I'm back from Massachusetts, and it was a cool trip. Along the road I had time to think a lot, and I just wanted to post some of my ramblings. It's much different here from my travels in Europe, in a lot of ways. For one, it was one of the few times I wasn't a foreign traveller. Everyone spoke my language and I paid in dollars. No currency exchanges at all! And then there was the city. Boston is built UP, like most American cities. It's tall skyscrapers and newness and business. Very unlike the European cities, which sprawl outward from the center where people first settled hundreds of years ago.
The buildings in European cities can be, at times, older than the United States. The buildings in Boston are the United States, or the start of it at least. They're the same churches and meeting houses our Founding Fathers walked through, the buildings where our revolution was born. And in that historical sense, it isn't that much different than Europe, except that the history seems much closer. All those events and buildings are less than 300 years old, and it the echoes of History are much louder, much easier to reach and hear. America is a baby in the world. So young. Of course I'm not the first to say that. But I think that sometimes America and Americans forget how young we really are, and it can make us arrogant in other countries. Like children.
Anyway, Happy early 4th of July!!! I can't wait to get together with my family and celebrate with good food, laughter and fireworks.
No comments:
Post a Comment