Harvard Business School - Day 48 & 49

Saturday, 24 Oct 2009 and Sunday, 25 Oct 2009

We finished class at noon on Saturday, had a bite to eat at the canteen and then those of us that were heading away for our last weekend in Massachusetts met outside McArthur hall where there was a van and driver waiting. For the ten of us the destination for the day was Marth's Vineyard. The weather was pretty lousy as we headed south. It took about 1.5 hours to get to Woods Hole, which is where we took the ferry across to Matha's Vineyard as foot passengers. The trip across to Tisbury took about 45 minutes and we picked up another taxi van on the other side to take us the approximately 20 minutes to Oaks Bluff.

Our accommodation for the night was at a old mansion type house called the Oaks Bluff Inn. It was owned and run by an amiable and very laid back landlord called Eric. The house was resplendent in a slightly purple hue, which looked perhaps hinted at a flowers, caftans and chemical filled past, it describes itself as whimsically Victoria (http://www.oakbluffsinn.com/ ) , however inside is was very tidy and very homely and almost a little stately. The weather never abated on Saturday, but we had a few drinks, some dinner at a excellent restaurant called the Oyster Bar where they really did showcase the local seafood. Being anti establishment I had a steak which turned out to have been taken off the hind-quarters of Tyrannosaurus Rex. While it was cooked to perfect and as tender as you could want after eating about three pounds of it I gave up. I was going to doggy bag it and take it back to the Inn but I realised that I wouldn't be able to lift it so I left it for the next three hundred patrons to take turns at gnawing on.
Sunday dawned and presented us with a clear blue sky. Eric had prepared a very enjoyable breakfast and some typically shit American coffee, after which we went for a walk around Oak Bluff which is known for its large camping ground where the tents have over the last 150 years been replaced by little gingerbread cottages which are on land owned by the Martha's Vineyard Campmeeting Association. There are around 350 of these little cottages and they are all very close to each other and very cute.
We had arranged for our taxi driver of the previous day to pick us up at noon and give us a 3 hour tour of the island before depositing us back at the ferry for the 3:45pm sailing. The island itself is home to the "Islanders" many of who hail back from the island's whaling days, as well as seasonal holiday makers who number from amongst the most wealthy of U.S. east coast aristocracy. This is the island that JFK Jnr crashed his plane off in 1999 killing himself, his wife and sister, John Belushi (he of Blues Brothers fame) is burried here. Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama and their families come to or ave stayed on the island. Jaws was filmed there.
There seems to be a lack of consensus as to why Martha's Vineyard is in fact called Martha's Vineyard as there appeared to be no wineries what-so-ever (I am sure there must be one or two but they are certainly not prevalent) although the van driver advised us that vines did in fact grow wild. What I am authoritatively advised is that it is one of the few places in the United States today with a possessive apostrophe. Thus it is Matha's Vineyard, not Marthas Vineyard. We had lunch at a little fishing village. I had crab cakes and seafood chowder from a little take away shop, which was great. I bought some lobsters to which I had cooked so I could take them back to my living group. We made the 3:45pm ferry and a van was duly waiting for us back at Woods Hole, the Sunday traffic was kind to us and we were back in Harvard by about 6pm.
Our living group sans Ajay went out for dinner last night. Hopefully we can get all 8 of us together before the end of the week.