I've just spent two perfect weeks in Arizona with my family and, though it was very difficult bidding them goodbye for another year (especially my adorable 16-month-old nephew, who is quickly transitioning from baby to little boy) I felt ready to come back to England, my home for now.
My return journey involved two days, three cities, three plane rides and several trains. It was a very exhausting trip. The hardest leg was yesterday afternoon, when I spent six hours at St. Pancras rail station in London waiting for my train north. I parked my pile of baggage in the corner of a coffee shop and sat at a little table drinking a mocha and trying to keep my sleep-deprived self awake. While there, however, I chatted with several folks who sat at nearby tables, and everyone in the coffee shop (and even those I'd met earlier on various plane rides) wanted to talk about the same thing--the fall of Lehman Brothers and a financial crisis. I was passed several British newspapers with headlines like "Sack Monday" (5,000 Lehman Bros. workers in London immediately lost their jobs) and "Meltdown Monday." The news today is all about economic uncertainties in America and possible impact abroad.
The funny thing is that I heard about this financial crisis a little bit on my last few days in America, but the papers and television stations were filled with news about Hurricane Ike and the train crash in L.A., not to mention the presidential race. People here have hardly heard about the devastation caused by Ike. I guess it makes sense since that such local American news doesn't affect them the way the financial news does, but I still feel like I entered some sort of cultural twilight zone, where suddenly the topic on everybody's minds is completely different.
All in all, the last week was a good news week for reporters, but that means (as it usually does) it's been bad for everyone else. When I reunited with my housemate Julia last night, she exclaimed, "Why is America falling apart?"
