Trip to New England, 2023 – Day 09 – New England Aquarium (Goal 60×60.42.9)

Sunday dawned on Day 09, with breakfast at the cousins’. Our goal for the day was simple — penguins!

We drove to the aquarium, including through some tunnels, and although we took the highways, it was pretty slow traffic. We found a parking garage near the Aquarium and used the cousins’ pass to get in. As I said, our big goal was to see the penguins as Jacob loves them, and we met that goal pretty easily since they’re the first thing you see when you walk in the door. They have African and Southern Rockhoppers. We watched them for about 30 minutes, and then started wandering around, with a break for lunch in the cafeteria where I could see planes landing at the nearby airport.

We also saw sea lions, turtles, rays, fish, coral, etc. There’s a big tank in the centre of the aquarium and a spiral walkway goes all the way to the top floor (4 floors of fish plus an open tank at the top). There was a show at the top where you could see them feeding the turtles, but well, the real draw was the penguins.

We watched them feeding both kinds of penguins, and the feeders kept track of which penguins ate what type of fish and how many. There are more African penguins but the rockhoppers were very vocal during and after their feed. You could also see that for both types, there always seemed to be one penguin keeping watch, like a lifeguard.

At the end, we went to the touch tank and Andrea and Jacob touched rays as they swam by — very slimy! (The rays, not Andrea and Jacob hehehe). On the way out, we stopped by the gift shop and picked up a couple of items that will make appearances at Christmas.

The parking was very expensive for the day, but since the Aquarium was free for us, it worked out. We also took some pictures of the tall buildings nearby, which Jacob liked seeing. He isn’t used to much in the way of tall buildings in Ottawa as we rarely go downtown.

We decided to take a drive to the local campuses in Boston, and drove by M.I.T. easily enough. We decided we weren’t smart enough to go to Harvard as we spent way too much time even FINDING the campus so we could visit. Afterwards, we took a long, circuitous route back to Needham, with pizza delivery for dinner. The cousins arrived back home after we had gone to bed.

Obviously, we took a LOT of photos and videos during the day: