Flying out over England took such a short time it almost surprised me. Previously I have flown to Russia, and more recently to Spain a couple of times and there we head south, a short flight out over the English Channel. What surprised me is how fast the flight out shot over the Irish Sea and onwards. When you are over 30,000ft up, everything looks so small and the internal flights in America were the same. One minute we were taking off from Miami, all square and flat, the next minute we were in Jacksonville, almost as if you could see both places at once, running from window to window in the plane.
How does such a vast country seem so small as I fly towards Chicago?
In my mind America is a vast tract of land, with a grand variety of geographical and social difference and all the richer for it. On this point, people often ask why I would want to go travelling in America- surely it’s not real travelling. I think the language belies tremendous differences, and a continent of incredible natural beauty that is diluted by the fact that this beauty is perhaps now too accessible. I can’t begin to tell of them all here. Go see for yourself. But I digress; flying over this land mass it all looks green. Of course, I am flying South-North rather than East-West. But I had naively expected more. It is the takeoff from Chicago that changes this. As we lift off into the night the city glows on the edge of Lake Michigan. Magical ribbons of light flow towards and away from the centre, the freeways transformed from beige monstrosities of the day.
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