How altruist can be someone, to buy a very expensive apartment with a stylish escape stairs for the secret lover.

Même si je ne regarde pas la télé, forcé est de constater que les images et les mythes sont longs à déconstruire… Jamais très attirée par les USA, il m’aura fallu presque 30 ans pour mettre un pied dans ce pays et je me surprends à m’y trouver très à l’aise.

Après un peu d’attente, nous sommes arrivés près de Boston en covoiturage avec deux français sympas, qui nous ont déposé à Cambridge (le campus de Harvard) juste devant chez le cousin de Dan, Adam. Cet endroit possède une énergie particulière: de belles maisons, des jardins fleuris, des arbres quasi dans toutes les rues, des gens attentifs, chaleureux, et non loin de là, une des meilleures universités au monde. Adam nous accueille dans son appartement, toujours aussi enthousiaste et je m’imagine combien de cerveaux au mètre carré il pourrait y avoir dans cette ville…

The Americans have a short history, but they preserve it very well. In Boston you can see the church which was used to monitor the movements of the British army during the revolution, the bridge where it was the first bullet shot, the bench where Washington once sat. So, it seams to be very precise, but, with a lot of monuments there are funny little details, which put a veil on the Truth.

Here is the statue of the founder of Harvard University, John Harvard. But there are three lies:

1. The date of the foundation is not correct
2. The model was not the founder himself, but a future senator
3. John Harvard is not the founder, he just let by testament his collection of 400 books to the existing school.

Another example is the bridge across which it was the first battle between 400 British soldiers and 3000 local colon militia. It is not the original bridge, and the original location was several hundreds meters upstream.

My American family on the peak of the local mountain, where from we can see Boston.

We helped my cousin to get rid of the leaves from the autumn. Big surface, that’s a lot of work, but when it’s a small farm… It’s interesting that after a job like this, I had a lot of energy, it would have been perfect to visit in the evening Fine Arts Museum, but the traffic…

I don’t understand why in the 60’s, before they started to move in the outskirts of the cities, they hadn’t make a test to see how it would be the life of the people when everyone commutes.

I could see quite often efforts to be more green. If you look carefully you can see the Audi is hybrid, and the car in front of it is a Toyota Prius. The day I came in Boston, my aunt got her new Nissan Leaf, an electric car, 100 miles autonomy, chargeable for free in a couple of places.

But for the moment, instead of setting the charging places in front of the shops, to be visible, so everyone to see and to think that another benefit of such a car is that’s easier to find a spot, there are set at the back of the buildings. Once we spent 5 minutes with the guy at the security, because he couldn’t understand ‘electrical car’.

Massachusetts state goes green. I saw a lot of solar panels, even some farms. My aunt and my cousin installed solar panels from Solar City, the company of Elan Musk. You pay nothing for the installation, and a few for the panels, but you split the harvested energy.

This forest is very young. It has maximum 40 years. Since XVIIth century, New England had a lot of farm, and as they were extending, the forest was cut. In the 60’s, working the field became totally not feasible, so the old farms let the ground neglected. The forest took over, without any human intervention.

This railway was heavily used during the wars. In the 80’s was completly closed. Now they talk to make a cyclable road over it, like our famous RAVel in Belgium.

The nature has a big power to recover, if it is allowed.

In the major bookstore, in the section of most popular, the books of economics are either read, or in my kindle, or I was aware about them (I know, sounds pretentious). Walking in the campus of Harvard, seeing all the notices for conferences, I could feel smarter. You know, the average person estimates that he is more intelligent than the average. So did I, seeing all those people in the street. I’ve never thought that I could be one day a professor, but in this environment, I was thinking about it. Then crossing a street, my attention was captured by the noise of a fireman machine. It’s so beautiful, with the shinning chrome, red color, it’s like a very big toy. At that moment I had a revelation, I want to be a fireman in Harvard Campus !

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