New York and Boston

I'm in New York City, in an apartment on the seventeenth floor of a building looking out over the Bronx. It's a beautiful view of four or five different buildings to the main island, and thank goodness it's the nice part of the Bronx.
Today we went to the Breakers, a house you wish you could live in: solid alabaster columns, gold-leafed floors and ceilings and walls and bathtubs and anything else you can possibly imagine, grand staircases specially designed so that ladies gliding down them would not trip on the hems of their ballgowns imported from Paris, platinum plated walls so that they wouldn't fade, etc. etc. etc. Oh! And secret passageways and views of some of the best surfing around. Sounds cool? Yep.
Day before that, Friday, we had tons of fun in Boston. We woke up and walked around Harvard, including gaining admittance to the Museum to see a Gutenberg bible that's worth more than the mortgage on your house, the first printing shop that's now a delicious restaurant, and finally the swan boats. After checking on times for Tea at the Ritz (that is no longer the Ritz, although the new hotel is just as high-end -- you walk in and the first thing you see is a Prada outlet), we headed to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. For those of you who aren't art freekos, that is the place where something like $50 million (
or was it $500 million?) dollars worth of paintings were stolen in one night by two people who had disguised themselves as cops (more info: The Gardner Heist book, by some guy who doesn't look that good in his profile photo on the back cover). After that, a quick break at the park across the road while eating hummus and watching some guy who had strung a rope between two trees and was doing handstands and jumping up and down on the rope, before we headed to see the MFA. The MFA is humongolicious. We spent three hours there looking at modern, American, European, etc., art and only made it through a third of the museum. We went to eat at the Border Cafe, and then went back for bed. Or at least I did. Dad didn't end up going to sleep until around three o'clock in the morning.
And no, we didn't get in any life-threatening car crashes today on our way. Why do you ask?
Did I write the day before? I can't remember.
The day before we did the Italian section of town, and then wandered around there. We also saw the Old North chapel (one if by land, two if by sea... thank you granny Ruth) and Paul Revere's house where he actually lived. At the MFA we saw a bunch of his and his father's silverwork, and it was pretty cool.

(:!