United States Of Albazilla
Since I had a special opportunity (or better, a sweet one) I spent ten days in the USA. Keeping base in Cortland (NY) near the Finger Lakes, we traveled by car down to Philly and NYC (to Philadelphia and New York City, for the englishmen), then west to Niagara Falls.
What to say? After 12 hrs. of sleeping to recover from the jet-lag, I start to realize and to put order in my mind. So, here are few thoughts before leaving the words to the pictures (or the words for the pictures)…
First of all, the idea of living in a country big as a continent.
Or better, the concept of big itself. From the coffee to the cars, people included. It’s just that the word ’small’ gets a different meaning over there. A block is 5 mins walk by side, an highway is 4 lanes per directions, a hamburger will never fit in our bread, a car is just as my living room and the cup of coffee is 40ml. You can imagine what happens when you buy food in a ‘family pack’.
Then, the space.
The more you drive down the interstate (the highway), the more the people live far from each other, with houses surrounded by fields and woods, cows and horses, but still remaining in an organized context as the city or the county. But then, just when this concept seems to be extreme, you end up in NYC. It’s enough to cross a bridge, everybody lives and works and eats stuck together in blocks of skyscrapers. From Brooklyn to Manhattan, you have to know exactly what you want, exactly where to go, you can’t hesitate, you can’t think about it. You can only live it or leave it. It’s matter of getting as much, as fast as you can do it.
That’s why, third, it comes the time.
Time is flowing slow while you pass along the countryside or you walk around the lake where once was an Indian territory, but it accelerates as you enter in the city that never sleeps. In NYC life just goes faster and it can change around you within seconds. Will you realize it? Doesn’t matter, already gone. Carpe diem. And it slows down again, maybe in Philadelphia. It’s where the States born as a united country. Old city center, stylish houses with gardens, the famous cheese steak, the liberty bell. Life is calm and still, it’s the perfect place to be when you’ll retire. But then, one street, again… where all the artists live, where you can ride your Harley, where life pulses and everybody seems to breath in a melting pot of colours (murales) and smells (bars and pubs).
That’s the United States of America. A continuos contrast. Life is flowing and you can’t take a picture of it, panta rhei, everything moves. Cultures, styles, generations, races, moods and foods, everything is mixed and keep mixing, everything merges to converge and while converging it creates new differences. It’s fascinating, and it’s just an idea of what I’ve seen in ten days, just an appetizer of a different world.
