Letter from America
It's not exactly a letter written in that country and sent from there as the title suggests, but I couldn't resist making a reference to something I used to listen to with so much pleasure all those years ago in Britain: Alistair Cooke's Letter from America programme on BBC Radio 4.We've been visiting the East Coast over the past almost three weeks, and it's been an extraordinary experience. 'We' is Flo and I together with my parents and the Carrolls, our dear American friends (read: family). As a dear friend of mine was saying recently, a picture is worth 999.5 words, so click here for the pictures.
They have a gorgeous country, beautiful landscapes and all kinds of impressive sights and places. New York is what has left me with the most powerful impression, though: it's like a physical version of the Internet. You can find everything you can think of there, and it's all just a few streets ("blocks") away. Inside the confinements of a rectangular, set framework everything is available: people from all over the world and their customs, habits, products, religions, ideas, songs and poems, images and shapes, not to mention all of the cuisines imaginable and then some... Everything slightly cosmeticized, adapted so as to fit within the American city landscape very much in a way that is similar to the way we adapt our natural language and expression to the digital medium when we need to use it.
NYC holds many surprises, not the least of which was sushi. OK, so you can eat that almost anywhere else in the world, but not at that price: on West 32nd Street you can have as much as you want for $12.95. What does that mean, and why am I so thrilled about this? It's symbolic: take a Japanese traditional food, blend it seamlessly into the cityscape and add the American dimension of eat-all-you-can. The result? My dream come true. :-)
It was awesome to meet so many wonderful people there, and that's not including Jim, Anne and Maria with whom we traveled. We were very excited to meet Em Preston for example, at her home in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, and are very hopeful that she'll join us next year and will do us the honour of being part of our marriage ceremony as a pastor!
This summer has given me, and us, a lot and taught us a lot of good things. I wonder what next?
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