Living in America-sorry Bryson
Trip Start
Jan 23, 2007
1
24
Trip End
Ongoing
Boston,
Massachusetts,
United States
Friday, May 9, 2008
The remarkable thing about the US is that it is so highly saturated by the media it lives completely to expectation and it is by no mean a let down: In Miami, people rollerskate; in Massachussetts, everyone loves their sports and nigh on every house has the stars and stripes flailing proudly in the wind. The people are friendly in a way that for an English gringo can only border upon creepy. It is a shame that I am so genuinely creeped out by being greeted by random strangers, being asked how I am and wished a "super good day" by every shop employee in a seemingly sincere way, not in the uniformed manner I was forced to do myself upon serving every Sainsburys customer at the till back in those dark, dark days. True to expectation I encountered my first religious nut within hours of landing in Miami "Jesus loves you, may God have mercy on your soul" shouted the nut across the road, sat outside 'Dunkin Donuts'.
From my experience, you only need to watch the television to get a good insight into America-a method I have exploited to the full when I am surrounded by such humongous HD televisions. What shocks are the 'lawyers 4 u' style adverts, the defining difference between here and America being that such advertising has migrated beyond mere work-related injuries and into the realm of medicine, adverts inviting you to sue your Practitioners if you or your family has suffered any form of mental illness or birth defect. Medical professionals are so scared of such legal threats that-reluctant to put themselves in the firing line-they form collectives.
What amuses are the frequent adverts about erectile dysfunction, swollen prostates and other embarassing medical ailments. What they have got right is that it appears simple smallprint in television advertising is against the law and any 'smallprint' has to be broadcast verbally, for me it is very funny to hear (directly after initiating the hard-sell)is the advert (or should I say commercial) then warning about the various side-effects-in the case of the prostate desweller it tells you that it is not for woman and even handling the substance can lead to birth defects in foetuses, tempting stuff! And there are so many adverts! Apparently the NBA has an imposed timeout during certain periods of prolonged play to allow a break for more commericals!
What has suprised me is that Americans (generally) don't seem to know a lot about England "does it ever stop raining there?" was the first question that Kayleigh's (my 13 year old surrogate sister) friend asked me when he was told where I was from, I suppose he has a point but the weather here in Boston has not been too dissimilar to the weather back home. In fact it is how I imagine my hometown would look like with American planning. That has a lot to do with the history of this area, the English occupation pre-revolution owing very much to this. On a tour of the town I asked Val (my surrogate mother)about the purpose of the Fort we drove past "that, was to protect us from the English" she said. Its easy to forget that your not in America as you drive around this beautiful area, with the plethora of English town names here but the wood style housing (no bricks and mortar), the porches and the partisan radio soon snaps you out of this illusion.
With the exchange rate at the moment shopping is a guilty pleasure and with the extensive mall system around here it is so easy but it does make me wonder what has happened to all the small town clothes and music stores-a dark forecast of things to come for Bury St Edmunds I don't know. Maybe it is more to do with American's dependence on their cars, people have to drive everywhere here as everything is so spaced out, it's what happens when your country is the size of a continent. As a consequence the public transport is pretty bad, I have never experienced such little legroom as I did on the train to Boston (and I've flown with every budget commerical airline!) and I had to wait for a Saturday before I could take the bus to the awesome city of New York, a wait that was so worthwhile.
Like a lot of things here New York lived up to its expectation, and it blew me away the feeling-alone-of just being there is sufficient for a great day. The unique thing about the city is that your eyes look neither ahead or down at the ground, they look high into the sky at the skyscrapers and highrises that just decorate the skyline. Unfortunately I only had a day there, having bailed on the Statten Island tour (it was a 4 hour wait for the ferry and i had 7 hours in the city-a small 12 dollar sacrifice) I visited the Ground Zero exhibition instead and then took a tour of the area led by members of the 9/11 families group. This made for a compelling hour. As a historian, the most important and valued sources of information are those primary sources-those personal accounts and it doesn't get more personal than hearing it from people who were integral in the rescue effort and were literally underneath the building when the first of the atrocities of that fateful day took place. It was real lump-in-the-throat stuff and allows you to begin to understand the reasoning behind the controversial events that took place afterwards. The lesson? To our guides it was simply "never forget and always let your loved ones know how much you love them". What dampened it somewhat were the parasites selling 9/11 related paraphenelia around the site but as long as gullible tourists keeping buying them, they'l keep selling them. That and the conspiracy theorists handing out leaflets, it shows how disillusioned people have become that the notion that the attacks were carried out by their own government is a viable alternative explanation of events. Well that is unless the huge jam jar full of dollar notes hanging from one of the 'theorists' necks had more to do with it.
After that I don't really know what happened to my time although the volume of shopping bags I brought back to the coach with me probably answers that question. Having been the last person back on the coach all day I was greeted with a round of applause from the other passengers and driver, that was once I realised I was waiting for the coach in the wrong spot-why half the streets are just numbered I don't know, how can a city responsible for some of the greatest artistic creativity in recent history not come up with a set of memorable street names?
Even stranger has been the distinct feeling of being a gringo/foreigner remains despite the fact everyone speaks English, well to an extent. People still ask me to repeat myself a lot, shop assistants sometimes still look at me as blankly as indigenous Bolivians did and often I rely on translaters to get the message across. So despite being deceivingly close to England culturally, it still feels very much like an adventure, the length of this entry is a testament to the differences and the experiences.
Unfortunately it's an adventure that will be completely finished on Friday.
