Seen Around Beantown

In the last couple of months, we took in a couple of notable Boston sights: the New England Aquarium and the Museum of Fine Arts. These were great indoor activities for a few of those blustery New England winter weekends.

New England Aquarium:

The Aquarium had a really neat set-up that was both engaging and beautiful with a large penguin exhibit right in the centre. There was also a Giant Ocean Tank - a huge cylindrical tank that rose from the floor up to the ceiling (about 4 floors) - that was filled with various sea-life and served as a coral reef exhibit. Plus, they had a couple of "touch tanks" where we got to feel rays as they swam by and other little critters.

These fun guys greet you outside 
the entrance!

This picture doesn't do this ENORMOUS
 guy justice...

                     

     

          

Overall impression: Thoroughly enjoyable, although I was sad to see few to no amphibians/reptiles. While the New England Aquarium had wonderful exhibits, it did make us realize how large the Vancouver Aquarium is.

Museum of Fine Arts (MFA):

A museum that has a bit of everything from the well-known great masters such as Monet, Manet, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Titian, to ancient artifacts and weird and whacky contemporary pieces. There was also a fairly decent exhibit on First Nations art, in both traditional and contemporary styles. 

Fun fact: museum admission includes a free 'repeat visit' within 10 days which was a handy little perk that we took full advantage of. We ended up spending about 7.5 - 8 hours over 2 Saturdays at the MFA after we got over our shock at how large it was (something neither of us were expecting for some reason). 

Our favourite exhibit was the one showcasing John Singer Sargent. His portraits were amazing and so full of life, which even an art rube like myself could recognize. We also played our own private game of searching for Very Ugly Painted Children. There were many. May I present, the winner:

Our very favourite piece, judging from the amount of giggling we did (because we're super juvenile):