Pyscho Chicken Crosses the Road
Created | Updated Sep 22, 2003
I've been to Boston before. Once. For a weekend. The unfortunate thing is that I drank so much that I have very patchy memories of the nights, and the days were spent in a hungover haze. Hardly the best way to see what is almost certainly the most beautiful city in America. So, I pledged when I left that time that one day I would return, and experience Boston properly. I kept my
word.
Monday
Monday morning was a fairly early start, as Bill's flight home was around midday. We nipped to the mall next door, which had a cafe type place for breakfast. I had a bagel, which beat the crap out of any bagel this side of the Atlantic (except Antje's, of course) and cost the princely sum of $1. As we sat and enjoyed breakfast, a viking joined the line for coffee. A fully kitted out, horned-helmeted, fur-booted, breach-clouted viking. A rather startled woman struck up a conversation, which from what I could make out went a little like this:
Viking: Morning.
Woman: Morning. What do you do?
Viking: I'm a truck driver, ma'am.
Woman: So, why are you dressed like that?
Viking: (totally nonchalantly) Because I'm a viking, ma'am.
Woman: I thought you said you were a truck driver.
Viking: Yes, but I'm also a viking, ma'am. Enjoy your breakfast.
Throughout the whole exchange, the viking was entirely comfortable with his attire, and apparently enjoying the discomfort and curiosity he was eliciting from the crowd. I wanted to shake the man's hand, but he was gone as fast as he had appeared, latte and muffin in his leather-gloved hands.
So we left Boston, having had a great weekend. I was confident that I had kept my promise to the city to return and give it a fair chance. It had taken that chance and shown itself to be probably the most beautiful city in the US. It's not the most vibrant, that award goes to Chicago, or the most fun - that title belonging to Cleveland, but it's definitely a beautiful city with a lot going for it. In many ways it's also the least 'American' American city. The people are very European in outlook and attitudes, and the surroundings could at times be in the UK, or northern France; and occasionally dark-ages Denmark.
Our journey home was to be a nightmare, involving an overnight stay in a Chicago suburb, and a 14 hour stay in O'Hare airport, but I shan't bore you with that here - I will save that for my letter to American Airlines. It did, however, take us out of the one-to-one situations which America does so well, into dealing with responsibility and organisation which it seems to have such a problem with, marring my otherwise good experience of the weekend.
My relationship with America will always be a rocky one. I am continually drawn to it for the fun I always have there, and the many uniquely American details I enjoy so much. But I always return relieved, having got out alive once more. Recent developments probably haven't helped there, but I've always felt the US has some fairly major social problems which I'm not sure I could live with. I'm not saying we're perfect here in the UK - we're obviously not, but maybe I've just become acclimatised (or acclimated as the Americans call it) to our problems, so they don't bother me as much. I don't know. I will almost certainly return - I have friends there, and my work takes me Stateside occasionally. Maybe someday I will learn to accept it for what it is, and enjoy it more.
