Impressions from Harvard Square

I haven’t even come close to completely cover our trip in Egypt but now that I have already undertaken new adventures in another continent I can no longer reminisce about snorkelling in Dahab, excellent sea food in the backstreets of Alexandria or the first rain in years in Sinai. I have immersed myself once again in the academic life and for two weeks now I’ve been savouring the atmosphere around Harvard Square. While I immediately felt like home in Boston, I have to say that some aspects of American culture and life surprise me as much as Islamic Egypt.

One day, just after my arrival, I started talking to a Romanian-French associate professor who had been living here for years now. I doubted if I could ever live here for a longer period and he assured me how I would find it eventually better than Europe (at the moment, I’m still doubting). At least there is one object to my absolute daily satisfaction rate: paper cups. Now I’m more prepared for this ubiquitous waste and I’m carrying my own thermos mug with me in order to avoid the paper cups in the cafés (however, paper cups being just one example of the ecologically unsustainable life style here).

Another “ex-European”, a German economics professor at Harvard, told me that while he enjoys his life enormously, he also misses the healthier balance between work and leisure in Europe where people actually have time to have a Sunday brunch with friends. I observed this work addiction very soon after arriving here. People carry their take-away coffees around the campus looking busy, eat their lunch during the classes and try to multitask the day through. Are they really more efficient in their work like this, not having a real pause to calm down? I don’t know but if I remember correctly, some economists argue that the productivity is around the same in Europe even if we work much less. Anyways, if our more easy-going work rhythm is not improving our economic growth rates like in the USA, I think it must be correlated with the well-being of people.

So, even though I’m very impressed by the Harvard University and nice and polite people (working for their tips?), I’m still not ready giving up my European identity and pride of being European. I’ll keep you updated on my sentiments of European superiority on the one hand, and my positive observations of the American culture on the other. I’ve already abandoned some of my arrogant prejudices about the Americans, but however, only premised on the non-representative sample around Harvard.