Bicycle trip, Harvard and M.I.T

After a crazy night out with my neighbour Nancy, I met her again on Saturday afternoon. We drove to Nantasket, a small town on the ocean, and rode bicycles there. It was really pretty there. And I broke the chain of my bike. Bravo.

In the evening, I went to a dinner party with my host family. They had told me the people hosting the party had a huge house and Mussolini's garden. Well, they were right. The place was very rich and beautiful, the food was great... It would have been a good evening if I wasn't the only one under 40. And if some of the people there weren't so posh. Urg. You know that typical old couple you sometimes see in movies, with the woman wearing kilos of golden jewels, talking about her poor son who has to fly home every week end because he doesn't like the place where he works (Florida) but cannot leave for good because his business is sooo successful, then she talks about how she really doesn't want to build a swimming pool in her garden but would loooove a hot tub, and speaks loud and makes sure everyone gets how rich and lucky she and her husband are... While he, the husband, sits there silently, wearing shorts and the most common t shirt and looks like he cannot stand his wife when she acts like this in public. You see what kind of people I'm talking about? Yeah, these.
Luckily Pauline saw that I wasn't really enjoying myself and took me home where I watched TV. Aaaah. Feeling better.

Then on Sunday, I went out on my own, letting my hosts have some precious time alone while their daughters are visiting their grandparents. I left home at noon and took the subway to Cambridge. I went to Harvard and saw students offering guided tours of the campus, so I joined, and learned many fun facts about Harvard. Like this tradition according to which on the eve of the final exams, all the students gather in the main yard to execute "the cry", meaning they all yell together to deal with their stress. Then the bravest of them run around naked. It is obviously very stressful to be a Harvard student.

I also learned that whenever a Harvard president dies, one of the dorms is named after him. When President Hore died, they were a bit annoyed. They didn't want a dorm with this name. So they built a statue instead. The statue doesn't bear his name though. It says "John Harvard, founder, 1638" which is a triple lie, as the statue isn't John Harvard, who wasn't the founder of Harvard anyway, which wasn't founded in 1638 but in 1636. So this statue stays there, and there still isn't any Hore house in Harvard.

After my tour of Harvard, I walked around in the streets of Cambridge. I saw a church and got in, and an organ concert was just starting. I sat for a while a listened. I didn't stay until the end because honestly, I don't like the organ so much. It has something too noisy and too blurred about it. I like music to be more distinct, not just that big sort of music which sounds to me like a big mess of different sounds... So I decided two pieces were enough and I left.

I walked to Holyoke street where there was a Bastille Day celebration. For French and/or uneducated readers, Bastille Day is the English name for our national holiday, the 14th of July. I ate some macarons, listened to that woman making a mess of some of France's greatest songs, and left.

I took the bus to the M.I.T. I saw the great dome, entered, walked in the halls of one of the world's best school of science. Just two hours after seeing Harvard, it was a lot of excitement! I am a very emotional person, and I live things intensely. And since I arrived in Boston I've been in a constant state of excitement, feeling like "waaaaa I'm in Boston!"
So as I was walking alone in Harvard, the M.I.T etc, I felt my heart bouncing like it was going to explode...

Then I left the M.I.T and walked to Beacon Hill, a very nice area of Boston, then walked to Park Street. If you look at a map, you'll see I walked quite a bit, considering that I occasionally got lost in small streets. (the worst part is that I intentionally get lost. I just walk where it's pretty and then take a map and try to figure out how to get home)

So that was a very productive week end! I can hardly express how happy and excited I am about this whole trip!

Now I'm back to work even though it's July 14th and as the French girl I am, I should be hungover, at home, watching the parades on TV and being bored to death but too knackered to do anything.