Captain’s log - August 26 – Boston Logan Airport

I just called my dad and he asked me why I stopped writing blogs. Sorry dad, just taking a short break :) .
Well, to tell the truth nothing much happened during the last 3 days (I am writing this at 10 am, so the 26th doesn’t count yet). On the 23rd I just sat in the mall for the entire day, enjoying their free wireless internet in the food court (the hotel I was in didn’t have “free” internet; it was a mistake that I didn’t repeat when I picked the hotels for the rest of my trip). I browsed through the mall for a while then returned back to the food court and reserved the rest of my trip hotels and tickets. I returned back to my hotel and that was it for that day. On the 24th I woke up around 9 am and walked to the mall to have breakfast from Dunkin’ Donuts. I then called a cap and went to the nearest metro station. I needed to get to Needham (when Olin University is.) so I followed a map that was in a booklet I had. Jumping from the metro to a commuter train, I finally reached Needham. I asked in a shop where the college is and it turned out I was 2 miles away from it. I looked around for a taxi or bus but didn’t find any; so I decided to walk (Being from Saudi Arabia, Boston noon heat was nothing! Plus there was a little breeze in the air). After about a 20 min walk I reached there, it was a small college but with really cool buildings. I followed the signs to the admission office where they start the tours for the new students. I asked a girl at the admission office for Emma Goodman (whom I was supposed to meet), turn out she was Emma and we agreed that we will meet after I go with the next tour around the campus. Following the tour, they showed us a video created by one of the students about the college (so far they just had 2 graduation classes). All the students with all the teachers was about 300 people with ratio of 8 students to 1 teacher (they had their own joke about them going to war against the Persian, it’s a reference to a movie released this year called “300″). Anyway, they took use to the dorms and showed us the rooms (around double the size for a room at KFUPM). They also had suites where 6 people can share a suite, each person gets his/her own room and all share 2 bathrooms (if I remember right, maybe it was one bathroom). Every floor has a large living room in the middle with flat screen TV and a big kitchen. They also have an “Honor Code” and that’s why they can leave their laptops and stuff in the living room and not fear of it being stolen. Next was the academic building and the class rooms. A 4 floors building with a huge glass side and design classes with couches in them. We returned to Admission building and passed by the library and that’s where our tour ended (it only got 3 buildings). I then met with Emma and told her what we do and why I was here. All my questions was about the teaching methods or about the plans of the college to host a summer camp, so she couldn’t help me much with these questions, but she did gave me the email to a senior teacher, so that helped. I said goodbye and walked back to the train station and luckily, the train just arrived. I took the train back to the metro station, but then decided that since the train goes to a station farther into the city, I’ll just walk in Boston for a while then use my metro ticket to get back to the hotel. I stopped by Back Bay station, walked to about Arlington station then back to Chinatown station and then to South station. I took a Big Mac lunch at the South station and then took the metro from there back to the hotel. I was dead tired by then so I just took a shower, did my daily prayers (I always do them, in case you are wondering, dad!) and went to sleep. Having nothing to do on the 25th, I just went to the mall and sat at the food court, again enjoying their free internet and doing some drawings and reading a book. On the 26^th I woke up around 6:30 am, checked out and took a cap from the hotel to the metro and from the metro to the airport …… And that was it. I think I’ll upload the images of the trip soon; I don’t want to try my luck with the Saudi internet.

Take care, and have a nice day.