Avion

On part à l'heure

Potluck Farewell Party

The end of an amazing trip (08/04/15)

One of the delicious cakes

At the end of the day, around 5 p.m., the farewell party took place at the BLS cafeteria with all our correspondents and their parents, who had prepared a delicious sideboard, which was composed by many types of pasta, sandwiches, cakes, and incredibly: a lot of FRUITS!

But before being able to eat this apparently good dinner, we had to listen to all the sad but beautiful speeches that concluded the trip. The  teachers thanked each others and the french-american group, before we moved on to the musical performances; about ten girls offered to sing in front of everybody. After thist, we watched a video, composed by all of the group pictures, that the american students had done for us. This good moment was ideal to whet everybody's appetite, so we began to eat. The party continued with music, games, conversations, jokes, dance, good moments together, but especially: the sadness of the departure!!

So this farewell party concluded an amazing trip and nice encounters, and nobody wanted to go home.

[image 11]

Museum of Science by Tim and Juliette

April the 8th 2015

Museum of Science in Cambridge and farewell party- by Juliette and Tim

Today, the last day before the day we were leaving, we went to the Museum of Science, which is located in Cambridge, near the city of Boston. To get there, we took the train from BLS for quite a long ride. After we finally got there, we first walked into a wide hall, where we had to wait for a while.

When we finally got into the museum, the group of students split into a few groups, for we were free to visit the wings we wanted without any guide or restriction. The museum was divided on three levels.

With a few friends, we went down the stairs and we discovered a first section, called 'The Blue Wing'.

In the museum, we had the opportunity to try a lot of different things and machines out, about many different things, all related to science of course, like e.g. sounds and their frequencies, insects, the human body, optical illusions and much more.

The area where we probably spent the most time was the 'playground', which was like a small park with children games where we could experiment about physical strength or phenomenes, such as the moving of heavy bulks or the rotation of corps. Some students did have a lot of fun with the children attractions too: 

The part I preferred was when we talked to a scientist, a British physician, who showed and taught about electrical circuits and how they work, and we learned stuff about those we didn't know before... The 51 years old physician, called Steve Adams, was very enthusiastic and sympathetic and we really enjoyed talking with him. We asked him a few questions and here is what he answered:

Hi Steve Adams, so where and what did you study?

I studied physics at the University of Cambridge in England. I did a first degree and afterwards, I also did a master's degree. In all, I studied about seven years.

Why did you came to New England to work?

My wife is from here. We lived a long time in England where I used to work before we moved over here. Since I'm here, this is the job I do, teaching students about science, and also working a lot on the museum's background and creating the tools you can see in here.

Do you like the job you're doing?

Oh I love it, it's the most fun I ever had in my life. I also love the subject, I love physics and teaching other people about it. I think it is really interesting and fun to show and explain to people some stuff that may seem and sound really complicated and scary but in simpler and funnier ways. Science shouldn't be seen as something scary, it should be fun and interesting, that's why I love what I do.

(You should tell this to our science teachers...)

Did you make any discoveries in the domains you are studying?

If you're doing a PhD in physics, you have to study innovative things, something that nobody else is doing, so I studied about what happens when you fire lasers at pieces of material, and since this was a domain no one had really studied before, I learned quite a lot of stuff, but these weren't any dramatic discoveries or something. So in a certain way, yes, I made some minor discoveries in physics.

To study physics, is studying mathematics really recquired? How do those two subjects relate to each other?

To do it professionally, maths is something you have to be comfortable with; if you want to work in science, as an engineer for example, you have to go through the maths department. For some reason, the language of the universe is maths, so if you want to understand how the universe is working, which is the purpose of physics, you'll have to understand mathematics.

Do you think mankind discovered mathematics, or did mankind invent mathematics?

This is a really interesting question, which I cannot answer clearly and I can't be sure to be right. I do think that humans discovered mathematics rather than inventend it. I mean, have you been to the Maya exhibit here? It's a lot of fun and really interesting, you should go and take a look; the Maya invented a really sophisticated numbers system, and in the exhibit, there are cool activities about these numbers that make you think about the relation between the invention and the discovery of numbers. The primitive cultures had pretty easy numbers systems, because they only had to count small amounts of things, so did they develop more sophisticated systems because they needed to count higher amounts of things, or did they do it by accident and realised that they could actually count more things? That's a really good question: what does having sophisticated mathematics have to do with your view of the world? They must have a profound Impact. So I don't know the answer to your question, it's a fascinating question, I'm not sure there's a good answer. But mathematics are in the physical universe, but at the same time, we might be inventing a sort of 'dialect' to understand maths and physics.

Yes, I guess you must be right. Did you also study chemistry?

I only studied chemistry formally at high school and during my first year in college. But the division between physics and chemistry is pretty artificial, they are like nested together.

Thank you for all your answers, it was a pleasure to talk to you.

[image 8]

Afterwards, we were supposed to visit the Maya exhibit but we had a little problem so we couldn't and we moved on to the movie about the discovery of the Maya civilisation in the theater, where the screen covered the whole wall and was curved for better vision:

The picture is blurred but the screen was huge and we were immersed in amazing landscapes.

Overall, we spent great time in the museum and learned a lot of things.

One day in Salem - by Alfred and Janika

Today we met as usual in the morning at BLS and then we went by train to the central train station and take the Commuter Rail to go to Salem, the historical world known witch city. We almost past the train but we ran and get it at the last minute. In the train we all offered the birthday gift to Mme Audhuy for her birthday. It was a Red Sox t-shirt that we all signed. 

When we arrived there we all took a donut that the teachers offered us.


Salem is the city of witches: do you remember Tabatha from Bewitched?

After this second breakfast we walked to the witch museum were there was a presentation about one of the first cases of witchcraft. They explained how this whole story was born. In a second part a woman showed us the evolution of witches through time.

After some free time in a small shopping mall, where we had lunch we went  to the Old Town Hall to see " Cry Innocent ", a play of 40min that tells the story of Bridget Bishop, a woman who in 1692 was accused of witchcraft and the funny thing is that the spectators were involved in the play, we participated. We were the puritans who assisted the trial and at the end we had to choose if Bridget was guilty or not.

At the end of the play we interviewed the actors. Almost all of them were student that played in this 22 years old play just as a second job. They explained that they every day exchange their role in the play between them and that during the summer they can even reach 8 representations per day. They said that they choose the particular example of Brigitte Bishop because they had the more information when they wrote the play. They told that the puritans used to write everything down and that's why they had so many informations. 

After that, before taking the train, we could have a Dunkin Donuts'drink !

The Blue Man Group - by Robin

Everyone sits down in their chairs, calm, waiting, unsure whats going to happen. The lights fade away, the room is silent. Even the chatter from us students stopped. Everyone is expecting something to happen. We dont know what, or how.

Then, suddenly, a noise. And light. Through tissue, we spot the silhouette of a bald man, playing the drums. His light then fades away, and the one next to him starts shining, revealing another man, bald, playing the drums, but another melody. Light fades again, revealing yet another bald man, playing drums. Then it fades quicker, revealing them all faster, over and over again, and all their basic melodies morph together, creating a beautiful and complex crescendo. They all go faster, louder, stronger, the crescendo increases, and then, suddenly, a final boom, and all three stop their movement, turn towards the crowd. We cant see their faces through the tissue, but everyone knows they are staring right at us. One hell of a reveal. Strong, creepy, fascinating and funny.

This can be said about the entire show. At its core, the blue man group is a comedic act of three bald, blue men. They cant talk, all they have at their disposal are their acting skills, and some tools. A wise man once said, that some gestures mean more than a thousand words. This show proves it. 

Underlined by great musical scores, the three men discover things of our human world, simple things. Think of young children discovering their new toys, how they experiment with them, not necesearly in the way they are supposed to. An example, they discover how to use colors, but instead of painting with brushes, the throw them into each others mouth and spit them on paintings. What may sound cheesy and old is however massivly improved with the great acting, the three man absolutly nail their characters, and once again the musical and lightning work. The show could be seen as a high quality modern circus, just better. 

Because it has even more qualitys to it. First, it is quite over the top, and always surprising. The front lines all had to wear rain-protection shirts, as they had a great tendency of throwing stuff into the public. Lots of stuff. Sometimes very unexpected, an example: they were sitting on a table, focussed on each other, and suddenly, out of nowhere, they catapulted a random cake in the middle of the audience. Seriously. No one saw that coming. 

Another awesome quality is interaction with the audience. As I mentioned before, they have a tendency of throwing stuff at us.

we had to wear ponchos just in case...

But thats far from everything. First, they went into public quite often. Or, climbed over our seats. They also gave some of their stuff to the viewers, like self made paintings. Not sure if anyone really wanted them, but whatever...

At some point, they were in the middle of a performance, but all the sudden, red lights started flashing, sirens went on, the three stopped their movements, grabbed the live feed cam and filmed a bunch of late arrivals, calling them out for beeing late. Everyone laughed pretty damn hard. 

The best part was propably a lady the grabbed from the audience, and taken on stage. And I cant tell whetever she was involved with them or not, because if she was not, it was some of the best impro I have ever seen. Serioulsy, awesome job.

Towards the end, they brought the big guns and started shooting giant balloons and kilometers of toiletpaper in the crowd, the crazy finale to a crazy show.

We were not allowed to take pictures during the show, only during the finale..this is us covered in toilet paper and wearing ponchos to avoid being covered in paint! But we were able to take pictures with the artists afterwards...They stayed in character and did not utter a word, just like the show.

Overall, the blue man group is an awesome specatcle. Great acting, comedy, music, interaction, even some social critique, it is a must visit in Boston, and I only have one question, why are you reading this? Do it like us, go get some tickets! Like right now!

If you're back from ordering (or already did it in the first place), here is some background stuff about them:

The group was founded 1991, by three close friends, Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton on Manhattens lower east side. They quickly grew to a bigger and stronger organisation, getting national media attention aswell as overwhelming positive critical acclaim, including Emmy and Grammy awarded shows. Today, they have theatrical installations in Boston, New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, Orlando and Berlin, aswell as a tour in South/North America and a show on a norwegian cruise line ship, and their organisation includes over 4000 employees and about 40 "blue men". 

When the three students created the blue man character back in 1991, and started investing lots of ressources into their project, they received lots of sceptical feedback. They however decided to stick to their plan, and presented their work for the first time at the Astor Place Theatre, NYC. The overall reception was so overwhelmingly positive, it lead to their massivly ascending career. Today, the group is mostly acclaimed for their innovative on scene productions, interactions with the audience, and musical work. In fact, the group has been on multiple tours excluivly focussing on their rock music, has a discopraphy including 5 albums, and has been awarded with Grammys.

As a final verdict, I think we can all agree that these people are awesome, and that the Blue man group is with no doubt a must see in Boston, or anywhere else on the globe.

Random pictures 3

 We were all exhausted yesterday

f

Rowing on the Charles River...

Rowing is just as quintessential to Boston as baseball as Harvard was based on Cambridge University

 in the UK. Cambridge and Oxford have been competing for centuries, and rowing is still one of their favourite battlefields.

Shops and malls in Boston - by Thaïs

Boston offers a large choice of shops and malls. You can find them everywhere in the city but we noticed some of the best and most popular places in the city. In Back Bay you can find a lot of clothes and big brands. In this neighborhood there is Newbury Street, one of the most famous shopping streets in Massachusetts. 

There you can find can find chic shops like Tiffany's, Dior or this kind of brands but also cheaper ones, like the popular Forever 21, Brandy Melville or Urban Outfitters. Between all this clothing shops you can also see coffee shops to take a little break, like the popular Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, where you can find all the different kinds of American donuts and munchkins. You can find them at each corner and they are very attractive to the French students because of their authenticity. The street also offers choice for little shops. 


Another famous place is Faneuil Hall, also know as Quincy Market, where you can go shopping in the very known Abercrombie and Fitch, it is very popular for the French students because the price is much lower and we had the chance to have sales (-40% on the hole shop). About everybody came out with a piece of clothing. American Eagles is also a similar brand.
Because of the many sport teams, like the Red Sox or the Celtics and the very known university of Harvard there are many sellers (in the street, souvenir shops or even supermarkets) of sweaters, caps, t-shirts and other stuff with the team's or university's symbol(s).
We visited one of the multiple shopping malls: the Prudential, also named named the Pru by the American students. It was at the bottom of a tower. The shops were very diversified too. A very interesting thing to see in America are the supermarket: they are so different! Often they are much bigger and the products are not all to find in France. It was funny to see the birthday cake department, the cakes were the big cliché of the American cake, full of cream and color! We found a lot of products: the famous peanut butter, Canadian maple syrup or cheddar cheese! 

Quincy Market is a big food court surrounded by many shops

In general the prices are lower than in France and the quantity is bigger. Boston offers so many different things, everybody finds something for his taste!

One afternoon with JFKennedy - by Hélène

Today, after we had lunch at the «tasty burger» (sooo good !!)

, we went to the JFK library, which is the presidential library but also museum of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (president of the USA from 1961 to 1963). The building, built in 1977, was designed by the famous architect Ieoh Ming Pei.

When we arrived there, we first watched a movie about Kennedy's life, from his little childhood to his election, in 1961. Then, we went through many rooms, built just like the inside of the white house. Each of them was dedicated to one important side or subject of Kennedy's life. For example, one of the rooms was about the Cuban Crisis, another one was about Freedom 7, the first American rocket which brought a man into the universe. The mission was charted by Kennedy, so that he really got involved in it. A piece of the rocket was even seeable in the museum !  We were also able to see the dress that his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, wore at the gala given for André Malraux, and a copy of his famous desk... and so much more !

 Jaqueline Kennedy and Charles de Gaulle

 we saw reconstitutions of his campaign headquarters...

 a reconstitution of the Oval Office at the White House as it was at the time

Interview (with an American museum visitor) :
Me : «What do you think about John F. Kennedy, do you think he was a good president ?
Visitor : To my opinion, he was the best president America has ever had.
Me : Interesting ! Why do you think so ?
Visitor : I think so because he got involved in a lot projects, and when he was interested in something, he would always give 100% of himself to make it led.
Me : Do you have a concrete example of one of those projects you are talking about ?
Visitor : Yes. He was the first president to fight for desegregation. He supported its victims and tried to make the people change their mentality about coloured citizens.
Me : Yes, that's true, he was really combative for equal rights. Maybe you have another example ?
Visitor : Sure. Kennedy created the «Peace Corps Projects». Those projects were meant to help poor people all over the world. For the third one, the president sent 300 men to the Philippines, for example.
Me : Thank you ! A last question : what is your opinion on such places like the JFK library ?
Visitor : I think they are very important, very helpful to know a little more about such a famous man, because we can't get to his private life and reach his thoughts better than in a place like that one.»

Museum of Fine Arts - by Célia

Monday, April 6th

Today the French students went to the Museum of Fine Arts, one of the biggest museums in the USA. It has opened in 1876 and is set in Huntington Avenue in Boston.

When we arrived, our teacher Mme Audhuy divided us in two groups for the guided tour and the activities.

The museum is split up into several sections. We visited the part of the Art of the Americas, the Art of Europe and the Art of Japan and China. Each section includes expositions of different artistic movements such as Abstract Expressionism for example. Our guide showed us different works of art such as "Rising Star" (Burhan Dogançay, 2009), "The great wave off Kanagawa" ( Hokusai, 1831) or "Red Disaster" ( Andy Warhol, 1963). She asked us what do we see on the different paintings. The purpose of these art works is to convey a message. 

After the guided tour every student made his own painting. We only had a piece of canvas, a pair of scissors and some tape to our disposal but we made great paintings and we had a lot of fun!

( photos to come)

Quack Quack! The Duck Tour - by Celia

Hi everyone! I'm going to write an article about the two main things we did on April the 1rst.

So first we went to Prudential  Center  to have lunch there and the teachers let us 50 minutes to walk around.

The Prudential Center is an International Style skyscraper. It stands as the 2nd tallest building in Boston. Completed in 1964, the building is 228 meters tall, with 52 floors. It contains many shops which are expensive. It’s spectacular to see from the outside.

Right after we did something really amazing! We went on a Duck Tour. A “Duck” is an amphibious vehicle. None of us had ever toured a city in anything that comes close to Boston Duck Tours. 

First, we were greeted by one of the tour conductors, who also narrated our sightseeing tour of Boston. We cruised by all the places that make Boston the birthplace of freedom and a city of firsts, from the golden-domed State House to Bunker Hill and the TD Banknorth Garden, Boston Common and Copley Square to the Big Dig, Government Center to fashionable Newbury Street, Quincy Market to the Prudential Tower, and more. In fact we were driven to 37 different places.

And just when we were thinking we had seen it all, it was time for "Splashdown" as the “Duck” splashed right into the Charles River for a breathtaking view of the Boston and Cambridge skylines. The river was still frozen in some parts but fortunately the bus/boat was able to sail through.

We loved it, it was so "wicked" awesome as the Bostonians say!

He even let some of us drive on the river!

I'm just going to tell you some more about the main places we saw.

The Bunker Hill Monument stands at Breed's Hill, the site of the first major battle of the American Revolution (June 17, 1775). The golden-domed State House is the state capitol and house of government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, located in the Beacon Hill. It is a masterpiece of architecture.

The TD Banknorth Garden is the arena home of the Celtics (national basketball league), Bruins (national hockey league), and many other sports and entertainment events. It is a huge building as well outside as inside.

Newbury Street is located in the Back Bay area of Boston. It runs from the Boston Public Garden also known as Commons to Massachusetts Avenue. This mile long street lined with brownstones crosses many major streets and contains hundreds of shops and restaurants.

The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library  founded in 1848 and is financed with state funding.

Hope you enjoyed reading and big hugs and kisses from Boston

American food - part 3 by Rachel

So after spending a few days in the US we start to understand what the american people are eating... Most of the time not healthy food...but they are exceptions. For example Nora and I went to the "Smoothie King" and we bought a healthy smoothie with fruits. There are also fancy restaurants like the "Cheese Cake Factory" were there are different kinds of food: pasta, burger, sea food, salads,... 
But most of the American food still stay unhealthy like Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Mac Donald's,... 
So compared to France, the food is not that healthy and the one that is, is food from other countries like Italy, Mexico, France,...

quite a challenge