In a Galaxy, Far, Far Away... (for a Yankee fan at least)
So I had a pretty awesome weekend this past Fri & Sat (April 14th-15th).
On Friday- me, Ariana, my mom, and her husband- Pat, drove up to Boston for the weekend. Our plan for the trip was to visit the Boston Museum of Science for the huge Star Wars Exhibit that is currently there up til the end of the month (cuz as you all know I am a huge Star Wars geek, heh).
We had pre-ordered the tix so everything was set for Saturday. So our plan was to just chill and hang around Boston on Friday. Sadly we got a little lost up in Boston b/c after we dropped our stuff at the motel we decided to go to the museum for a test run, to see how long it’d take to get there in the morning. We wound up taking a wrong highway and thanks to all the ridiculous construction and detours (which we later learned have been going on in Boston since 1989!!!) it took much longer than we expected to get to the museum. But we eventually made it and picked up our tix for the next day.
After that we headed over to the Cambridge Mall which was only about 2 blocks away. When we first got in, they had a set up to try a Water Massage machine. We all felt we could use it after being cramped in the car for quite a few hours that day, so we all tried it. It felt pretty damn good. If I ever hit the lotto I think I’d get me one of those great machines, heh.
Once the massages were done, we all realized we were pretty hungry. There was a Cheesecake Factory right nearby, so we decided to go there. Now I have only been to the Cheesecake Factory once before, and it was during lunch time and all I had was a simple burger. So I didn’t realize how freakin HUGE the servings were going to be. But I was hungry, so I ordered the Double BBQ Bacon Burger (with onion rings IN the burger). When it came out, I saw how huge it was that I had to ask the waiter if he could give me a steakknife to help hold it together (b/c a toothpick wasn’t gonna do it). It reminded me of the “Big Irish” Burger that I had at Bennigan’s a few years back. But yeah, even though it was humongous, I actually finished it, so I was pretty proud of myself there (my family even took some before and after pics of me finishing off the burger, heh).
The rest of the family didn’t have as much luck with their dinners. Don’t get me wrong, they all enjoyed it but they didn’t realize how big the servings were going to be and were not able to come even close to finishing their food. But everything was delicious. We just gotta remember next time how much they give so we can order appropriately. But yeah, if you are ever REALLY freakin hungry, the Cheesecake Factory is the place to go.
The rest of Friday was pretty laid back, b/c it was already late, so we couldn’t really go around Boston much, so we walked around the mall a bit and then headed back to the motel to chill for the night.
Oh but before I continue, there is something I definitely need to mention-
-I actually wore my Yankees jacket the entire time I was in Boston. Some may think I am crazy, but I figured “Hey, plenty of people in NY wear Red Sox stuff and no one really cares, except at the Yankee games, so it shouldn’t matter if I wear my Yankee jacket here.”
Well, I gotta tell you that I was wrong, very very wrong, lol.
I kept getting the most evil looks and stares at a lot of the places we went. Not so much in the museum (cuz I guess people were coming from all over the country to see the museum so it wasn’t just purely Bostonians) but in other places it happened a good amount. I found it pretty amusing but everyone else I was with joked around how they didn’t want to be seen near me b/c they feared for their safety (and although Ariana stayed near me even she looked apprehensive at times, lol).
I actually didn’t notice the stares at first, but the big thing that got my attention is that when we got back to the motel on Friday night I walked right in, past the desk clerk to swipe my card for the entrance. The rest of my family had kind of hung back, so I turned around and I noticed the desk clerk just giving me this stare of death. It didn’t hit me right away why though. A family including a few kids had just exited so my first thought was maybe the kids annoyed the guy and he was just feeling grumpy or something. But then the clerk said “You got a lot of nerve wearing that over here.” And that’s when I realized his stare was all about the jacket. My whole family laughed it off and Pat tried to distance himself by being like “hey it’s just him, I grew up in California. My team is the San Fransisco Giants.” The clerk seemed to soften for a second at that comment, but every time he glanced at me I saw his expression get harder. I just found that freakin hysterical.
So yeah, along with that I just noticed that nearly 7 out of every 10 people in the area that we passed had some kind of Red Sox apparel on. So it was like the Boston equivalent of walking around certain areas of the Bronx and seeing all the Yankee apparel. I also realized my original guess that I might see a few people in Yankee stuff there was wrong as well. Seriously of ALL the people we saw all weekend I only saw ONE other person with any kind of Yankee gear on and that person was a 5 year old child in the museum. So yeah, like I said, I just found that all pretty amusing and had to share.
****
-Before I continue, I should also mention that tickets for the ECW- One Night Stand II PPV were going on sale on Sat morning at 10am. But since I was away I wasn’t going to be able to try and get them myself. Luckily, Phil did me a great favor and was able to score tix for both me and Ariana to the show. So a big thanks to Phil! You are awesome.
That was a pretty good start to the day, so I was in even more of a good mood from that point forward for the day. The show is about 2 months away but I’m already psyched for it. ECW! ECW!!
****
But now onto the main thrust of this blog post- the Star Wars exhibit!
We were told that the exhibit was pretty popular and it sells out pretty much everyday, which is why we pre-ordered all our tix. They also only let people into the exhibit in shifts. Our shift was at 11:15am and then after that we had tix for a special Planetarium show at 1:30pm and a Special Effects IMAX show at 3pm. So we figured we’d have a good amount of time for everything. And while we did get to see everything, we actually could have used even more time, because there was just so much stuff in the exhibit.
And the other thing that made the exhibit even more awesome was the fact they allowed us to take photos. Henry had mentioned to me the day before that he had went to this museum before when they had the Lord of the Rings exhibit and that they did not allow photos b/c “the exhibit was still on tour.” Well I knew the Star Wars exhibit was on tour as well, so I was a bit worried at first, but once we found out pics were allowed, I was very psyched.
So yeah I wound up taking pics of almost EVERYTHING. We had my mom’s digital camera, so I made sure I got great shots of all that I could. So that’s what took the most time, just taking pics of all the stuff (the hard part was trying not to get the glare of the glass from the flash, but I did a pretty damn good job of that).
We also had the audio tour as well, which was basically a sort of palm pilot thingie with a headset where you would just enter the number of the display you were at and it would give you a more detailed audio (and sometimes video) explanation of what you were looking at. So that was pretty cool as well.
The exhibit was fairly interactive too. Since this was the Museum of Science they showed how certain things from the movie could work in real life, including some advances in technology where we are actually close to doing some of the things in the movies. They had a sort of hovercraft thing that they actually allowed people to ride. It wasn’t anything too spectacular (mostly b/c it was chained to a wall so you really couldn’t move it far at all), but it was pretty cool to try out. They also had a sort of “podracer builder” with Legos and magnets and stuff you could try to put together and see if it could actually race on the track. I personally couldn’t figure out what combination to use to get it to work, but it was fun to try.
As for the actual stuff from the movies that were there- they had a ton of cool stuff. They had the actual models they used for a lot of the vehicles. It was funny how small (and in some cases how large) a lot of the models were. But it was cool, they had an X-Wing, the Millenium Falcon, a Star Destroyer, the Rebel Blockade Runner (which I found out was originally designed to be the Millenium Falcon but they decided to change it to the one we all know and love b/c they felt the original was way too big and didn’t fit the style they were looking for) and these are just a small amount of the vehicles they had there. They also had a lot of the costumes for the characters- including Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, R2-D2, C-3PO, Anakin & Obi-Wan (from Episode 3), Mace Windu, Yoda, a Stormtrooper, a Snowtrooper, some Wookies, young Anakin (from Episode 1), a Jawa, some Tusken Raiders, one Padme costume (surprisingly only one considering the amount she had in the movies) and of course Darth Vader. I may be forgetting a few (I’m sure I am actually), but three things we were kind of surprised and a little let down that they didn’t have were- any Ewoks (hey, what can I say I have a soft spot for them, lol), Boba or Jango Fett, or a speeder bike (from RotJ or Episode 2). I was especially surprised by the absence of that last one considering that is something that would definitely fit into a museum of science (at least that’s what I think). But other than that, everything else was pretty damn cool (I think I forgot to mention they had a ton of other props like weapons, droids, models of stuff, etc).
So yeah the 2+ hours we had in the exhibit portion actually flew by pretty fast. I did get through everything though, so I was happy about that, I do wish I had a chance to just look around a little bit more. But hey, maybe when the exhibit comes to Philadelphia in 2008 I may be tempted to go back.
As for the Planetarium and Special Effects IMAX show, they were alright. Nothing great (the best part was definitely the exhibit itself) but they were cool and everything was pretty inexpensive (b/c I wound up becoming a member of the museum since it made everything cheaper than it would have if we just ordered the tix normally).
Below are some of the pics I took at the museum (only gonna post a few but I have like 170 pics altogether from all the stuff, in case anyone wants to see them just let me know and I can forward some more to you).
-This is me, Ariana & my mom outside of the Museum near the sign for the Star Wars Exhibit.
-This is me with a model of the X-Wing, which was actually in the main museum hallway, outside the Star Wars exhibit
-This is the actual vehicle they used for Luke's Landspeeder in the original Star Wars.
-This is a model of a TIE Fighter (from the original trilogy)
-Me with a costume of a Stormtrooper from the original trilogy.
-Me & Ariana with the costumes for Anakin & Obi-Wan from Episode 3 (more specifically from the final battle scene at Mustafar).
-Me with the model of the Imperial Star Destroyer (we also have a pic of the bottom of it, which is cool since it's the opening shot of the original Star Wars movie).
-The inside of Darth Vader's mask (this was a difficult shot to get since I don't think they expected people to try to take pics of the inside of the mask).
-A bunch of the weapons used in all of the movies including Boba Fett's blaster, a thermal detonator (that Princess Leia used in RotJ), and a bunch of Lightsabers- including Darth Maul's, Obi-Wan Kenobi's and Count Dooku's, among others.
-Me with the supreme bad-ass himself- Darth Vader.
****
Finally, after everything in the museum, it was still fairly early (around 4pm) and we had one more thing to do in Boston. The day before, we had decided to schedule a “Duck Tour” of Boston. Basically a “Duck Tour” is a tour of all the historical locations in Boston, but instead of a regular bus or a shuttle you are in an old WWII land/water vehicle called a “DUCK.” (See the pic below, b/c it would be kind of hard to describe otherwise).
The tour was pretty cool. We saw a bunch of interesting places (the highlight was probably the location of the bar from Cheers) and like I said the “DUCK” was a land/water vehicle, so we actually went into the river as well, which was nice (especially since we had great weather). Our tour guide was amusing as well (but while we were waiting to be boarded we seemed to notice there was something quirky about all the guides), so she made things interesting and funny.
And that was pretty much our trip to Boston. We had some dinner afterwards and then headed home. I actually drove back (cuz Pat had driven up) and I made really great time (only took 3 hours to get back which included a stop for gas and restrooms). So yeah, all in all it was a really fun trip.
On Friday- me, Ariana, my mom, and her husband- Pat, drove up to Boston for the weekend. Our plan for the trip was to visit the Boston Museum of Science for the huge Star Wars Exhibit that is currently there up til the end of the month (cuz as you all know I am a huge Star Wars geek, heh).
We had pre-ordered the tix so everything was set for Saturday. So our plan was to just chill and hang around Boston on Friday. Sadly we got a little lost up in Boston b/c after we dropped our stuff at the motel we decided to go to the museum for a test run, to see how long it’d take to get there in the morning. We wound up taking a wrong highway and thanks to all the ridiculous construction and detours (which we later learned have been going on in Boston since 1989!!!) it took much longer than we expected to get to the museum. But we eventually made it and picked up our tix for the next day.
After that we headed over to the Cambridge Mall which was only about 2 blocks away. When we first got in, they had a set up to try a Water Massage machine. We all felt we could use it after being cramped in the car for quite a few hours that day, so we all tried it. It felt pretty damn good. If I ever hit the lotto I think I’d get me one of those great machines, heh.
Once the massages were done, we all realized we were pretty hungry. There was a Cheesecake Factory right nearby, so we decided to go there. Now I have only been to the Cheesecake Factory once before, and it was during lunch time and all I had was a simple burger. So I didn’t realize how freakin HUGE the servings were going to be. But I was hungry, so I ordered the Double BBQ Bacon Burger (with onion rings IN the burger). When it came out, I saw how huge it was that I had to ask the waiter if he could give me a steakknife to help hold it together (b/c a toothpick wasn’t gonna do it). It reminded me of the “Big Irish” Burger that I had at Bennigan’s a few years back. But yeah, even though it was humongous, I actually finished it, so I was pretty proud of myself there (my family even took some before and after pics of me finishing off the burger, heh).
The rest of the family didn’t have as much luck with their dinners. Don’t get me wrong, they all enjoyed it but they didn’t realize how big the servings were going to be and were not able to come even close to finishing their food. But everything was delicious. We just gotta remember next time how much they give so we can order appropriately. But yeah, if you are ever REALLY freakin hungry, the Cheesecake Factory is the place to go.
The rest of Friday was pretty laid back, b/c it was already late, so we couldn’t really go around Boston much, so we walked around the mall a bit and then headed back to the motel to chill for the night.
Oh but before I continue, there is something I definitely need to mention-
-I actually wore my Yankees jacket the entire time I was in Boston. Some may think I am crazy, but I figured “Hey, plenty of people in NY wear Red Sox stuff and no one really cares, except at the Yankee games, so it shouldn’t matter if I wear my Yankee jacket here.”
Well, I gotta tell you that I was wrong, very very wrong, lol.
I kept getting the most evil looks and stares at a lot of the places we went. Not so much in the museum (cuz I guess people were coming from all over the country to see the museum so it wasn’t just purely Bostonians) but in other places it happened a good amount. I found it pretty amusing but everyone else I was with joked around how they didn’t want to be seen near me b/c they feared for their safety (and although Ariana stayed near me even she looked apprehensive at times, lol).
I actually didn’t notice the stares at first, but the big thing that got my attention is that when we got back to the motel on Friday night I walked right in, past the desk clerk to swipe my card for the entrance. The rest of my family had kind of hung back, so I turned around and I noticed the desk clerk just giving me this stare of death. It didn’t hit me right away why though. A family including a few kids had just exited so my first thought was maybe the kids annoyed the guy and he was just feeling grumpy or something. But then the clerk said “You got a lot of nerve wearing that over here.” And that’s when I realized his stare was all about the jacket. My whole family laughed it off and Pat tried to distance himself by being like “hey it’s just him, I grew up in California. My team is the San Fransisco Giants.” The clerk seemed to soften for a second at that comment, but every time he glanced at me I saw his expression get harder. I just found that freakin hysterical.
So yeah, along with that I just noticed that nearly 7 out of every 10 people in the area that we passed had some kind of Red Sox apparel on. So it was like the Boston equivalent of walking around certain areas of the Bronx and seeing all the Yankee apparel. I also realized my original guess that I might see a few people in Yankee stuff there was wrong as well. Seriously of ALL the people we saw all weekend I only saw ONE other person with any kind of Yankee gear on and that person was a 5 year old child in the museum. So yeah, like I said, I just found that all pretty amusing and had to share.
****
-Before I continue, I should also mention that tickets for the ECW- One Night Stand II PPV were going on sale on Sat morning at 10am. But since I was away I wasn’t going to be able to try and get them myself. Luckily, Phil did me a great favor and was able to score tix for both me and Ariana to the show. So a big thanks to Phil! You are awesome.
That was a pretty good start to the day, so I was in even more of a good mood from that point forward for the day. The show is about 2 months away but I’m already psyched for it. ECW! ECW!!
****
But now onto the main thrust of this blog post- the Star Wars exhibit!
We were told that the exhibit was pretty popular and it sells out pretty much everyday, which is why we pre-ordered all our tix. They also only let people into the exhibit in shifts. Our shift was at 11:15am and then after that we had tix for a special Planetarium show at 1:30pm and a Special Effects IMAX show at 3pm. So we figured we’d have a good amount of time for everything. And while we did get to see everything, we actually could have used even more time, because there was just so much stuff in the exhibit.
And the other thing that made the exhibit even more awesome was the fact they allowed us to take photos. Henry had mentioned to me the day before that he had went to this museum before when they had the Lord of the Rings exhibit and that they did not allow photos b/c “the exhibit was still on tour.” Well I knew the Star Wars exhibit was on tour as well, so I was a bit worried at first, but once we found out pics were allowed, I was very psyched.
So yeah I wound up taking pics of almost EVERYTHING. We had my mom’s digital camera, so I made sure I got great shots of all that I could. So that’s what took the most time, just taking pics of all the stuff (the hard part was trying not to get the glare of the glass from the flash, but I did a pretty damn good job of that).
We also had the audio tour as well, which was basically a sort of palm pilot thingie with a headset where you would just enter the number of the display you were at and it would give you a more detailed audio (and sometimes video) explanation of what you were looking at. So that was pretty cool as well.
The exhibit was fairly interactive too. Since this was the Museum of Science they showed how certain things from the movie could work in real life, including some advances in technology where we are actually close to doing some of the things in the movies. They had a sort of hovercraft thing that they actually allowed people to ride. It wasn’t anything too spectacular (mostly b/c it was chained to a wall so you really couldn’t move it far at all), but it was pretty cool to try out. They also had a sort of “podracer builder” with Legos and magnets and stuff you could try to put together and see if it could actually race on the track. I personally couldn’t figure out what combination to use to get it to work, but it was fun to try.
As for the actual stuff from the movies that were there- they had a ton of cool stuff. They had the actual models they used for a lot of the vehicles. It was funny how small (and in some cases how large) a lot of the models were. But it was cool, they had an X-Wing, the Millenium Falcon, a Star Destroyer, the Rebel Blockade Runner (which I found out was originally designed to be the Millenium Falcon but they decided to change it to the one we all know and love b/c they felt the original was way too big and didn’t fit the style they were looking for) and these are just a small amount of the vehicles they had there. They also had a lot of the costumes for the characters- including Han Solo, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, R2-D2, C-3PO, Anakin & Obi-Wan (from Episode 3), Mace Windu, Yoda, a Stormtrooper, a Snowtrooper, some Wookies, young Anakin (from Episode 1), a Jawa, some Tusken Raiders, one Padme costume (surprisingly only one considering the amount she had in the movies) and of course Darth Vader. I may be forgetting a few (I’m sure I am actually), but three things we were kind of surprised and a little let down that they didn’t have were- any Ewoks (hey, what can I say I have a soft spot for them, lol), Boba or Jango Fett, or a speeder bike (from RotJ or Episode 2). I was especially surprised by the absence of that last one considering that is something that would definitely fit into a museum of science (at least that’s what I think). But other than that, everything else was pretty damn cool (I think I forgot to mention they had a ton of other props like weapons, droids, models of stuff, etc).
So yeah the 2+ hours we had in the exhibit portion actually flew by pretty fast. I did get through everything though, so I was happy about that, I do wish I had a chance to just look around a little bit more. But hey, maybe when the exhibit comes to Philadelphia in 2008 I may be tempted to go back.
As for the Planetarium and Special Effects IMAX show, they were alright. Nothing great (the best part was definitely the exhibit itself) but they were cool and everything was pretty inexpensive (b/c I wound up becoming a member of the museum since it made everything cheaper than it would have if we just ordered the tix normally).
Below are some of the pics I took at the museum (only gonna post a few but I have like 170 pics altogether from all the stuff, in case anyone wants to see them just let me know and I can forward some more to you).
-This is me, Ariana & my mom outside of the Museum near the sign for the Star Wars Exhibit.
-This is me with a model of the X-Wing, which was actually in the main museum hallway, outside the Star Wars exhibit
-This is the actual vehicle they used for Luke's Landspeeder in the original Star Wars.
-This is a model of a TIE Fighter (from the original trilogy)
-Me with a costume of a Stormtrooper from the original trilogy.
-Me & Ariana with the costumes for Anakin & Obi-Wan from Episode 3 (more specifically from the final battle scene at Mustafar).
-Me with the model of the Imperial Star Destroyer (we also have a pic of the bottom of it, which is cool since it's the opening shot of the original Star Wars movie).
-The inside of Darth Vader's mask (this was a difficult shot to get since I don't think they expected people to try to take pics of the inside of the mask).
-A bunch of the weapons used in all of the movies including Boba Fett's blaster, a thermal detonator (that Princess Leia used in RotJ), and a bunch of Lightsabers- including Darth Maul's, Obi-Wan Kenobi's and Count Dooku's, among others.
-Me with the supreme bad-ass himself- Darth Vader.
****Finally, after everything in the museum, it was still fairly early (around 4pm) and we had one more thing to do in Boston. The day before, we had decided to schedule a “Duck Tour” of Boston. Basically a “Duck Tour” is a tour of all the historical locations in Boston, but instead of a regular bus or a shuttle you are in an old WWII land/water vehicle called a “DUCK.” (See the pic below, b/c it would be kind of hard to describe otherwise).
The tour was pretty cool. We saw a bunch of interesting places (the highlight was probably the location of the bar from Cheers) and like I said the “DUCK” was a land/water vehicle, so we actually went into the river as well, which was nice (especially since we had great weather). Our tour guide was amusing as well (but while we were waiting to be boarded we seemed to notice there was something quirky about all the guides), so she made things interesting and funny.And that was pretty much our trip to Boston. We had some dinner afterwards and then headed home. I actually drove back (cuz Pat had driven up) and I made really great time (only took 3 hours to get back which included a stop for gas and restrooms). So yeah, all in all it was a really fun trip.
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