Blog 1: Commuting
My time spent in Boston this summer began with a long road trip from Apopka to Danvers, Massachusetts. I was going to be staying in Boston for two months, so my Dad and I thought it would be important to have my car with me to get around. There, I lived with my grandparents to conserve money I would have been using to rent an apartment. My internship itself was downtown near Chinatown, next door to Tufts Medical Center. To get there each morning, I drove to the local train station in Salem, took a 35-minute train to North Station (TD Garden in Boston), and took the orange line on the subway to get to the laboratory. I really enjoyed my commute, but it wasn’t very affordable. However, it was more affordable than driving each day.
My sterile hood which I worked under during my experiments. This was during one of my TLR-4 activation analyses with over 80 samples I had to load into a 96 well plate.
In July, the MBTA (transportation in and around Boston) increased the prices of my tickets by $20, and I decided I did not want to use the commuter rail anymore. Instead, I now drove about 35 minutes each morning to the nearest subway stop in Oak Grove and took the orange line to work. My boss at the laboratory decided that he wanted me to stay a few extra days for my research and I ended up working until July 26th. That day, I had my boyfriend fly up to Boston to accompany me on my road trip home. After 6 days on the road and some nice stops on the way back, we’ve finally made it back to Orlando, and just in time for RLE training!