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East Asia
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- Written by: Richard_McKie
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In July and August 2023 Wendy and I travelled to the United States again after a six-year gap. Back in 2007 we visited the east coast and west coast and in 2017 we visited 'the middle bits', travelling down from Chicago via Memphis to New Orleans then west across Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and California on our way home.
So, this time we went north from Los Angeles to Seattle, Washington, and then into Canada. From Vancouver we travelled by car, over the Rockies, then flew east to Toronto where we hired a car to travel to Ottawa and Montreal. Our next flight was all the way down to Miami, Florida, then to Fort Lauderdale, where we joined a western Caribbean cruise. At the end of the cruise, we flew all the way back up to Boston.
Seems crazy but that was the most economical option. From Boston we hired another car to drive, down the coast, to New York. After New York we flew to Salt Lake City then on to Los Angeles, before returning to OZ.
As usual, save for a couple of hotels and the cars, Wendy did all the booking.
Breakfast in the Qantas lounge on our way to Seattle
Wendy likes to use two devices at once
There is an obvious sub-text to my short story: The Secret, that I wrote in 2015 after a trip to Russia. Silly things, we might come to believe in, like 'the law of attraction' are not harmless.
The story is also a reflection on the difference between American and Australian stereotypes, that were evident from conversations on the cruise.
I lived in New York for some time and my eldest daughter was born there. I have visited the US fairly regularly since. It is, in many ways, the closest country to Australia that you will find, outside New Zealand. So, I have often been surprised by how different it is in other ways to Australia, given the great similarities in the median standard of living, shared popular culture and immigrant demographics.
I have come to the conclusion that this stems from our different founding origins.
Today, with good cause, Adolf Hitler is the personification of evil.
Yet without him my parents may never have married and I certainly would not have been conceived in a hospital where my father was recovering from war injuries.