On the first evening, we visited Fan Pier Park in Seaport. There are numerous high-rise buildings, hotels and elegant restaurants right on Boston Harbor in the business district, which are above our budget as volunteers. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the walk along the harbor; there is no better place to enjoy the Boston skyline in the evening.

During our walk in Fan Pier Park Seaport, we walked past the Institute of Contemporary Art, where an exhibition opening sponsored by Christies was taking place. Curious, we walked in and suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a reception where we were greeted with free food and drinks. We were delighted with the delicious food, beer and sparkling wine and took a look at the newly opened art exhibition by Firelei Báez. At the reception there were many well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, apparently art critics, artists, donors and dignitaries from Boston. Unplanned, we stumbled into one of my highlights of the trip, a great pleasure. 

Does the dome look familiar to you? Then you must have seen “The Departed” from 2006 by Martin Scorsese, as the dome is mentioned several times here. This excellent film is about a policeman played by Leonardo DiCaprio who wants to infiltrate the organization of a gangster boss (Jack Nickolson). The gangster boss, in turn, also has a mole inside the police force (Matt Damon), so both sides try to discover the other mole first. One of the best gangster movies that takes a look into the workings of both the police and the gangs. 

The Massachusetts State House is the State Capitol and the seat of government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as the state is officially known. The building also houses the state's highest court and the governor's office. The golden dome is particularly striking. Built in 1798, the dome was originally made of wood. After just 4 years, the dome began to leak, so it was covered with copper. In 1874, the dome was covered with gold leaf. During the Second World War, the golden dome was painted black to prevent reflections during power cuts and to prevent bomb attacks. In 1997, the dome was given back its golden color and the state paid 300,000 US dollars for the 23-carat gold leaf. 

The first Anglican church in New England was founded in 1686 on the site where King's Chapel stands today. Because no resident wanted to sell their land to a non-Puritan church, the church was built on what was then a graveyard. The Bostonians who remained loyal to the English king during the war emigrated to Kanda. Those who stayed behind reopened the church, which had been empty during the war, in 1782. In 1814, the church bell cast in England and installed in 1772 cracked. Paul Revere himself recast it and then hung it up. It was to be the last bell cast by Paul Revere.

The Granary Burying Ground is an important cemetery, as many famous American personalities are buried here. These include three signatories of the Declaration of Independence, Paul Revere, five victims of the Boston Massacre and numerous fighters from the War of Independence. Paul Revere learned the trades of silversmith and printer, and later worked as a graphic artist and dental technician. He took part in the Boston Tea Party in 1773 and took part in the War of Independence as a messenger. On April 18, 1775, he rode with William Dawes and Samuel Prescott from Boston to Lexington and Concord to warn the inhabitants of the approaching British troops. This midnight ride was immortalized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in a poem that made Revere a national hero. 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon, like a prison-bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black, that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height,
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river-fog,
That rises when the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

An impressive poem and an exciting story, which, however, does not quite correspond to the facts. It was actually the courier rider Israel Bissell who rode 345 miles between Watertown and Philadelphia from April 19 to 24, 1775. Revere only traveled 19 miles between Boston and Cambridge. Nevertheless, he was credited with this feat and subsequently served as a major of infantry and colonel of artillery.  His only combat mission in the Penobscot Expedition ended in disaster and he was advised to leave the army. He was able to clear his name at a court martial hearing, but his career in the military was over. He recognized the growing need for church bells and became the well-known bell manufacturer after the war. 

My favorite phrase during the tour was: “The only pub in the world where you can drink a cold Sam Adams while viewing a cold Sam Adams”. The guide was talking about the pub on the opposite side of the cemetery where you can drink the beer named after Samuel Adams and look at the grave of Samuel Adam. In 1748, the lawyer Adams founded the weekly newspaper “The Independent Adviser” with friends, where he defended the right to resist oppression. In January 1748, he wrote

"All men are by nature equal; born with an equal share of liberty, and endowed with almost equal faculties".

This sentence can also be found almost identically at the beginning of the American Declaration of Independence. In 1773, he organized the Boston Tea Party, which made him famous. As a member of the Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of Independence and later became Governor of Massachusetts. 

The Boston Latin School was founded in 1635 and is the oldest public school in America. In front of the school is a statue of Benjamin Franklin, who attended the school.  The signatories of the Declaration of Independence Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine and William Hooper also attended the school. The school still exists, but has changed location.

The Old South Meeting House was built in 1729 as one of the largest houses in Boston. The bell was also made by Paul Revere. After the Boston Massacre in 1770, a meeting was held here to demand the withdrawal of the British soldiers. In 1773, there was a great debate in the house, during which Samuel Adams gave the starting signal for the Boston Tea Party. During the British occupation of Boston, the house was used for riding lessons for the soldiers. It took eight years to renovate the house, only to be almost destroyed during the Great Boston Fire of 1872. 

The Old State House was built in 1713 and was the center of royal government in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Royal announcements from London were publicly proclaimed from the balcony. In 1770, the Boston Massacre took place on the square in front of the building. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony for the first time in Boston. The city, state and colonial governments met here, as well as the Royal Governor's Council Chamber, the Hall of Representatives and the Supreme Court. From the first public gallery in the western world, citizens could observe the government at work.

Under the balcony of the Old State House, a circle of cobblestones commemorates the Boston Massacre of 1770. 

In 1767, the Townshend Act was introduced, which taxed many everyday items and turned the people against the crown. To prevent unrest, 2000 soldiers were transferred to Boston. The wigmaker's apprentice Edward Garrick accused the officer Captain John Goldfinch of not paying his barber's bill. When the apprentice would not stop ranting loudly outside the Custom House, a British soldier slapped him in the face and a mob of laborers and sailors gathered in anger and began throwing garbage and snowballs. Seven soldiers under the command of a captain were sent to rescue the beleaguered sentry. But the mob surrounded the soldiers, who formed a circle. One of the soldiers felt so threatened that he fired a shot. The other soldiers then began to shoot at the crowd, mistakenly assuming that they had been ordered to shoot, which the captain had never given. Five people died and two of the soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter. Samuel Adams dubbed the deaths the “Boston Massacre”, which shows how the British enforced their laws against the objections of local legislatures in America. The public burial of the victims was one of the largest gatherings in North America.

Faneuil Hall is a meeting place built in 1741, originally serving as a trading center, where many meetings and protests took place during the revolutionary period, including speeches by Samuel Adams. Later, abolitionists, women's rights activists and trade unionists also held their debates and events here. The Sons of Liberty proclaimed their resistance to royal oppression here. Protests against the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act were first held here in 1764. Today, naturalization ceremonies are regularly held here, with between 300 and 500 citizens taking the oath of allegiance.

As a historian, I was particularly looking forward to the Boston Teaparty ship, where we could see how revolutionaries threw tea from the ship into Griffin's Wharf harbor. I bought some lovely gifts for my family in the museum store. 

In 1773, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act to help the financially weakened East India Company. The merchant company thus had a monopoly on tea exported to the colonies, was exempt from export tax and received a refund of customs duties on certain surplus quantities of tea. Colonial ships and merchants were bypassed; only the company and its agents were allowed to transport and sell the tea shipped to the colonies. While the colonial merchants were traditionally more on the side of the British Crown and benefited from close relationships, this law turned them against the British and led to more sympathy for Samuel Adams and his Sons of Liberty, who rebelled against the Crown and eventually demanded independence. 

The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773. 60 American patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians sneaked onto three ships of the British East India Company at Griffin's Wharf and threw 342 chests of tea worth 18,000 pounds into Boston Harbor. As a result, the British Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts, which suspended the city's maritime trade until the destroyed tea was paid for. This turned even more citizens against the British and was an important milestone on the road to independence. 

As a big fan of the movie “Good Will Hunting”, I really wanted to take a photo on the bench where Matt Damon and Robin Williams were sitting together:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GY3sO47YYo&pp=ygUeR29vZCBXaWxsIEh1bnRpbmcgLSBQYXJrIFNjZW5l

Good Will Hunting is one of my favorite movies. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have been friends since childhood, they wrote the screenplay for the film together and spent years knocking on studio doors to get their film made. In the end, they found a production company and became instantly famous after its release in 1997. The film received nine Oscar nominations. Robin Williams won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were awarded the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Will Hunting (Matt Damon) comes from a working-class background and works as a cleaner at MIT. A professor (Stellan Skarsgard) discovers his talent and tries to encourage him. In order to put Hunting, who has several criminal convictions, on the right path, he organizes therapy sessions with his old student friend (Robin Williams). The dialog between Robin Williams and Matt Damon is what makes this film so fantastic. The film could have been about the American dream, how a cleaner is recognized as a genius by a professor and then rises to the highest levels of society, from dishwasher to millionaire. But is that really so desirable? The film revolves around fundamental questions, dealing with our own vulnerability and fear of closeness, the contrasting nature of different milieus, the decision between friends & family or money & career, dealing with our own past, worries about the future and external expectations to make the best of ourselves. The film conveys a timeless and optimistic message, its dialogs are thought-provoking and still resonate with me today. 

On the way, we met a very trusting squirrel that even leaned on my outstretched hand in search of food.

MIT has played a major role in the development of information technology. MIT professor Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and many students founded IT companies that play an important role in industry today. MIT is very reminiscent of the natural sciences campus of Humboldt University in Berlin-Adlershof, where I lived in a student residence for the last few years. It's a modern campus with lots of glass buildings, ventilation and cooling systems for the laboratories and very functionally designed buildings that hardly have an air of an elite university about them. The university has its own nuclear reactor, a nanoimaging facility and a pressurized wind tunnel for aerodynamic research purposes. Students pay tuition fees of 53,790 US dollars per year; at the Humboldt University of Berlin, the semester fee was 290.99 euros, or 581.98 euros per year. Students who cannot afford these fees therefore often come to the university on merit or sports scholarships or have served in the US military and receive financial support from them. 

The US military is a major funder of the university, as many technological advances are driven here, including artificial intelligence, NASA space robots and 9 out of 10 of the best-selling biotech drugs. Only 6.5 percent of applicants are accepted, but the engineering, science, computer science, mathematics and physics programs are regularly ranked among the best in the world.

Harvard is probably the most prestigious university in the USA; eight presidents, 150 Nobel Prize winners and numerous senators and billionaires were educated here. Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Matt Damon: the list of alumni is like a Who's Who of American celebrities. Harvard resembles the classic American universities we know from the movies, with many old red stone buildings of the oldest university in the USA, which opened in 1636, on a fenced-in but publicly accessible site. The students live in halls of residence on the university grounds, they study here, spend their free time in student clubs and are much more integrated into the university community than is usual at German universities (at least the large city universities). They pay 54,000 dollars a year for this. The Harvard University Library is the oldest library system in the United States and, with its 80 individual libraries and 16.8 million volumes, manuscripts and microfilms, is the largest library complex in the world. Only 5.8 percent of applicants are accepted, fewer than at any other Ivy League university. Grades are not the only factor in the admissions decision; three areas also play a role: academic ability, extracurricular activities and a personal assessment.