I survived my first academic year as a graduate student, and my adviser was nice enough to let me have a bit of a vacation before I start my summer research work. My parents came to visit, so it was a family vacation. Over the last three weeks, we went to New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Boston, so basically the major cities in the northeast/eastern part of the United States. As always, the post contains an account of the trip accompanied by some thoughts and photos.