It's been months since I've posted on here and I just wanted to do a quick post to sum up my ideas over the past few months. I recently saw my Italian friend Enrico who helped talk me into my Europe trip and I owe him so much for opening my eyes to what my life was lacking. I showed him around Pacific Beach in San Diego. We talked about this 5% topic. The real America took me 6000 miles to see, and I don't need to ever go back. I couchsurfed through www.couchsurfing.org . My recent trip took me to Chicago, Madison, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Charleston, Hilton Head Island, Savannah, St. Augustine, Miami, The Everglades, Key West, St. Petersburg, New Orleans (where I got my second tattoo from my second favorite book), Houston, Austin, Roswell, Flagstaff, The grand canyon, St. George UT, and finally San Diego.
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| New Orleans free Jazz Fest. My first crawfish boil. |
The 5% topic is this: Since most people out there only go to the major cities when they come, New York, LA, Miami, New Orleans, Chicago, SF, Houston, and San Diego, they miss out on the REAL U.S.. The sometimes backwards, NASCAR loving, redneck, middle of nowhere people who hate foreigners with an ignorant passion. They are sometimes racist, sexist, homophobic, ultra religious, and not accepting of anyone who isn't a white American. I will say I loved my trip and it changed my life and I met some amazing people out there to whom I owe a lot, but I would not say these places accurately represent the U.S. I saw what was in the cracks between here and there. I've driven through most of those deserts across the country and farmlands and saw no living things. There weren't any animals, just corporate ads for Burger King in the middle of nowhere. Every city has it's corporate master. And unless you live out in the Midwest for a while, you'll never experience this. I'll also add that people in California are pretty fucked up and weird, but I like it. They do have the problem though that they've never left Cali, but instead gone from SF to LA to SD and think they're knowledgeable about what liberal and conservative or even what being religious really means. Nobody goes to church here and Scientology runs rampant in LA.
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| Key West, FL |
Every Yin has to have it's Yang. You can't have the good without the bad for comparison. I've learned what I want and need in my life now. I'm being exposed to ideas I could find nowhere in the Midwest and I'm growing to be a better me everyday out here in SD. And I know this perfect place is fake, but you know what they say, ignorance is fucking bliss. ;) I've earned this shit!
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| Near bottom of Grand Canyon. |
