BOSTON COVERAGE COMING YOUR WAY ONCE AGAIN! Since I have already covered the topic I am most interested in, I will attempt at talking about other aspects of my experience as a student abroad, which is not politics related. It will be difficult, but I will give it a shot!
The cultural landscape of Boston is, as many of you have already imagined or have actually seen, hugely vast. From its European heritage to its legacy of being the most English- inspired city of the US, Boston does indeed subscribe very much to the English model from the setup of the city, to the emphasis on nature (numerous parks), to its dominant residential areas (very much an English type of architecture) to its endless streets hinting at the busy New York Avenues, but also extremely versatile museums.
And as a museum fanatic, I would like to stop and talk about the massive cultural heritage of the city in this regard. One of the things I knew about the US, but only briefly encountered last year when I visited New York, was the impeccable way Americans manage to create, organize and preserve their museums. I have been to the major art museums in NY like Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim, so I had a good sense of the skill and infrastructure that was being put into these places. Boston was an equally pleasant discovery, when I started storming the museums, while randomly Googling them and just going to as many as I could fit in a day. The most fascinating is the Presidential Library of JFK. After a very long commute to get to the Library, the image I encountered excused the almost two hours spend changing trains. Overlooking the sea, the library is situated on Columbia Point, neighboring Senator’s Edward Kennedy’s Center. The architecture of the library, as well as the the way in which the big windows have been situated, in order to get a glimpse of the president’s boat overlooking the sea (one of JFK’s favorite hobbies was sailing) is not only of an immense worth and legacy, but also of the various notions taken into consideration, when creating such a place. What I want to point out is the importance placed on symbolism. You see it at every corner: whether it’s a flag, a T-Shirt mocking one of the presidential candidates, the typical house with the lawn and the basketball hoop or many other things that are already considered basic, and some may fail to notice them.
That day, accompanied by a surprisingly sunny and enjoyable weather, even so deep into the autumn season, I walked around the streets of Boston and absorbed all there is to see and experience in this truly beautiful city. One thing I would recommend you do, regardless of where you are in the US: find a museum (or several) of your interest and go visit it! The way they are built, designed, organized – always having that sense of humanity and sentiment at the core of the project, is what makes this museum-going-experience one of the most unique and fundamental experiences a student should have, when in the US!
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