St. Paul

I stayed in the breathtaking green mountain sceneries for the weekend
at my room mate Sarah’s hometown called Fairlee,
not too far from Burlington (where really everybody knows each other)
but then left on Monday afternoon to travel in packed Greyhound coach buses to arrive in St. Paul, Minnesota, two days later.
In between Vermont and the Midwest:
Boston, NYC, Pittsburg, Chicago and many more smaller cities,
where they allowed us to get off and do some healthy stretching after being painfully stuck in the way too small seats (for American standards).
But traveling through the US by bus is a great adventure itself.
I’ve seen so many different sceneries already,
and shared the bus with the craziest and most diverse mix of people ever.
At one point the bus stop included a praying Orthodox Jew, an Arabic veiled Muslim with her in red-dyed-hair daughter, and a whole family of Amish people!
Yes, I wonder too why they made use of this modern thing called a coach bus.







MALL OF AMERICA
Most interesting aspect of the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota, I thought would be was the Mall of America (MOA), located in the suburbs and supposedly the biggest mall in the US. Some other mall in the South is currently holding that name though, and therefore MOA will expand within the next three years adding an indoor waterpark (where surfing will be possible), a hotel, clubs and a theather perhaps also a casino, to of course take back the name, and also feed the culture of consumption and perpetuate the motor of capitalism. It’s horrible and I wasn’t even that impressed after having experienced the mall-culture in Southeast Asia, although I must admit they did a good job in resembling a real attraction park in the middle of the mall, by adding trees and little rivers for the more viable outdoor ambiance.




ANTHROPOLOGISTS
I stayed at my father’s friend who lives in the campus district of Hamline College. She and her husband are both Anthropology professors at this university, respectively specialized in linguistic anthro/the Toraja in Indonesia, and South India, so of course many interesting topics of conversation would arise.
If I wouldn’t have arrived by bus, it would be quite a shock again to come from the homogenous Vermont to the region of St. Paul/Minneapolis, which has a remarkable amount of Mong people from Laos and Thailand, and veiled women from Ethiopia.
I felt like the Twin Cities are situated in (former) industrial areas, and the blooming new and modern buildings are in charege of changing this scenery. It’s a unique interaction of old factories and contemporary architecture that reminded me of the fancy Meat District in NYC. Downtown Minneapolis which wasn’t much more than one modest shopping street, I also ran into a group of African Americans Christians, wearing white robes with red David stars, because they’re Jews –not Jewish, preaching Jesus was a Black man.



AMERICAN COLLEGE GRADUATION
The ceremony of a graduation is as boring (especially if you don’t know any of the graduates) as everyone predicted it would be, but I am very glad I’ve seen it. Everything was very formal and up tight, and serious musical tones were produced from the orchestra. After applausing the march in of the faculties (who wear distinctive colored robes) and the graduates (plain black robes), and several speeches by the president and other prominent people (a female bisshop started and ended the ceremony!), the actual graduation was a whole list of names, coming to the stage, to receive the diploma, have a picture taken, and shaking hands with the dean. The ‘audience’ would only applause if it’d concern their own graduate, so depending on how many fans were present, a graduate would receive just some clapping or great recognition. The small chance of rain forecast, was enough reason to move the graduation inside, which was very unfortunate, and maybe a reason why the graduates did not traditionally threw off their barrets.



VIVA AMTRAK
Traveling by train is such a relief after having experienced two days on a bus! So spacious, so comfertable, and so well arranged. Because this trail was from the Midwest to the West coast, this train had a lounge car, which was like an observation deck with dome-shaped windows for people to sit and enjoy the beautiful views. On the train were also national park guides who had a stand with Native Americans’ crafts, providing information and announcing historical background info through the speakers about the places we passed by. with less diverse people (mostly elderly), and better service, traveling by train is not as much of a challenge, but still a great adventure!



SCENERIES
North Dakota is like the enlarged version of the Dutch landscapes, but slowly the prairies will change into curved green scapes. Montana was quite boring like this for a while, untill I saw a very odd scene of fresh green land with behind it dark, almost black, mountains, with white stripes swirling down. This turned out to be the Glacier National Park in the Northeast of Montana. We rode along it and that allowed us to be very close to, and basically in, the gorgeous and diverse setting of nature.