Maritzburg College School Magazine Maritzburg College Magazine 2016 electronic | Page 83

OTHER ACTIVITIES
Academic Achievers Tour – USA
Mrs D Martin ( Deputy Head of Academics ) wishes the Academic Achievers Group a wonderful and learning filled experience in the USA . L-R : R Burger , C Beekrum , L Govender , S Moodley , T Atterbury , C Stone and Mr T Nevill ( the accompanying teacher ).
In April , College offered me the chance to travel to the USA with an Academic Achievers group of youngsters from all over the country . College fielded seven boys ( Grade 10 and 11 ). I was to be chaperon of a group of 11 ; nine boys , including the College boys , and two girls . The whole tour-group numbered 83 youngsters and 10 adults . My duties proved to be very light and pleasant . The group behaved as one would expect intelligent ‘ nice ’ kids to behave , very well and responsibly .
The tour took place in October , during the school holidays . We flew from Johannesburg via Doha to Boston . This city is beautiful – and old : 1630 . It is a ‘ mother city ’, founded by the Pilgrim Fathers and still , we were repeatedly told , somewhat Puritan . Some historic streets are cobbled and still lit by gaslight . On walking tours we saw Paul Revere ’ s house , beautiful 17th Century churches and gracious 18th Century buildings .
Academically best of all , we were taken to Cambridge , a separate , smaller city across the river , to see Harvard University ( 1636 ) and walk in the green shade of Harvard Yard . Everywhere we were accompanied by competent and very informative guides .
Also in the attractive university town is MIT , one of the world ’ s great ‘ engineering ’ schools . Medical , scientific and other major research is ongoing here . We attended a lecture on the latest cancer research , which involves the use of light in varying intensities , for scans and the like . The beautiful campus of MIT stretches for a mile along the Charles River – the eponymous Charles being King Charles I .
One evening – after a day spent in the Natural History Museum , also a ‘ space ’ centre and planetarium – we attended a hilarious farce at the Charles Theatre . It was most professionally done and at the relentless pace the genre demands . Among the institutions visited was the JFK Presidential Library overlooking Boston Harbour ( where the tea was jettisoned …). It was fascinating for me : I can remember the momentous events that marked JFK ’ s shortened term of office .
From Boston we drove down through the marvellously wooded landscape , through a small slice of Connecticut to New Haven , a larger city than I had expected , on ‘ the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound ’ ( thoughts of poor Gatsby and Tom Buchanan ’ s string of polo ponies ). And so to the grandeur of the pale stone gothic of Yale : the famous Law School ; a cathedral-like library ( 4 million books ); great trees ; crocketed spires . Wonderful . Here we took lunch in a vast , sombre hall of the student ’ s union : ‘ American cuisine to the right , Asian cuisine to the left . Eat as much as you like ’! The sheer scale of everything is staggering .
No one had prepared me for the trees in New England ! Everywhere the woods and forests stood mile after mile on both sides of the eight-lane highway all the way to New York City . Passing through Harlem , we drove down a long , long stretch of Broadway to Times Square – a ghastly , garish bedlam of surging humanity and noise . Here , bang in the centre of the Big Apple , we dined ( too grand a word ) in the Hard Rock Café … I had been very apprehensive , but the volume was not too dreadful and the food was good .
In New York we were lodged across the Hudson in New Jersey in the Hilton Airport Hotel in Newark : from these runways the 9 / 11 killers took off to destroy the Twin Towers just across the water .
There were ‘ tourist ’ sights each day : up the Empire State building at night to see the glittering lights of the city ; a long walk , taking in ‘ The Ramble ’, in Central Park , about an hour and a half . The Park is one of the greatest artificial landscapes in the world and covers four square kilometres in the middle of the great city ; a visit to the famous Natural History Museum – sensational dinosaurs ; immaculate , ‘ fresh ’ presentation , superb and very inter-active exhibits . A whole herd of life-size elephants in one hall .
One early morning to Liberty Island by ferry and inside the famous statue , it is hollow and supported by a mass of iron struts and stays . Brooklyn in the distance and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge far off in the sea-mist , linking Brooklyn and Staten Island .
We had been offered a choice of tickets to see a Broadway Musical : ‘ Aladdin ’, ‘ Phantom of the Opera : or ‘ The Lion King ’. I chose the latter . It is brilliantly clever and inventive . A Disney cartoon come to life .
We visited another Ivy League institution one morning – the beautiful , axially planned campus of Columbia , a university of the highest renown , an academic oasis among the concrete cliffs , its lawns and fountains spread below the columned façade of the Low Library . Here we attended a lecture on the Universe given by a former Dean of the Astronomy Dept . It was fascinating . ( We think the Milky Way probably contains about 100 billion stars …)
After the talk we walked to see the largest gothic ( perhaps that should be gothick ) cathedral in the world , St John the Divine . It is still a-building and far from finished . Its vast stone aisles recalled Bourges , its lovely blue glass Chartres .
From God to Mammon . Down the hill we visited Wall Street , whose bottom fell out so catastrophically in October 1929 . From without we saw The
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