Marc's Summer Trip to Boston

This summer I had the wonderful opportunity to attend several conferences in Boston, Mass. I presented a poster at the Wikimania Conference and then I attended the conference for the Association of Machine Translation in the Americas where the professor I work for was one of the keynote speakers. Both conferences were very interesting and I met people from around the world and saw some incredibly products. I think even more importantly I was able to see some of the historical sites.

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My first stop was to Harvard Campus. They have a beautiful campus although not quite up to what I expected.

Which is where I gave my poster presentation at Wikimania.



I had a day where I was able to meander around Boston so I walked the Freedom Trail to see many historical places which was very interesting. For example, I saw the graves of people you read about in US History like Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. I was even able to see the Old North Church where the lanterns were hung when the British were invading. However, contrary to popular belief it was not Paul Revere who hung the lanterns, but rather the sexton of the church.

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At one point I also wandered into what I could only describe was some sort of little Italy. How could I tell you might ask. Well let me just explain that this was shortly after the World Cup in Germany where the final match was played between Italy and France. Well with that explained this pictures might make more sense. They were both in a small corner store in one part of Boston.

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I also got to see Old Iron Sides, although it was closed to the public on the day I was touring the city, and then I got to take a ferry ride across the harbor where I picked up another ferry that took me up to Salem, Mass., the home of the witch trials.

I must say that Salem was a little bit of a let down. I was excited to actually get some historical information about the witch trials and see historical things but honestly most of the things there reminded me more of the pictures you often see of Roswell New Mexico than anything else. So that was a little bit sad. They had one historical building there that I was able to tour. However, it is my understanding that if I had actually been able to get out into the county I would have been able to see more things. So maybe someday I will get to go back.

Well I think that is everything I have to say. It was a great trip. I saw a lot and learned a lot. Thanks goes to the professor I work for and the BYU Linguistics department for making it financially possible. The last few pictures are of a few of the cows that are part of the Cows on Parade. I thought it was odd to see those there because I thought that was a western thing. But apparently not.