we were scheduled to leave this morning at 10am, first to the fresh pond mall to see what kind of fish they have at petsmart, then down into boston for free museum day at the MFA. while i woke up at 9am, li didn't get up until almost 10:30am. he sheepishly greeted me in the living room before using the bathroom. i ate a chobani greek yogurt and a banana for breakfast; li had another hard-boiled egg. we finally left by 10:50am, me taking my trek utility bike in the event we need to bring back anything. li had never seen my trek bike (he rides a trek as well) and was seriously impressed with my steel wald rear baskets. he said he wants to get a pair for his bicycle as well when he moves in december. he also said he'd like to borrow it the next time he makes a grocery run.

other than the people watching, the MFA was actually kind of boring. partly it's because li had actually been there before, and only remembered once we arrived, and partly because i'd just visited last month (with GC), so the novelty of it had worn off. li also was picking as to what he wanted to see, which was anything he missed from his previous visit. so we saw the impressionists and then the mummies, and i wanted to see the japanese woodprint exhibit i missed last time.

we were there just for an hour before li asked if we could get lunch because he was hungry. i should've told him to eat a bigger breakfast, but i assumed he knew this. it worked out in the end, because i was kind of hungry myself. i'd never left the museum and came back, and didn't realize this was an option, no longer confined to the museum cafeteria, which is often crowded and expensive. around the museum there is absolutely nothing to eat, but if you walk further down the street, there's a QDOBA. and if you walk about 3 blocks down (6 minutes), there's even more selection, directly across the street from the YMCA. i'd done some research before hand and knew there was a shawarma place, which was where we ended up going, $7.50 for a lamb shawarma. li said they have something similar in china, and i told him quite possibly it was the same thing. we also got some vimto soft drinks, which i've never had before, tastes like doctor pepper.

after a 30 minute lunch break we returned to the museum by 2pm. by that point there was a line of people outside the entrance waiting to get inside. we decided to walk around back, where the rear entrance was completely empty. before going in, li wanted to try out the complimentary plastic lawn chairs on the lawn. we pulled the chairs into the shade and vegged out for about 10 minutes. li said the back entrance should be the main entrance. we looked out onto the emerald necklace and the back bay fens, planes in the sky drawing contrails, canada geese honking nearby but we couldn't see them.