Meeting time was 9:00 instead of 8:30... But actually, every one was up and ready at 7:30!! Wow!
You were already all set when Ms. Tazi and I got to the hostel: breakfast eaten, sandwiches made and kitchen cleaned up. I have to confess I was impressed and couldn't believe my eyes. If any one still doubted your eagerness and dedication, their doubts were brushed off instantly.
Program for the day: Visit at the MIT museum and Harvard Square.
Both sites are set in the city of Cambridge, which is separated from Boston by the Charles River. This river gives great charm to both cities, and people love to take out the sailing boats whenever the weather is clement.
We walked across the bridge and got a beautiful view of the sky line.
Then, we got to MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the most famous college in the US in terms of technological research and achievements. But the college also has a wide range of other departments, such as economics, political science or linguistics. Noam Chomsky is even Professor Emeritus there...
We took a seat on the steps of the Institute and suddenly got big dreams of great accomplishments growing in our heads.
To get an idea of the kind of technological accomplishments they do at the MIT, we entered the museum which hosts all kinds of prototypes created by MIT students and alumni (=former students). We saw the current exhibitions about the robots that were created at MIT and which can articulate their limbs or express emotions the same way humans do.
Every one was fully focused, and it was just the beginning. Things were soon going to become even more gripping (=captivant)!
In the department of holography, we met with amazing surprises...
This tiger's head looked peaceful, but as we walked past it, it suddenly transformed into ...
... a woman's face! No need to say we all jumped when it appeared out of nowhere.
Can you see this hologram city which Brayan is excited to discover?
After seeing a whole lot of amazing creations, we went to the upper floor where a hands-on workshop with MIT students was taking place.
This guy with his computer was amazing. He took a picture of Sarah on his laptop, printed a paper covered with crooked black lines, then printed a transparent with the same kind of lines on it, and once you put the transparent on top of the sheet, here is what you could see:
Can you see well? Yes, it is Sarah's face! Amazing, right?
While some were engaged in trying to understand the secret for this wonder, someone else was completely absorbed into solving a tricky puzzle:
Dean had decided he would succeed in making an infra red light reflect into mirrors across the whole puzzle.
It was somewhat of a challenge because the piece was not stable, but what we know about Dean is that he has a tenacious mind. So of course he did make it. Congratulations to him!!
I think it was probably the first time it took us so long to have students leave a museum... :D
And on we went to Harvard Square. Right as we entered the Harvard area, we met with an impressive lady: she had a most surprising music instrument made of glasses vertically piled over water. When you spinned the wheel of the iron arm along which the glasses were piled up from the largest to the smallest, music could be heard when you put a wet finger on a glass, as if on a piano or a harp. The lady explained that Benjamin Franklin invented this instrument and called it a "Glass Armonica" after the Italian word for harmony.
To show us how the instrument worked, the lady started to play the "Marseillaise". And there we were, gathered around her, Rayan spinning the wheel and joining in, Mamadou with his hand on his heart over his tee shirt bearing "Senegal" on its front, all of us united as one, singing our national anthem: what a sight!
If anyone doubted that France could be so multicultural, we gave them a little cultural education.
If anyone questioned our French identity, we proved them wrong for good.
If anyone was expecting to see another negative cliché about the French banlieues, we are very happy to disappoint them...
Of course, the lady also played and sang the American national anthem, and even the Moroccan one because we're proud of our background cultures ;D
She thanked us a lot for our interest, and we gave her praise for her great performance, and then we walked on to Harvard College campus where we took a nice, cosy lunch break:
Harvard College, founded in 1636, is the oldest and most renowned college across the United States, if not the world. As you know, Barack Obama got his law degree there, before becoming a civil rights attorney in Chicago. When at Harvard, he also became the first African American President of the Harvard Law Review (= le journal de l'université de droit).
Now, that day, there was a fair all across Harvard Square, so we split in two groups to take a tour of the neighborhood.
Ms. Saumet and Ms. Laplane managed to enter Harvard College with twelve of you. You even got into a classroom, and all of a sudden, Ms Saumet was a law teacher while you students had turned into under-graduates (=jeunes étudiants non encore diplômés)! [I need to add a photo here to show how realistic it looked: hopefully one day, who knows...]
In the meantime, the other group enjoyed the different outdoor attractions.
Bringing some more colors to the colorful streets
Enjoying a reggae concert
Deciding which chalk artwork was our favorite one
Shopping of course...
And outdoor clubbing!! (=boîte en plein air)
Now look at all these delightful faces. Music makes the world go round!
And then, we took the bus...
... back to the hostel where Rayan, Mélissa and Sara practised on the piano and Mélissa played a beautiful song:
It was a nice way to end this rich and colorful day as we were all feeling anxious for the next day to come because it was going to be the day when we would eventually meet with our American pen pals, and get to visit their school!!!
