(Eeek, it's been so long?!)
A rare look at my All-time blog statistics informed me that actually one of my most-visited blog posts is the one about things in the Czech Republic I missed in the USA, from back in 2013, regarding my visit in 2007. It also happens to be one of my most controversial ones, in that I received a couple comments, including a dowright offended one, that did not quite get what I was trying to say. Namely, that it was just as much a post about the Czech Republic (which is something I explicitly said in the first paragraph - heck, it says so in the title) as it was about the USA. And that I hadn't hated my visit to the USA - just hadn't enjoyed certain aspects of it.
It's quite ironic because I have far more reasons not to want to return anytime soon now that I am writing this post.
But I always felt I did owe my American friends and readers a post about the things I did love about the USA during my visit, because that old blog post did come out rather wrong. And I had written another rather critical post in the meantime. And, well, I suppose now is the time to finally restore balance. And perhaps more so than ever - perhaps a lot of people from the USA do need to see there are things to love about their country, even for a rather disenchanted foreigner.
So here you go! Ten things I loved, and still think of many years later!
1. The people
The wonderful friendly, hospitable, generous people. I got so many treasured gifts. I got to visit so many places and do so many things that are experiences of a lifetime. I got to have so many interesting conversations. I love that the general American outgoing nature easily opened doors to me that my own introverted nature would never dare to try open, especially not at that time when I was still a teenager. Does that make sense? I hope it does. I'm still in touch with a couple people on Facebook - not a close relationship by any means, but I know how they're doing eighteen years later, and that's nice.
I cannot share a photo of the people - I don't have one featuring all of them, I cannot. So instead, to be more fair to everyone involved, here's a photo of me in the process of receiving a gift: one of the experiences was visiting a bead shop where we - me and the other Czech girl who was visiting - could put together necklaces & bracelets entirely of our choosing. I am happy to report that the necklace & matching bracelet I ended up putting together still exist and still suit my tastes and still remind me of my visit! They get worn rather rarely because of my general tendency to forget to put on jewellery even for special occasions - but every now and then, they're just the ticket.
And that's really quite symbolic of my experience with all the people I met - they did not become a permanent fixture in my life, but they still remain part of it, and every now and then, they make an appearance again.
2. The historic sites and museums
Look, some of the historic sites may seem a bit laughable from an Old World perspective, but back then things like living history docents in historical clothes on historic sites were still a pipedream in Czechia. They rather still are. Mt Vernon was pretty enjoyable, if unintentionally funny to a European visitor used to a whole lot of palaces, at times (I do not remember the specific instances anymore, but generally speaking, it's at its best when it presents itself as the very well-off country house it is). The historical tour of downtown Annapolis with a costumed guide was a wonderful look at things I never thought to pay attention to before, to wit, brick-laying patterns. The Baltimore Railroad Museum was amazing. The Spy Museum was really fun and interesting. If we're talking about things the USA opened my eyes to regarding my own country, an even greater appreciation of history is actually definitely on the list. I was already into it; despite the lack of a long history (or, really, rather a lack of appreciation for it), my visit to the USA only nurtured that interest because you folks are really good at presentation.
(I was very shy about photographing people still, at this point in my life. If I remember correctly, there was someone representing an enslaved gardener inside this building, answering questions, and it was a bit of a revelation, very interesting, and also pretty hard to understand for me because I think they had the thickest accent I had encountered so far at that point... I'd have far less trouble now - even the rest of the US stay itself definitely improved my comprehension.)
3. The food
Kind of! Some of it! Probably most of it, actually, though it did require some careful maneuvering with my choices sometimes, to avoid the reasons American food earned its junk food reputation. (The most glaring culture shock in this respect were probably chips - crisps for the Brits - as a side dish: WHY.)
BUT ALSO. The food! The global food! The variety! It took several more years for that to really start arriving in Czechia. The Viet-Thai. The Irish. The Chinese-American - I fell in love with sweet-and-sour chicken in the USA. The Mexican-American - I discovered nachos (and then took ten years to figure out what exactly it had been), and had a tortilla wrap for the first time in my life (I don't remember what exact combination of ingredients I chose but I do remember it was vegetable-y, green yet spicy, and definitely in the realm of a food adventure for me at the time). But also, well. My first dinner in the US was roasted meat with potatoes and vegetables - just a sort of really nice homemade staple. Cheesecake - though too sweet for my preferences in most iterations I encountered, cheesecake was definitely a revelation. Brownies! Brownies are amazing. Someone recommended trying hash browns for breakfast on the way to the Triennium, and it was the perfect choice for the morning of a long overnight bus journey. Also, it's been eighteen years (eeek!) so the memories are getting blurry but I seem to recall eating quite a few pasta salads, and in retrospect, that's a habit I did not have before my US visit, and one I retained or regained after - and probably has a lot to do with the fact I was, in fact, visiting in the South. I did experience Southern hospitality, even if it wasn't the Deep South, and it was pretty great.
It was before the Instagram era of taking photos of your food, so sadly I took no photos of meals I enjoyed, but luckily someone else did take a photo of us with our tortilla wraps, so I cropped them out for an example. There's a bonus pasta salad I'd long forgotten about!
4. Sailing
This is something I, an inhabitant of a landlocked country, experienced for the first time in my life. It's part of the wonderful once-in-a-lifetime experiences my hosts provided me with, and also, crucially, part of visiting on the coast, Annapolis in particular. Sailing ships would have been part of the experience even if I had not been provided with the opportunity to actually go on one - they are part of the landscape there.
I grew up reading books by Arthur Ransome (I still love them), so an overnight stay on a sailing ship was basically a dream come true. We were afflicted by low winds, so there was actually a lot more motoring than sailing happening, but even that, for a reader of Arthur Ransome finally experiencing it, is just part of the charm.
I picked the photo of the raising bridge because that's pretty symbolic for the whole "finally experiencing something you've only read about".
And then, of course, boats as part of the landscape - this was somewhere a bit further away from Annapolis proper, I no longer remember where:
5. The wildlife
Just, the different experience of it. Mostly different birds. Cardinals! Mourning doves (who sound different from our doves)! Hummingbirds! Ospreys (which, according to Wikipedia, "occur nearly worldwide", but guess what, they do not occur in Czechia)! And others I cannot name. I got quite lucky to end up spending the first nights of my stay in the houses of avid birdwatchers, so I got a bit of a crash course that helped me recognise at least a few.
Also I saw tortoises in a pond at one point.
Digital photography was in its toddler stage and not particularly fast yet, so what you're getting in photo form is a plain old grey squirrel instead, one that was cheeky enough to be photographed in many poses from up close without instantly skittering away:
That, too, was actually a new experience for me. Our red squirrels are far more shy.
Also, while it's not necessarily a particularly American aspect of life, bird feeders. They may not be particularly American, but they certainly made appreciating the American birds easier.
6. The interiors and furniture
I don't know what this style is, exactly. It's one or two steps to the left from my personal ideal, but it definitely contributed to it. It's the combination of coloured walls, white furniture, older furniture styles, and patchwork. I threw 18th-19th century printed cotton aesthetics (and colours) into the mix, took away some of the greater luxury*) and excess of nautical themes, and that's about it for where my room currently resides, or at least tries to. (I haven't managed the patchwork yet for this one, but it did exist in an earlier iteration - and wore through.)
*) For example, none of those vase-bottom fabric-shade endtable lamps, which I do rather love the look of but have no space for in my life; my extra lamps are vintage-looking painted-metal poseable ones: more useful for a crafty person with a room full to bursting with projects.
7. The Library of Congress
I'm a nerd. We got a tour, and the building is full of gorgeous detail...
... but what I loved even more was the fact I could go and get a reader's card, even though I was only visiting for one day, and I could go into a study room and find books about Czechia and actually read something about a Czech religious reformer from the 15th century. And then I picked up a bunch of booklets about T.G. Masaryk they had there for free.*) I hope it still works that way. Libraries are great.
*) Yeah, sure, I could have searched for something completely new to me - but as I recall, I only had about an hour for this enterprise, so I'm pretty glad I did this; anything else would have only left me regretting I had not had more time - I still did, but it hurt a bit less.
8. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial aka The Wall
This one's... tricky.
But out of all the places we visited, I think this one left the biggest impact on me somehow. Apparently it was controversial when first designed? I guess I can see why; but when I visited, that controversy was long past, and it was doing exactly what it was supposed to and doing it really really well. Like good art does, it brought up emotions; those, not being a mind thing, are a bit hard to put into words. A sort of blunted incredulous shock at how difficult it was to take it all in, I think? That's why I think it was doing its job really, really well.
Thinking about this now, I think part of the reason it affected me so was actually also because, in a way, it felt familiar, and so it made this part of history of a foreign country relatable. There are many other monuments in DC, but it feels like this one told me much more than all of the others put together. It generally makes it much more relatable than more monumental memorials do, I think; I recall there was also a book you could page through, containing the names. Anyway, what I was getting at is, all throughout Czechia - probably other European countries, too - you will find memorials and plaques with names of local people who did not survive the world wars. Inhabitants of small villages. Workers of specific railway stations. Members of a congregation. Seeing names all collected up in one place like this was quite something - at once familiar and enormously overwhelming. And somehow, despite its enormous size, I remember it as also approachable - because it literally is.
I'm glad my host / local guide took a posed photo of me with it, touching it. I'm not normally one for having to take photos of myself in places I visited, and so at the time the request for the photo quite threw me. But in retrospect, I think he must have seen how much it affected me, and directed me towards a commemoration of my own and a closer sort of connection I would never have thought of myself.
But you're getting a different photo because this one's mine, and this little detail really got me, too:
9. The patrotism
10. The phloxes
Nothing seemingly especially American here, except that it turns out they are indeed a North American flower! They deserve appreciation. My favourite flower, a childhood memory, a literal breath of sweet familiarity in a foreign country. Walking through DC about a week into my visit, on the way to the Library of Congress as it happened, I suddenly got a whiff of something I recognised, and there they were. (That was a pretty great day.) And then I met them again at Mt Vernon. People don't appreciate phloxes enough. Aren't they fabulous?!
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