F6
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EE The Impulsive Traveler Near Boston, museums with two U’s IFYOUGO
Want to take a spur-of-the-moment trip to Cambridge, Mass.? Here’swhat you need to knowfor theweekend of Jan. 7-9 (we’ll skip the holidays):
GETTING THERE JetBlue has nonstop flights fromWashington Dulles and BWI Marshall to Boston’s Logan Airport starting at a little over $100 round- trip.
WHERE TO STAY Residence Inn Boston Cambridge 6 Cambridge Center 617-349-0700
www.marriott.com Within walking distance of MIT and a block from the subway. Rooms start at $139.
Charles Hotel 1 Bennett St. 617-864-1200
www.charleshotel.com A hotel in Harvard Square with restaurants, jazz and cocktail bars, and an ice skating rink in the winter. Rooms start at $199.
ABOVE BY HILLEL BURGER/HARVARD COLLEGE; LEFT BY AUDREY ANDERSON/ HARVARD CRIMSON
Glass act:Amodel of a flowering cactus is part of a stunning exhibit at theHarvardMuseum ofNatural History. At left, a viewfrom the balcony in the museum’s GreatMammalHall.
BY ALEXANDRA PECCI A three-dimensional dog pops out at
me from the wall, so lifelike that I expect it to start barking at any mo- ment. Behindme,mymother is holding my 16-month-old daughter, Chloe, who’s staring at a wall and grabbing at the air in front of her. I move over next to themand realize that she is trying to grab a hologram that’s zooming out at her like a streaking red comet. Iwonder vaguely whether holograms might be bad for a baby’smind. I guess that if there’s anyone who
knows the answer to that question, they’d be here at the MIT Museum, which displaysMassachusetts Institute of Technology research in fields such as robotics and holography. We’re on an excursion to check out
the university museums of Cambridge, a trip inspired by my grandmother’s desire to revisit a museum at Harvard University where she saw glass flowers when she was in high school in the 1950s. Searching for that site online, I discovered thatCambridge has awealth of museums, and exploring them seemed like a good pastime for a chilly New England weekend. We start at the MIT Museum, skim-
ming over the “Sampling MIT” exhibit of current research, which is fascinat- ing to some people — including the 7-year-old who’s apparently transfixed by a map showing the incidence of malaria around the world — but a bit dry formy taste. I’mmore interested in seeing the robotics exhibit upstairs, which showcases the artificial intelli- gence work at the university. Some robots look like nothing more
than boxes of circuit boards and wires. Others, like the gigantic, many-jointed Minsky Arm from 1968, with tubes and wires extending down the length of it like electronic veins, resemble humans in someway. But themost famous robot
The smaller university museums are just as fascinating and detailed as their big-city counterparts.
in the exhibit is Kismet, which has a face that can show emotions and, ac- cording to research, elicits emotions fromhumans, too. Chloewaves excited- ly atKismet, as if to prove the scientists’ point. We make a brief detour to check out
the model ships atMIT’s Hart Nautical Gallery before heading to Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Founded in 1866, it’s one of the world’s oldest anthropological mu- seums and houses thousands of arti- facts from indigenous peoples the world over, with galleries devoted to Native America, Latin America and the Pacific Islands. The extensive Native American gal-
lery displays intricately feathered and beaded Lakota headdresses, towering totempoles fromthe Pacific Northwest and a collection of delicate kachina dolls. But the most interesting items to me are the ones that aren’t there, the ones that hung where now hang signs
MoreTravel this week
FRIDAY Escapes enjoys some grown-up activities at Virginia’s GreatWolf Lodge, inWeekend.
reading: “Objects in this case have been removed under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.” Although the museum apparently has a good relationship with tribes — one of its current exhibits examines the “Contested West” through the eyes of the Lakota people and was co-curated by Lakota artist Butch Thunderhawk— there’s a fascinating and uneasy balanc- ing act between learning from these items and wondering just how they were obtained. The entire museum gives me a
strange and exciting Indiana Jones kind of feeling, especially the Pacific Island gallery. There, the wooden floors squeak, and dim lights illuminate rows of glass cases containing such items as a pig-tusk nose ornament from New Guinea and supernatural-looking shad- ow puppets from Java. With yellowing display cards next to artifacts from exotic lands, it’s easy to imagine turn- of-the century adventurers coming back to Harvard to catalogue their treasures. The next day, I visit the Arthur M.
Sackler Museum, which houses the most renowned pieces from Harvard’s three art museums. (The other two — the Fogg and the Busch-Reisinger—are closed for renovation until 2013.) The objects in the museum are exquisite and include ancient Islamic texts, clas- sical Roman sculptures and works by Gauguin, Renoir, Monet and Van Gogh that hang in a beautiful gallery. Harvard also has an extensive mod-
ern art collection that I’m afraid is lost on me. Staring at a huge Jackson Pollock painting, I’m reminded of Chloe’s reaction to the Kismet robot. I guess I, too, need faces or recognizable shapes to appreciate art. The next morning, Harvard’s Muse-
umofNaturalHistory is swarmingwith kids,who press their faces against cases of meteorites and minerals — more than 5,000 specimens from around the world, sparkling like gigantic rock can-
dy in vivid blue, glistening black, elec- tric yellow and every other color imag- inable. There’s gallery after gallery of taxidermied animals from around the world, jewel-like beetles and butterflies, and nightmarishly huge crickets. The fossils and skeletons are staggering, especially the famous Harvard Mast- odon; the 42-foot-long marine reptile kronosaurus; and a huge whale skele- ton, complete with a curtain of black baleen hanging fromits jaw. But the highlight is certainly the
glass flowers, and I watch my grand- mother’s lips form a little “Ooh” as she enters the gallery. “They really are as beautiful as I remember,” she breathes. And they’re nothing like I imagined. When I first heard the words “glass flowers,” I thought they’d be big, vivid and stylized. Instead, they look like real flowers, perfect in each tiny detail.How can these bemade of glass? There are fuzzy little goldenrod
blooms, wildflowers with thin clumps of roots, spindly-stemmedMexican cos- mos. The thousands of models were made beginning in1887 by a father-and- son team of glass artisans who based their work on real specimens from around the world. “Oh, my God, Mom, look at this one,” a little boy exclaims, and in row after row in the gallery, kids —and adults—ooh and ahh in disbelief that these blooms are man-made, not plucked fromthe ground. The museums of Harvard and MIT
are overshadowed by two huge Boston institutions that deliver art and science on a grand scale: the Museum of Fine Arts, which recently opened a new wing, and the Museum of Science. But the smaller university museums I visit- ed are just as fascinating and just as detailed. You could spend a whole weekend here and never set foot in Boston. And believe me, you wouldn’t miss a thing.
travel@washpost.com Pecci is a freelance writer in Plaistow, N.H.
WHERE TO EAT 9 Tastes 50 JFK St. 617-547-6666
www.9taste.com Thai restaurant with Best of Boston awards. House specialty entrees about $14.
Technique 215 First St. 617-218-8088
www.chefs.edu/Boston/Restaurant Stick with the education theme and try this student-run restaurant on the campus of Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts. Dishes under $30.
WHAT TO DO MIT Museum 265 Massachusetts Ave. 617-253-5927
www.mit.edu/museum Open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. $7.50; $3 seniors and children younger than 18; free 10 a.m. to noon on Sunday. The “MIT 150 Exhibition” celebrating the university’s 150th anniversary opens Jan. 8 and runs through 2011.
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 11 Divinity Ave. 617-496-1027
www.peabody.harvard.edu Open daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission, which includes the Museum of Natural History, $9; $7 students and seniors; $6 ages 3-18.
Harvard Museum of Natural History 26 Oxford St. 617-495-3045
www.hmnh.harvard.edu Open daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission as for Peabody Museum.
Arthur M. Sackler Museum 485 Broadway 617-495-9400
www.harvardartmuseums.org Open Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. $9; $7 seniors; $6 college students; younger than 18 free.
INFORMATION
www.cambridge-usa.org
—A.P.
All flight and lodging info valid as of press time Thursday.
KLMNO
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2010
Inns,Lodges, Villas & Ski Escapes
DELAWARE
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VIRGINIA
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info or brochure call 800-724-3136 or visit
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NORTH CAROLINA
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RIVERSIDETOWER HOTEL $129 for 2persons
VIRGINIA
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WESTVIRGINIA
BAVARIAN INN Historic Shepherdstown,
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at Charles Town Races. Table Games. Elegant Rooms -Potomac River Views, Whirlpool Baths, AAA Four Diamond Award.
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West Virginia Wild and Wonderful THEWOODS
During December,escape the holiday hustle &bustle with arelaxing retreat to The Woods.
Walden Lodge special from$59/night! (Plus
tax, thru 12/30/10. Not valid w/other discounts. Incl. breakfast for2). Only 90 mi. from DC. Sleepy Creek Spa, golf, dining,
indoor Sports Center &more!
www.TheWoods.com or 888-699-2221 The green pages. Did you know? TheWashington Post is printed using recycled fiber. NF407 6x1
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