Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Day 3: Princeton to Providence

8:30am Introduction to Molecular and Cellular                Biology lecture at Princeton 
10:27am Train to Penn Station(NYC)
2:00pm Train to Providence

~~~Relax~~~

So my day started with voluntarily taking a biology class. It had probably 200 students in an auditorium for 80 minutes and was titled "Chromatin and Epigenetics: genomic control of eukaryotic gene regulation." It was the most amazing thing ever. The professor moved pretty quickly, and even without any context I was able to follow along no problem. AP Biology covered pretty much everything I needed to understand his new points. There wasn't anything I had already learned specifically, but he never said any terms I wasn't familiar with, and I felt like I really understood everything he said. Whenever he asked questions, I didn't know the answer, but when he gave it I understood why it was right. Basically, I felt like I have the background that I could take that class and do just fine, which only made me super excited. That on top of the fact that the subject matter was just fascinating to begin with. Also, unlike any biology class I've ever taken, this professor never said "so these random people did this insane project that determined how to sequence an entire human genome in 24 hours." Instead he said, "so these buddies of mine..." or, "I worked on this project some number of years ago..." It was really amazing. Never enjoyed class so much. 

In terms of the students, most of them arrived about 4 minutes before class started, every single one of them had their computer out, the majority had his notes on their screens, others scrolled through tumbler. There was a constant pitter-patter of keyboards typing throughout the lecture--sounded rather like a quiet rain. 

Speaking of rain, today was a very wet day for the Northeastern coast. But that was okay because after that class today was solely a travel day. So far this week I've traveled by plane, taxi, foot, train, metro, and rental car. It's been nice because you get to see many different perspectives of the Northeast. 

First by plane: 

This was my view from the plane to New York as we flew over what I'm pretty sure was the Chesapeake Bay. Overall I was not stunned by the view from the plaen. Highly industrialized, very few green spaces, mostly brown yuckiness.  That impression is probably amplified by the fact that spring hasn't really bloomed here yet. 

By taxi: 

I didn't take any pictures from the taxi in New York because I was terrified and borderline carsick. This is from a taxi this morning coming from Princeton to the train station where we rode back to Penn station. This took us out by the countryside a little bit and we got to see some pretty flowers. 

By foot:

This is really my view most of the time as I'm so klutzy I have to watch my feet whenever they're in a parallel position. My shins are dying from walking up the big hill at Princeton yesterday. 

Whenever I managed to look up from my feet in NYC, however, I would see something like this:

This was totally worth the trip. Both the actual journey to NYC, but mainly the stumble over my feet that occurred when I stopped looking at them to look at this view. 

By train:

This is the train station at Princeton. Mom compared it to the Siberia station in Fiddler on the roof, though I find that to be a considerable exaggeration. Still, it was pretty sketchy and poorly maintained. It was functional, though. 

This is from the inside of one of the nice trains. They have real live guys who come up and down the cars with hole punches and they do the crazy fast hole punching thing like in the Polar Express and it's the greatest thing ever. 

I love the trains in particular because they're really comfortable. They have plenty of leg room, a desk to work (sleep) on, and have nicely cushioned seats. Today I was over-excited from my little escapade into collegiate science and tried to do some chemistry on my 3.5 hour ride to Providence, but to very little avail. For starters, my handwriting looks like I was on some sort of insane drug...

and then the consequent motion sickness I had to deal with for the next 5 hours was NOT worth the 45 minutes of work I did get done on the train.

Failed academic attempts aside, I really enjoy the train rides, particularly because of all the different landscapes. 

Right out of NYC I saw these fields of something. They don't look maintained or anything, but they were pretty in their own regards.

But then there's this unsightly mess of industry right outside of NYC:

                                                                                                           

Then today I got my first glimpse of true New England, and the weather obliged to create the exact stereotype I've had in my mental image of these northern states. 

Then just as an added bonus, we happened to see this beauty:

It's hard to see because I was trying to take a picture through a window covered in rain droplets, but the boat in the back ground is a U.S. Coast Guard ship that wikipedia informs us is still in operation. It has three masts and is actually run in the good old fashioned way--wind power. How cool. 

Overall, I'm enchanted with New England. Providence is much prettier than the town of Princeton, but more details on that to come tomorrow after our foray into Brown University. 

There's something quaint and almost archaic about this New England society and the accents are just amazing. I'm constantly thinking of one of the first books I ever fell in love with--The Witch of Blackbird Pond--which is a story about a young girl (named Katherine) from Barbados who moves to Massachusetts to live with Puritans. I still remember her descriptions of the coast of America as cold and disappointing, yet mysteriously appealing despite its surface. This whole feeling was captivated for me in the view from the train coming into Rhode Island. It was cold and rainy and gross, but there was something still beautiful about it. Maybe you'll see what I mean: