seemed at some points to think we was the tour guide. We first saw the student centre, and then the sports facilities. We learned that in order to graduate you must pass a swimming test which consists of swimming 100m and treading water for five minutes. The idea being that because the campus is for a large part on the riverbanks, if you fell in you could save yourself. The test can be taken at any time and most students get it over with in orientation week though those who cant swim spend some time over the four years learning and then take it near the end.

Next we moved back to the main lobby area and we were told of the MIT meaning of hacking. Hacking in MIT has nothing to do with computers and concerns ingenious pranks students play. One such example is that students managed to cover the words Agriculture and Commerce in the colleges’ motto “Established for Advancement and Development of Science its Application to Industry the Arts, Agriculture and Commerce” with Entertainment and Hacking using painted Styrofoam boards. The hack was so successful that when the security guards came to the area after hearing students were on the roof they noticed nothing out of the ordinary, infact, three separate instigation’s found nothing until the hackers rang in and told them what had been done.

Other hacks have included placing what seemed like a campus security guards car on top of the largest dome. The car was really just a shell but it included a dummy of a cop, a box of donuts and coffee, flashing lights, furry dice and a parking ticket.

It became quite obvious that MIT was the college in Boston with the sense of humour. The bookshop also sells MIT clothing and many support Harvard bashing references like “Friends don’t let friends go to Harvard”.

The tour also brought us past Boston’s tallest building. Buildings in Boston have a heights limit (or at least did when this was built) of 30 floors. This minor sang was circumvented by making the first floor 30m high. This building has square windows which look like pixels and so one hack was to convert this building into a giant game of Tetris.

So after the tour we visited the MIT museum which included displays on early photography, holograms and AI. It was well worth the visit. We were planning on going to a Google talk but when we turned up we discovered it was a tutorial for MIT students only.

MIT is a great place and I would love to do a post grad there. Over 80% of the students study Science or Engineering though they still offer a wide range of courses from Law to Arts.

Back then to rest a bit before dinner, which was meant to be Italian but upon seeing the menu prices we decided to go for a Chinese. If you receive small red chillies with a “hot” meal please don’t chew them to a paste…

After that most went back for sleep but I went to an Irish pub with Dan (Nagle), Colm, Cian, Ivan and Steve. Me being the “designated driver” got free Sprite which I wasn’t complaining about. There was a list of translations painted on the wall of the pub from Irish-Englishto US-English including Rashers, jammers and bold.

Sushi went well last night; I’ve discovered wasabi, which is like a mixture of horseradish and strong English mustard, really just to cover up the taste of raw fish in my opinion. I tried tuna and Salmon but what really made me gag was the seaweed used to wrap some of the pieces up in, nasty stuff!

Up early this morning to head to Harvard, from the lack of students we saw on campus we assumed they were on spring break. We saw a notice for a one bedroom student flat near the campus going for a grand a month, nothing special, the same kind of thing that would probably go for about 400 a month near UL.

After that we did a bit of shopping, Americans aren’t kidding when they say malls are huge. Again if anyone wants me to get them anything there are still plenty of shopping slots on the itinerary. We were in an electronics / Music / Games store which was unreal, there were several areas with plasma TVs and leather couches where the public could come in and play some Xbox 360 (which is rare and in much demand over here) or watch a DVD from your pick of any in the store, just to “test the equipment”.

After shopping on the tube ride home Cian decided he had left a bag on the tube after we were all off and leapt back on. To his dismay the bag was actually inside the bag he was carrying.

We rested up a bit and got a tube ride to TGI Fridays only to discover that even though they were still giving the menu for the Boston branch online the store had infact, after 28 years of business, closed only weeks ago. Still, the steak with jalapeno butter hit the spot in the next restaurant down.

Gareth, Colm and Dan (Nagle) are giving presentations in MIT tomorrow and, as usual, they were left till the last minute. Some of us were tired ad went to sleep but myself, Steve, Ivan, Pili (Ivan’s girlfriend) and Dan went to see Underworld: Evolution which was middling. Its the first time in a while since I’ve been to the Cinema and so I saw trailers for three movies I have to see, V for Vendetta, UltraViolet and Silent Hill.

After we came back Gareth informed us we had to be in the lobby ready to head at eight in the morning which is about seven hours time.