Wherever the Road Takes You

In our student handbook, one of the things written to prepare us about our trip to the USA was that America is not like it is portrayed at the movies. I beg to differ.

It is an inexplicable atmosphere but everything, always feels eerily familiar. The huge roads, the vast shopping centers and the great distances, all big, all beautiful, all deeply imposing.

The people as well, talkative, polite in their majority and helpful, always eager to speak, to create a good scene, a story, as if someone is directing them to make you fall in love with a reality impossibly coordinated with the last American movie you consumed. People here believe in the script; they believe in the story. The twists and turns of life here are smooth known curves and easy hiking trails that lead you to unceremoniously ceremonial clearings. A night adventure, traveling in a huge car with your friends to an eternal road, street lights, fast food restaurants with retro signs and music blasting from the speakers, stopping in a brand new, ever-familiar drive-through and then riding through the night to see the most beautiful view of Chattanooga from the mountains, with amazing friends and coworkers, laughing, taking selfies and thinking, “I love this. I love these people. I love this life and I love this place. I will remember this.” How did this place end up feeling so much like home after just two weeks?