On our second full day, we went to the Boston Science Museum. On our way there we stopped at “Flour,” Boston’s famous bakery, started by Joanna Chang. It is now a small, Boston-area chain with several different bakeries scattered around the city outlying areas. It is known for its delicious pastries, like its sticky buns, and (we were told) is so popular that it sometimes has a line around the block. Flour was ALSO the originator of the Hazelnut Dacquoise recipe that I’d made for the Hitchners. One of my cooking magazines had reprinted it (which is where I found it) but in the intro to the article the author noted where the recipe was from. So I knew that on my next trip to Boston, I’d be stopping by Flour. So Flour was also on our ‘must do’ list of sights! We stopped there for breakfast, and we each got a pastry. And they had a hazelnut dacquoise cake in their case! It was fun to see the original. We all got a pastry for breakfast – I got one of Flour’s famous sticky buns. My sticky bun was DELICIOUS. I have a soft spot for sticky buns – Mike and I used to get one at the Davis Farmer’s Market on Sundays when I was in grad school. And Flour’s sticky buns were phenomenal. Flour also had a list of sandwiches on their menu, so we each picked out a sandwich for lunch, which we’d bring with us and eat at the science museum. After that delicious experience at Flour we bent our footsteps there or to one of the other branches on many days of our trip. Either for sandwiches, or to try another pastry. On our last day we picked up a hazelnut dacquoise cake, which we’d pre-ordered, which I hand-carried on the train to Leslie’s in Concord. Today, once we’d finished our breakfast, we continued to the science museum. We walked, and our path took us through some rather less scenic parts of town (overpasses, lack of pedestrian crossings etc.) but we made it in time for our timed tickets. We went to the dinosaur exhibit, which we all enjoyed, especially Owen. We also went into an interesting biometrics area with a bunch of interactive exhibits. Then we spent a lot of time in an animation exhibit by Pixar. Pixar went through their animation process step by step, from developing the idea of a character and making sketches, to making a digital ‘skeletal’ model where all the characters’ movements were defined. This model was kind of like a digital puppet, with its range of motion carefully delineated, and how each part bent or folded or compressed. For example, for Woody, who was a little cowboy doll, they figured out how his fabric arms would bend and fold as he moved his arms about, and how that would pull on his torso and change its shape too. They spent lots of time on the face, of course, making an enormous array of expressions, both for emotion and for speech. Then this model was handed off to the animators, who could drag each limb on the screen, or each tiny part of the character’s face, to make it do anything they wanted (within the character’s moveset). The animators were responsible for making the character ACT. So they animated the character through the story. They typically did a key frame in each shot, then had the computer calculate the character’s motions between key frames (based on parameters, like how fast or slow the movement should be, provided by the animators). It was a fascinating process. One part of this exhibit that I really liked was that they had interviews with everyone involved in the project – from initial concept art all the way through character construction and animation, then to digital lighting, landscaping, and music. These were short interviews, lasting a couple minutes, each next to its relevant display. They talked about how they got to where they were in their careers, and what their job was like. This humanized the people who create these animated movies. And as a parent of kids who are in or approaching adolescence and figuring out what they want to do, seeing lots of peoples’ paths is extremely helpful. (Even if none of them are aiming for animation specifically). After this we went outside to enjoy our delicious Flour sandwiches! Interestingly, there was a meeting at Boston’s science museum on that very day between many decision-makers related to the pandemic. So there was a lot of extra security around. After the museum we walked along the Charles River, through a riverside park, to get a view of that side of the city. Then we picked up the Freedom Trail near Charlestown (though there were fewer historic sights on this side of the river, mostly the harbor, which we were going to another day) and got some ice cream cones from a well-known little ice cream shop there. They had lots of history on their walls about how famous rock stars came to their shop, with photos, and also about how their shop was the inspiration for Ben and Jerry’s (there was some resentment there). After our ice cream we figured out how to use the bus system, and caught a bus home. For dinner, since we’d just been out and about surrounded by people, we decided to get takeout from a well-known northern Chinese restaurant. Mike and one of the kids ran out to pick it up, and we had a delicious spread at home for dinner! This was another culinary highlight. We got cumin lamb noodles, which I know about from a restaurant called Xi’an (I got their cookbook for Christmas), which were FANTASTIC. We also got a delicious eggplant dish, and many more. So these dishes got bumped way up my list of dishes I wanted to try at home. We also got photos and a short movie from Manya, who was going to our place every day to take care of our cats. It was good to see our kitties relaxed and happy at home, and cuddling with Manya!