Visiting home away from home

There will be a slight interruption in the "Road Trip" series to blog a little bit about my current visit to Denver and Washington DC. I have to admit that even though I wouldn't call it culture shock I can definitely say that I have had to squeeze a couple of things through my head that would have been normal to me about four months ago. I have also realized a couple of things about both myself and my country in these couple of days. Good or bad I have taken a more critical look at the land of the free and home of the brave since I have moved outside of its borders. I don’t know if it is the constant negative feedback that I hear from other people, or if I simply had a different perspective. Coming back has given me yet another point of view.

There are a lot of things that jump out. Commercialism and the amount of effort and energy we put into acquiring “things”. The idea that we will be happy if we can purchase enough stuff and pay for it in a year. Logic, things work here. People think things through for the most part. You might get mad at the guy who cut you off on the way to work but at least society as a whole acknowledges that is stupid. Power, we don’t sing it too much, but this country could kick anybody’s butt on the planet. Safety and comfort. Most people live their life to be as safe and comfortable as possible. Live free or die. The idea of freedom is a wonderful thing. Americans have the mentality that we have the right to live our lives as we please and there are no predetermined limits to where we can go. Even if in reality this isn’t true it’s a nice thought.

I’ve also concluded something else about the US. We are not a group of war mongers but we are just a country that looks after itself first. We have a conscious but that is usually second to the stability of our nation. I don’t think we act any differently then any other country does, we are just better at it. Even among the criticism I am told that we are fortunate that the states are the ones with the excess of power, who knows how any other country would act with this much power.

Why Denver

Kara and I left for Denver on Thanksgiving night so that I could go to training to learn about XML and how it was going to save the world. We then flew to DC where I am currently learning about Tamino which is an XML server that aids in said saving of the world. Initially I looked at it like it was some burden but I'm starting to understand why it is so nifty therefore costing the entire GDP of some 3rd world countries.

So we get to Denver where Kara and I are like "Huh, so we’re in the states again. Lets go get some bacon" (pork products are illegal in our current place of residence). So we did and then checked into our hotel where we had a weird sleep schedule for a while. What was strange was we did not have the reaction of "Finally, we are on US soil. No kissing the tarmac when we got off the plain."

Missing family and friends not the soil

After getting to visit with several friends I felt like it wasn't the physical location that I missed at times it was the people there. We could have a BBQ in Thailand with all of our family and friends and it would be just as good as meeting in Texas. It was the conversations of past stories and things that we have done. Laughing about three legged dogs and our old ways of life. How does anybody ever survive adolescence and subsequently college?

I said that I don't miss the soil but that's not completely true. We turned on some country music and some relatively new songs were playing that I heard before I left. I didn't see them as the most poetic pieces of work but they still struck a chord with me. I guess it's unlikely the desire for twangy good ol boy music will ever be fully removed from me. "It's a cultural thing" - Robert Earl Keen

It's also amazing to actually be in our nation’s capital. Seeing that I have been in five others I felt that it was time to see my own. The first adjective that comes to mind is power. This isn't some port city where the government is located out of convenience. This is the Government and everything that has to do with the government. It's big and not going anywhere. Flags are everywhere, the flag that I can't wear where I live is waving from every place that is possible.

Thoughts on traveling

Just one more thought. When traveling don’t kill yourself. If you go to lets say Washington DC don’t try to see everything. Read a little bit about the place, pick what you want to see and enjoy your time seeing it. Save something for next time. If you don’t ever plan on coming back at least you remember what you saw. What’s better, 100 pictures of the outside of all these awesome buildings or actually learning / experiencing something that you will remember. Just a small bit of advice that I have come up over that past couple of months.