Snapshots

 

Vail in Fall

there were so many unashamedly clichéd yet spine-tingling experiences for me as a US novice ...

informal social gatherings with friends, colleagues and fellow Fulbright scholars from around the world (including France, Germany, Russia, Venezuela and Indonesia); brave and willing TCED1111 students (informed learners all); intriguing conversations with taxi drivers in several US cities and passengers on the Coast Starlight train from Seattle to San Francisco; a real family Thanksgiving in Seattle; the Rockies, energising Colorado air and bugling elk;

walking with squirrels; stunning public art and busker-friendly painted pianos in Denver; creative vibrancy, generous spirit and resilience of the Hispanic community (viva Su Teatro!); Fulbright Alumni BBQ in a park with resident fox; standing on the paving stone where Martin Luther King Jnr spoke “I have a dream”; the Korean War memorial in the moonlight (awareness of war as fear, uncertainty, tedium, killing);

a young man on his knees proposing to his girlfriend in the mêlée of Times Square late one Saturday night, to the multiple cheers and camera flashes of strangers; the buzz of MOMA on a Friday evening (free entry to everyone at this time); a Gutenberg Bible and the domed reading room at the Library of Congress (once a librarian, always a librarian!); Smithsonian wonders including meditative giant pandas munching bamboo;

riding the loop in Chicago and shimmering in the Cloud Gate bean statue; glowing green (pines) and gold (aspen) mountains of Vail in the Fall – all crunchy white in December; front seat of a San Francisco cable car swooping down towards the Bay; the unruly morning traffic of bikes and skateboards along the elegant Stanford boulevards; the stirringly modest statue of Neil Armstrong (pre-moon) as student with slide rule in hand at Purdue University; Californian wines and Wynkoop’s brewpub; bagels, buffalo steak, Nepalese momos, real burritos (and lots more deliciously diverse food).       

Vail in Winter