Franzi's 4th Boston visit: holiday season, Blue Man Group, biking and hiking, and Boston Celtics

In late November I prepared for Franzi's arrival by organizing tickets and a to-do list she could open as a daily surprise. After she arrived in Boston (28.11.) we started the to-do list playing frisbee at Sunday afternoon (29.11.) and then went to Café St. Petersburg to meet with Franzi's english learning group for Russian dinner. On Monday (30.11.) we watched the christmas tree lightning at Copley Square. It came with free drinks (egg nog, hot chocolate, coffee, and water), free cookies, and a small enternainment program. The christmas tree shined in three colors - as expected for Americans^^.

Copley Square christmas tree lightning

Wednesday (2.12.) we visited the Museum of Fine Arts. We were surprised about how much great art there was collected and not even saw half of it within our 2 hour visit. I was particularly impressed by their collection of old Egyptian art, such as sarcophagus. Thursday (3.12.) we shortly visited the christmas tree lightning at Boston Common, but left early to watch the Blue Man Group at Charles Playhouse. We truly laughed a lot during the show. And right at the beginning I was even involved in it when they told a fictous story about me. Probably knowing my name from my credit card payment at the bar just before the show started^^

Photo after the show :)

On Friday (4.12.) we wanted to play frisbee again, but somehow we missed that they canceled the game. Instead, we ended up doing just a bicycle night trip^^. On Saturday (5.12.) we prepared picnic and started early. A 15km bicycle ride brought us to the blue mountains. On the way we saw a huge car procession led by a long black car, probably carrying a coffin, followed by three massive SUVs and 40-50 additional cars... interestingly, we solely saw black people in the cars. Dorchester/Mattapan are obviously home to many African Americans. In the Blue Hills we went hiking for 3 hours. The weather was amazing with blue sky and sun all day long. Our picnic spot was on a big rock that we climbed. We finished our hike at the Chickatawbut Observation Tower with having the second half of our picnic before riding the 15km back home. After the exhausting trip, we enjoyed a house party at Thibaud's place - a french colleague of my friend Patrick... and as so often, a cool french guy :D

Awesome weather for a hiking day!

Prudential and John Hancock towers seen in the distance

love hiking when the sun is out :)

On Sunday (6.12.) we initially planned to visit the Museum of Science. But due to the great weather we skipped that idea and went on a bicycle trip to Pleasure Bay and had picnic at Head Island, next to Castle Island. We then took a walk around Castle Island and Pleasure Bay before visiting a christmas market in trendy South End. The christmas market and art markets around were rather like expensive flea markets. We then visited Faneuil Hall with its christmas holiday light show blink. We met Christina and Abby and watched the light show together. The lights were nice but the show rather funny having the christmas tree blink in rythym to songs. I used the time to shoot some photos. Then, instead of having dinner, Franzi preferred to go shopping at USA's first Primark at Downtown Crossing :D Back home we opened the christmas presents that Franzi brought from my family... Nikolaus :)

Starting the day with picnic at Head Island enjoying the sun

Sunset view of Boston Downtown from 4th street brigde

Christmas tree and Old Custom's Clock Tower from Faneuil Hall

Holiday lights at Faneuil Hall

Old Custom's Clock Tower and Quincy Market

Old Custom's Clock Tower from Columbus Park

Monday (7.12.) morning, we went to the German International School Boston (GISB). When I was honored with a dissertation award by MLP, one of their partners - the initiative MINT Zukunft Schaffen - asked me to hand over an award to the German School in Boston... and so I did :) Even a video is available. I was a little unstructured as I was told to cut my text by 60% just before the video started. But it was still fun. Franzi talked a lot to the school's director concerning their school programs. We then enjoyed one of Boston's best bagel for breakfast at Kupel's bakery before I went to work... definitely a nice start into the day^^
On Wednesday (9.12.) we played frisbee again and on Thursday (10.12.) we attended the christmas party organized by the German Academic International Network (GAIN), German Consulate, and the Goethe Institute. A lot of delicious German christmas food including Stollen and Lebkuchen and they made Glühwein :D
On Friday (11.12.) we went to see Celtics against Golden State Warriors at TD Garden. Franzi was shopping before the game and didn't know that bringing a backpack was forbidden. So we left the backpack at a nearby apartment building with the protier - very helpful! The basketball game then was great. A very close game with three overtime extensions. The shows during the breaks were cool too. After the basketball game we picked up a car from car rental at Boston Logan airport to go on a trip the next day...

Kupel's bakery - Boston's best bagels

Celtics vs Golden State Warriors at TD Garden

Patrick, Abby, Christian, Franzi, and I

Boston Indian Summer

After I returned to Boston (11.10.), I got busy preparing a talk for the inofficial "colrain meeting 2015". Founded by four professors from Harvard and MIT, it became an annual meeting bringing together the offspring of their labs - Boston's (and the world's) who is who in molecular cancer research. I was extremeley nervous about giving a talk on my project in front of all these big names - mostly Harvard and MIT professors including Robert Weinberg and Tyler Jacks. After stressing out myself, my wife, and my family, it was a great meeting in the small town named Harvard and the people liked my talk (26.10). Other than that, the meeting offered some great and inspiring talks. Also, Harvard town displayed some great Indian Summer colors and we went on a small hike through the nearby forest to enjoy the colors of autumn foliage.

Hiking in Harvard's woods during colrain meeting

Back in Boston, I attended the annual German-American-Conference at Harvard, which was quite a lot of fun. Good talks/discussions and the best exhibitions I have seen at a conference yet. Particularly a cute little robot with quite a nice AI. The greatest highlight was sureley Thomas Gottschalk's talk. Later we had a small halloween drinking party :)

 

Indian Summer at Harvard Campus

The next day (01.11.), I finally went on an Indian Summer trip to see Boston's autumn foliage. I went on a 30km biking trip along the Charles river, passing Newton townhall and Chestnut hill reservoir before going to work :) Typically, Indian Summer kicks in a little earlier in Boston, but this year it was slow due to a warm fall season. The views were great during my bike trip, I enjoyed it a lot.

View from Boston University Bridge

Indian Summer at its prime time

Newton townhall

Pond infront of Newton townhall

Sunset at Chestnut hill reservoir

heading back from the trip to work

Also my night walks back home from work or gym looked great these days.

Harvard Latin School at Longwood Campus

Harvard Medical School main building

The next weekend (08.11.) we went on a wine and hike trip to nearby blue hills. I took us longer to get there than expected because the metro had repairs running during weekend and provided busses instead. Also, public transport in Boston is less available on Sundays. We arrived at Blue Hills at noon and started our hike. We were not well organized - as usually for big groups when everyone thinks someone else will surely take care of it^^ But after some time we found the trail we were looking for. It was a nice sunny day, perfect for hiking. However, the Blue Hills solely offer easy hikes anyways. But the booze (beer, whine, whiskey) together with the sun during the hiking led to some sweating though^^ The hills offered nice views of Boston skyline in the distance. Many Americans we met on the way were surprised about us drinking booze in public on the way. They felt that was a bad example for the kids... well, maybe they should have told there kids we were having juice, not whine, in our cups. Most of the autumn foliage was fallen by this time, but the few remnants looked nice. We had a picnic on a hill overlooking Boston and at pond enjoying the sun. At the end of the hike we were all a little tipsy and two to three of us were literally drunk^^ A nice trip :)

Entering the Blue Hills

Boston's skyline in the distance

a little Indian Summer left

Nice pond with a small beach made a great picnic place