The torrential rain stopped (at least temporarily), so I got a chance to walk around a little. Having met my high school friend in Kenmore Square, I walked on Comm Ave (toward the Boston Commons) and hung a left on Mass Ave.
I decided I needed to check the functioning of the Harvard Bridge.
See, when I was a college student, the distinguishing feature of the Harvard Bridge was not that it provided a convenient way to get across the Charles River between MIT and the Back Bay. Rather, it was that the weather walking across the bridge was always significantly worse than the weather on either side. If it was drizzling on either side of the bridge, it would be pouring on the bridge. If it was warm and breezy in Cambridge and Boston, there would be gale force winds on the bridge. If delicate snowflakes were descending over MIT and the Back Bay, there would be grapefruit-sized hail descending on the bridge.
I think the bridge’s weather machine must be broken. Today, the bridge weather was not discernibly different from the non-bridge weather.
The smoot markers are badly in need of repainting. (If Wikipedia is to be believed, Oliver Smoot, the namesake of the unit of distance, is a cousin of Nobel Prize winner George Smoot.) And the smoots seemed shorter than I remember them being twenty years ago, which is weird, given that my legs haven’t gotten any longer since then.
Maybe the walk across the bridge just seems shorter when you’re not being pelted by hail.
In any event, I’ve found a comfortable chair, an outlet, and a strong wifi signal at the university where the buildings are known by their numbers rather than their names. I’m hopeful that the sun may actually come out by the time I’m ready to do some more walking.
The Building 10 courtyard is sort of nice. Also the area by the chapel, but I don’t know what number that is, and there’s not as much shelter from rain there (at least there wasn’t).
Do you realize that you are in the temporary capital and hotbed of early music in this country? It’s the Boston Early Music Festival, and if you see — well, I can’t really describe it, but early-music types, you know — everywhere, don’t be surprised. You might even follow someone to one of dozens of Fringe or central concerts. (I’m missing it this year, and regretting it a bit, as perhaps you can tell.)