MIT Day

As the title suggests, today was focused on a college that I am actually considering applying to: MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology...). I wasn't expecting much in the way of the campus, so I was pleasantly expected by its pretty campus. But more on that later. Instead of eating breakfast at our inn, as we have been doing for the past few days, we decided to go out, and try this place called Cafe Luna, which was recommended by the owners of the bed and breakfast. Since it was so close (relatively), we walked there. As I am directionally challenged, I wanted to go in the opposite direction that it was actually in, but by following the only sane one in my family, my dad, we found our way. Once we got there, it was mostly filled up since it was so small, but we found enough seats to sit down. Unfortunately, the other people there were all in one big party, and so used up all of the  breakfast menus, so we had to wait a few minutes until we could actually find out what they served. Even though the menu was a bit limited, we all found something that would satisfy us. I got a Belgian waffle topped with fresh fruit. By this time, we were running a little close to the time scheduled at MIT, and were trying to hurry up, so we planned that if we were getting late, I would leave with one of my parents, while the other paid. Of course, as it always turns out, my food was the last to be served, so that plan didn't work out as well as planned.
After scarfing down my waffle (which was delicious, but would have been more so if I had had time to savor it), we sped-walked to the room where the informational session was taking place, which was the first part of our campus visit. Surprisingly, the talk was not only informational, but vaguely amusing. The speaker told us about the Harvard Bridge across the Charles River, which they didn't want their name on it because of poor workmanship, and that they try to inform everyone of their admission status by Pi Day. Afterwards, we went out onto this lawn and were split into groups. Although our tour giver was only so-so, I did like how she would add in some nerd jokes and comments, like this building was 1/8 of a sphere, and one of the dorms was in the shape of a sine wave. Some of the stories about the pranks, called hacks at MIT, played by some students in the past were pretty amusing, as well. My favorite was that someone once put a mock-up of a police car on the roof with a police officer with Dunkin Donuts on the roof of the doom, and it looked so realistic, that the police looked through their cars to make sure none had been taken. From the whole tour, I got the feeling that there was no way to be too nerdy on the campus, that it was part of the atmosphere, and they embraced that fact. I liked that about MIT, not to mention the fact that,as I stated before, the campus is quite picturesque - more so, I thought, than Harvard's. Afterwards, we walked along the Charles River to the MIT Coop to buy some t-shirts (as you can probably see by now, I am buying t-shirts from each college that I visit). My sister got this really cool one that says E/c^2 -- √-1 -- PV/nR. For those who don't like math and science, and/or don't know what that means - it says MIT, as in E/c^2 = m (Einstein's Theory of Relativity), √-1 = i (imaginary numbers), and PV/nR = T (gas laws). Isn't that creative? Pretty much, the selection of t-shirts were full of nerd jokes, which, of course, I found hilarious.
Our plan was then to go to the MIT Museum, but on the way we saw this restaurant that my mom had seen before in planning for the trip. It was this little, neat, green cafe/bakery called Flour. I got a mozzarella, pesto, and tomato sandwich on whole grain bread that they had made there. Needless to say, it was very flavorful and tasty. They also had a huge selection of bakery goods, from cupcakes, to mock-oreos, to chocolate mousse. Everything looked so good, that I couldn't make a decision on what to eat, and so let my family decide and then mooch off them. So, after eating lunch (my sister wouldn't let me eat dessert first, as the restaurant suggests), I had half of the oreo-like snack and part of a peanut butter cookie. Yum! After that, the MIT Museum was pretty disappointing. I mean, some of the stuff there was interesting, but for the most part, I was just distracted and didn't take much interest in the exhibits they had. There was this hologram exhibit at the very end that I thought was cool, but other than that, it was okay. Since we didn't have dinner, I convinced my mom and sister (my brother and dad had deserted us by then) to go to Toscanini's, which is apparently some famous ice cream store. They had weird flavors like Earl Grey, so when I got something that I thought would be normal, like burnt caramel, I was quite surprised when it was this really strong and bitter tasting mess that I didn't want. So, my mom convinced the person to just scoop out a new bowl of my other flavor, Vienna fingers, and everything was good. I know I should have taste-tested, but I thought caramel would have been safe. That's all for today. Tomorrow, we are spending the day in Rhode Island, so that should be fun, if sad, because it's the last real day of our vacation here in the Northeast. Until then!