We drove through upstate New York, and I did not feel like I was in America. Something about it tickled the back of my mind—the way the farms were so small, how little fences butted up against little fields and little thickets of trees. It was farmland, but compared to the country we'd been driving through for days, the unending fields of corn and wheat extending to the horizon, it was dramatically reduced in scale.
Then it hit me. This looks exactly like the French countryside Ashley and I drove through in December. But for the cars, the freeway signs and the trees, it could be France. It's a weird feeling, knowing that you're still in your own country but feeling out of place, gawking at the landscape.
The weirdness increased when we stopped at a travel oasis (I-90 is a toll road through New York as well). The people looked and acted different. They wore different clothes and different hairstyles from their west coast cousins, cashiers acted differently, everybody talked in unfamiliar accents (“Harold, wait in the caah”), and they knew we were different too. We got stares whenever we stopped. It's a weird place, this New England.
and thats how I felt moving from NY to Seattle! I thought everyone was a freak on the west coast.
ReplyDeleteps. New York isn't in New England.
New York, New England, tomato, tom-ah-to, close enough. It's all the northeast to me. This place's convoluted geography still confuses me.
ReplyDeleteAright, I'll let you slide, especially since most New Yorkers don't know that.
ReplyDeleteHave a great time in NH! Are you going to keep updating? There are tons of road trips to be had, little B& B's to visit and cheeses to sample! If you need any North East Coast info, lemme know!