Do you guys remember going abroad? You could travel via some public conveyance to another country and live there for a little bit. Mad, I know. I went to America with my family about five or six years ago now. Their plan was: New York, two days: Rhode Island, seven days.
Rhode Island is very small. I think it’s the smallest state in the States, but it’s in the New England area so it’s also one of the oldest colonised bits. It is famous for seafood and being small, and also where the rich people like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers built their summer homes back in the day. My parents looked at all that America had to offer - national parks of great beauty, theme parks, eclectic cities - and went ‘oooh how about the bit that’s like the country we just came from?’
i.
Driving through a town in Connecticut that was one of the scariest places I’ve ever gone through in my life. It seemed misty and deserted at 5pm on a Thursday night. There were posters up for an American football game at a local high school. Perhaps the entire town had gone there to eat hotdogs or cheerlead or paint their faces in school colours. It was a town where there was a dark secret and we didn’t stick around to find out what they did to outsiders.
ii.
When we arrived at the hotel, we were dusty and tired. My sister especially was hungry, as it turned out finding a place that catered for both vegetarians (her) and Coeliacs (me) on the roads from New York state to Rhode Island wasn’t easy. She hopped out of the car first and walked up the steps to the hotel door, ready to find something she could eat - and this woman at the door lunged at her.
Turns out this was the place where her long-lost family was meeting up for a reunion and she was just overexcited. Fiona absolutely hates hugs from most people but strangers must rank highly on that list.
iii.
When I say Rhode Island is the Wales of the USA I don’t just mean size. The weather is pretty similar too. The hotel had an indoor/outdoor pool, the only separation being one of those faded plastic strip curtains - you know, like they were originally transparent and years of air and water exposure have coloured them a translucent yellow brown? So if it was raining, which it generally was, you’d be sensible to stay on the inside.
However, did you know Americans are friendlier than most British people? Or at least more open to talking to strangers. It soon became a habit of mine, if anyone said hello to me and looked like they wanted a conversation, to say hi back and then head outside. You got bopped in the head by hail a lot, but you could also commandeer the Jacuzzi.
iv.
Rhode Island is a coastal state, and they’re proud of their cuisine. We went to a nice restaurant one night and I ordered lobster. It was already a lot of money and it would have been even more money for it to have come broken open and ready to eat, so the boiled crustacean was placed before me and I realised I had no idea how to start.
I also realised I was placed opposite my vegetarian sister, who was already righteously pissed off they had one vegetarian option on the whole menu.
I tried to construct a little privacy screen out of my napkin, my parents’ wine glasses, the wine bottle itself… I’m not sure it worked. I got stabbed in the finger by some stray shell and Fiona left most of her bean burger.
v.
We visited the rich houses and I was appalled. England has more history than the USA; the stately homes you visit in the UK tend to be added onto and inherited and put into trust so by the time you see them, their size is almost natural. Like, of course the King came to visit so they had to build a new wing. Of course there was a siege and afterwards they decided to add an extra ballroom on for good measure.
The rich houses weren’t like that at all. They were shoved close together, on the same street, almost McMansion-like. And inside, they’d tried to decorate like they were stately homes in the English style. Smaller space, same amount of furniture. It was a shock to the system and if my snobbery is showing it’s because that much gilt in one place felt plasticy.
I was waiting by the hire car when two older American women asked me if I was a tourist, and how I liked the houses. It was warm, and I was tired; I replied they were a ‘bit small’ and left them gawping at my rudeness.
Links:
Fall Guys: Tiny Blobs and Hate Mail | BBC
Are any of you playing Fall Guys? It’s a very fun, slightly addictive knockout-type game on the PC or PS4. You are a blob trying to get through all the rounds to win the crown! I’m terrible at it. Enjoy this interview with one of the level designers.
A Hitman Came to Kill Susan Kuhnhausen - She Survived, He Didn't | Willamette Week
This is the horrific and badass story of a woman who killed the hit man sent to murder her. I literally can’t get over how long their fight lasted and the excuse the person who sent the hit man used.
Movies, patriotism, and cultural amnesia | Vox
Pop culture and 9/11 - where were you? How has it impacted how you view, say, terrorism? What about the righteousness or not of your government? Media can help with that.
Okay but I love envisioning those women who approached a girl with an English accent who said the houses were a bit small. They have been telling that story for years, I'm sure.