In my opinion, Cambridge is the ideal college town. Harvard Square has the perfect blend of pizza joints, burrito places, and coffee shops; the blocks of Houses stretching towards the River provides a more traditional “campus” vibe; the Yard is beautiful and picturesque year-round. Yet despite my love for Harvard’s red brick buildings and tree-studded courtyards, a part of me is always excited to get an opportunity to head into the city. Another advantage of living in Cambridge is the Red Line: living two blocks away from a T stop makes escaping into Boston ridiculously easy. Normally I don’t have much time to make it downtown, but I was SUPER excited this week to enjoy not one, but three nights in the city!

Tuesday and Thursday night, I got a chance to go to concerts at two of Boston’s innumerable music venues. For those of you who are “up” on the music scene, Boston has a bunch of awesome concert venues that consistently bring both big name and up-and-coming bands. I, admittedly, am not very hip when it comes to music, but I’ve come to be introduced to a bunch of new bands over the past three semesters largely because getting to shows is so easy.

Tuesday night, I saw the Morning Benders at the Paradise Rock Club, near Boston University. Getting there was a bit hectic – I was running to catch a bus from my nighttime LifeSci 2 lab, and spent the entirety of the show smelling like formaldehyde from my cat dissection. They were great though! Last night, I saw Sufjan Stevens at the Orpheum, which is right by Boston Commons, and he was AMAZING. The pictures are fuzzy, but historically accurate!

The Morning Benders

Sufjan Stevens

Wednesday’s event was for one of Harvard’s student-run volunteer programs: CityStep, a group that mentors Cambridge middle schoolers by teaching them to dance, had a dress-up fundraiser at a club downtown Boston. My personal dance skills were lacking a bit in comparison to the CityStep volunteers (who generally can dance WELL), but it was still super fun and really nice to support my friends.

This weekend, I’ll be buckling down to finish a heap of end-of-semester work I have ahead of me: a Social Studies paper, Econ midterm, and sophomore Plan of Study (where I must outline my intended classes and concentration – more details to come later!) await my attention. Eek!