My trip to Prague with Maria was awesome. I went there to attend a conference on MS research, where I was given the opportunity to present a poster. I believe there were about 3,000 presenters and many more visitors. It was nice to see some of my friends from Boston again.. I hope I’ll see you guys again soon!

The other days, the two of us went about sightseeing. Prague is very beautiful city in that it has been able to keep its old charm for hundreds of years. Not too many wars were fought in Prague itself, so the city hasn’t lost many old buildings.

There’s two parts of Prague. Once part (Old Town) is the area of Prague built prior to 1300. New Town, a misleading name, is the area of Prague built after 1300. Man, and I thought these 1870s buildings here in Galveston were old…. :/

I got back about two weeks ago, although it feels longer since i had a massive number of tests to take last week. Oh well, that class is over.

Take a look at the pictures when you get a chance. Warning… there’s a lot!

UPDATE: View the photos as a slideshow..

My favorite massively large passenger plane (I’d call it a JumboJet, but I think Boeing has dibs on that word) has finally had it’s first commercial maiden voyage!

Singapore Airlines Flight SQ380 took off from Singapore to Sydney and offered the passengers a super luxurious ride. Although the Airbus can accommodate up to 850 seats, Singapore Airlines designed the first A380 configuration with only 471 seats, allowing for full comfort. Twelve fully enclosed suites are available ($7,200 each way), along with 60 business class seats, and 399 economy class seats with the most amount of leg room ever available in Singapore economy class. Several “airliner” celebrities were on the cabin roster, including a man who also rode the first 747 maiden voyage flight in 1970, and another man who rode the first Concorde flight in 1979.

The A380 is the most fuel efficient commercial plane now in operation, and it also features 50% lower cabin noise than a 747. Airbus delivered the first A380 to Singapore Airlines with an exclusivity agreement to not deliver any more planes to any carrier for 10 more months.

In the meantime, I wait to ride an A380 in the future. It’s going to be awesome.

From dvorak.org/blog… video footage of a jumbojet being struck by lightning in mid-air! Amazing sight, although supposedly it does little damage to the jet.

Back in Boston this summer, were I was doing research, I submitted an abstract of my work to a Multiple Sclerosis conference in Prague. Well, I found out last month that my abstract was accepted!

I will be in Prague in October for about 5 days. Maria is also coming along for a vacation, so it should be a blast!

If you’ve been there before, then let me know of places to see.

Boston Aquarium

The aquarium was pretty cool, although it was small compared to the aquarium Maria and I saw in Monterey. Regardless, it was a very cool to see the penguins.

Institute of Contemporary Art

The ICA is in a brand new building, so the style was, well, contemporary! The actual exhibit portion is small: I walked through the entire thing in less than an hour. What was more exciting was the actual architecture of the building: the exhibits are placed on the fourth floor, and you take a giant glass elevator (about the size of my dorm room at UT) up to that floor.

JFK Presidential Library and Museum

This museum was very interesting, although I had already heard most of what was mentioned at The Sixth Floor Museum (from where Kennedy was shot) in Dallas.

MIT

It felt good to be at MIT… For some reason, I felt like I was at home, surrounded by engineers. The museum was awesome, so check out the Flickr pics for some of the museum contraptions.

Random Boston strolls

Oh, and this bridge just looks amazing!

Yesterday, I took the subway into downtown, with the intention to go on the Freedom Trail. However, everything around me was so new that I got distracted and gave up on following the signs for the trail. Instead, I just ended up walking around Boston taking pictures of stuff I found interesting.

I arrived at the Boston Public Garden. What a sight to see: the place was loaded with the greenest grass I’ve ever seen in my life, immense flowering trees, tons of flowers everywhere, and an insane amount of people walking the gardens.

Another really beautiful area was the Boston Common Park. This park was loaded with people walking their dogs, reading books, playing softball, jogging, etc. It was built in 1634, and is considered the oldest public park in the United States.

It’s really interesting to see how active people are in Boston. Very few people drive since the roads are terrible: instead, every part of Boston is loaded with pedestrians.

The weather so far has been great. Highs are in the 60s, with the lows being in the upper 40s. In other words, I avoid going out in the morning.

People in Boston are also very politically active; I don’t think I’ve met anyone who doesn’t follow the news or politics. This is also apparent on the streets. For example, when I was waiting for the subway to get into the city, these guys were dressed as storm troopers handing out flyers for some political event. Unfortunately, I wasn’t on that side of the road to see what they were campaigning for.

In a past post about Galveston, I mentioned how it was amazing how much of the history of Galveston has been saved in the timeframe of about 100 years. Houston and Dallas don’t have many of their original buildings still standing in downtown, and that’s likely due to the mentality of Texans: why save it when you can build something bigger and better? This thinking is the polar opposite of Boston. In Boston, every street corner is loaded with old buildings such as The Boston Public Library (built 1848). Also, every building tends to have its own unique architecture, which really reflects the historical diversity of the city.

Anyway, I’m really enjoying Boston. All of the pics I have taken of Boston so far are here.

Almost a month ago, I visited Ed in San Antonio. We went to Hemisfair Park, which was built in 1968 for the World Fair. The place was absolutely beautiful, with green, lush trees, and lots of waterfalls and fountains around us. Very relaxing, and the weather was beautiful!

The park also houses the “Tower of the Americas” (think Reunion Tower in Dallas, or the Space Needle in Seattle), and it was quite an amazing experience to see the city from up high.

Take a look at the photos, and feel free to critique.

Airbus today completed its inaugural flight of the A380 to the United States! 550 people were on board, as the plane proceeded to fly from Frankfort to New York.

I’m getting more and more excited about this double-decker plane. It will revolutionize international travel, lowering international airfare and hopefully offering more destinations for travel. First deliveries of the A380 will be in October when Airbus delivers the first batch to Singapore Airlines.

More info about the inaugural trip.

Theresa was one of the few who saw the Airbus land first hand in New York.

Airbus, good luck with your new venture!

Whitefield was an empty place in 1996 when I last visited.  Back then, Avi’s (my great grandmother’s) house along with two of her son’s houses were located in an empty patch with nothing around them.  Now, there’s not a single bit of land available, and that main road has become very busy.  A big apartment complex is being built across the main road from Avi’s house, and a big hotel is being built right next to Avi’s house.

What changed Whitefield in the past ten years was the Bangalore IT revolution.  The software companies quickly expanded in Bangalore until no more space was available.  As a result, these companies started expanding into Whitefield.  Now, Whitefield is one of the most expensive real estate areas around Bangalore.  It’s funny how things change.

Avi died a few years ago, but her spirit still lives on around this area.  She built a temple, which is still maintained by one of her sons.

More Pictures