Sunshine State

If your university looks like the place you go to in your holidays and you expect a pool and a bar around each next corner - does that help or hamper your education? Universities in the US - and especially those high-class ones like Stanford, the MIT or Berkley are clubs for kids of the rich. An education here costs about 10 to 15.000 dollar per year. That money does go to the universities itself, and it shows. All new buildings of modernist architecture intermix with classical, old-style university-like houses. There is a free shuttle that connects all parts of the uni with the most important landmarks around the area.

More generally, California seems to be a place where beauty calms the mind. In the same way as one puts flowers on the table to smoothen the signals that reach your retina, to make everything look more pretty and friendly, this place on earth seems to be made to please. No surprise that with the sort of climate here all flowers grow to their full beauty, palmtrees naturally intermix with the strangest and most amazing trees and the calming warmth makes everyone smile. Alongside that stunning nature, the laissez-faire attitude of its inhabitants makes everyone in this state feel at ease and peaceful. For sure, there is problems here, and for sure, if I was not so lucky to stay in the rich places of this part of America, I would probably be more attentive to what can go wrong. I am trying hard to see the downside of this. Well, but, if the only problem is an easy chance for a sunburn and being warm every now and then - I could live with that ;) Where else can you go outside and are greeted with a flowerbouquet and smiling people all around. Compare that to England, where the run down cities make you question the common sense of beauty and you forget a little bit how much your mood enhances just by seeing something colourful and beautiful.

"Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel." ("Sunscreen" by Baz Luhrman)

I wonder why it would make you soft. Is being placed into a bubble bad if you are happy with it? For sure, just eating toast bread makes your teeth go soft, and you get caries more often which will result in pain and loss of teeth. What does becoming soft as a person mean and will it prevent you from coping with life's challenges? Is that something we need, being hard to stand against the world? What does that idea say about us as a society?