Day 17: Journey to the center of the map

I'm Adam Sell and I have two months left before I leave Boston. My challenge? Do something in the city every day. Have ideas for my adventure? Send me an email.

I think it's rather well-established that I'm a nerd. A nerd for presidential history, for kids' books, for classy drinks, what-have-you. Well, here I go, exposing another one of my nerddoms: geography. A couple of emails I've gotten tipped me off to the Mapparium, and I'm a sucker for anything that shows what the world looked like back in the day.

At first glance, it's just a really big map. A really big old map, for that matter. But being the dork I am, I found it nothing short of fascinating to see what Africa's political boundaries looked like in 1935. Sadly, no photography was allowed inside the Mapparium itself, and I wasn't inclined to try and sneak any shots. So all I can offer is this photo from the reflecting pool outside.

What I found most interesting about the indoor globe, however, was the acoustics. If you stand in the center of the bridge and speak, the sound waves bounce back on you, creating a disorienting sensation of speaking into your own ear. And if you stand on the end and whisper, the sound waves travel across the planetary glass and arrive on the other end. What wouldn't be audible from 30 feet away is clear as crystal in this sphere.

My friend and I explored the rest of the Mary Baker Eddy Library after traipsing through the Earth bridge. We marveled more at the architecture and layout of the exhibits than we did at the content. I don't know anything about how to build a birdhouse, let alone a museum, but the configuration of this building was aesthetically pleasing and logical in its path.