Cry the beloved country

The USA is quite unlike anywhere I've been.

I imagined it a dull copy of Europe without the good things like beautiful buildings, ancient peoples and social hierarchy, but isn't remotely like Europe. It has an enormous, strange energy and seems friendly, optimistic and fun. I am generalising from Miami and the staff on the plane. It's a huge culture like Russia or France is a huge culture.

It's where the men of 1848 won their revolution. It is the apogee of 19th century and modern liberalism.

I have always loved and hated America but lived and hated different things at different times. I passed up two chances to come here for free. I might find myself loving it now I finally am here. Let's see. I only arrived yesterday from somewhere I teally loved, the very humid old town in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

It's not very Anglo-Saxon or Protestant in Miami but then the Spanish are reconquering Florida.

Quotations

"May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude.” Leonard Cohen

'Frommer believed that travel should be demanding, both physically and cerebrally. He saw it as one of the finest methods of self-education. Early on he realised the intrepid traveller’s essential truth: the less you spend, the more you enjoy. Dormitories, hostels and even a geriatric ward were his lodgings of choice. Luxury hotels were to be avoided. “They insulate you totally from the life and people of a country,” he said, while sightseeing was “inane”.' Daily Telegraph obituary for Arthur Frommer

"My ancestors were puritans from England. They arrived here in 1648 in the hope of finding greater restrictions than were permissible under English law at that time." Garrison Keilor

“If you started measuring global temperatures from medieval times there's been a general cooling of about four degrees." Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist, in 2018