Things I know for sure during my week of travels, which I continue even as I post this:
1) Chicago > Detroit.
2) This is an algebraic tautology as, of course, Anywhere > Detroit
3) Item 1 was known to me, I confess, prior to this trip even though this is my first visit to Chicago. I had been to Detroit.
4) The line between tourist-tacky and cultural validity is far blurrier than we like to pretend. I'm developing a guiding principle to make the divide a little more stark. It's a simple equation involving plug-in metrics to do with fanny packs present and the numbers/varieties of first-name keychains for sale.
5) The enjoyment derived from visiting one place over the other is likely skewed by the presence of family in one of those places. It becomes a feedback loop if you can't tell if the family itself is depressing or the fact that they're stuck in a dying vestigial limb of a region is what makes them seem depressing. This is all the more confusing as, see Item 2 above.
Love you guys. Wish you were here.
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5 comments:
While she was preparing last week for an upcoming trip, by girlfriend's teenage daughter texted me to ask if I have an "awesome fanny pack" she could borrow. Detecting no sarcasm on her part, my faith in the next generation dropped yet another peg.
My sole memory of Detroit from thirty years ago was of being in the Greyhound station to change buses and being thankful that I didn't have to go anywhere else in the city. Chicago was pretty chill, though, like a second rank San Francisco or Manhattan.
You were in Chicago and you didn't tell me?!? How could you??
AT: Just when you think 2013 Detroit can't bring you down enough, you look at the new shiny buildings in the skyline and realize they're all casinos. In a city with chronic unemployment and a bankrupt government. Casinos. I suspect the whole place has been given over to some kind of sociological experiment.
Kate: Man, I thought about it, but I was dragging my kids around with me. Otherwise, we would have hit that town HARD. Mani/pedis, high tea, that place you go where they put the cucumber slices on your eyes... Next time, kid. Blow it up. Pinky swear.
*Rolling my eyes* Do I really seem like a girl who does high teas?? Also, I think at this point I am far past "kid."
:)
I didn't really think about it that way, but I guess we could do things you wanted as well.
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