Miscellany: There and Back Again

The true purpose of almost any vacation, my Dad once opined, is to make you glad to return home. After spending a fun-filled week rolling around the Iberian peninsula, it was finally time to go back to Florida.

There's no place like America for any number of reasons, but the best I can think of is cultural diversity. In Spain, as in most countries, there is uniformity, more or less. There are no Chinatowns there, for example, since the population of Chinese immigrants is tiny. The U.S., in contrast, has been filled with immigrants from all lands. People here, barring the odd holdout, are not surprised by other cultures.

That's why you can find a Chinese restaurant in a small town in Mississippi. That's why you see black people wearing green on St. Patrick's Day. That's why you can flip through a Spanish-language channel on TV and not bat an eye.

That's not to say Spain is a bad place to live, or that America doesn't have its share of problems. But if you're looking to experience cultural heterogeneity on a massive scale, one of the best places to live is right here.