Coming from a modest background, we never went anywhere growing up. Besides New York, New Jersey was the only state where my feet had touched ground. And that was just one time.
Because of this limited experience, New York was the very definition of “city” to me. We didn’t have even basic cable TV. We didn’t know from the Travel Channel. I thought all cities were like New York in scope and scale and sound and smell and so forth.
Anyway, as it happened, some college friends decided to take a day trip to Boston, about a three-hour drive from our upstate campus.
We had lots of fun walking around the Freedom Trail and the Public Garden and the Faneuil Hall. Boston is pretty and compact and quaint and historic. A sweet town.
My friend Karen asks me, the first-time visitor, for my impressions. So I say to her: “Boston is so cute! It’s just like a little city!”
And then she, the seasoned traveler, informs me: “This is a city! Boston is a major city. One of the largest in America.”
Astonished by the thought, I didn’t know what to say. In that moment, my world got bigger and it got smaller too. Who knew?
© 2016 Jaclyn Schrier. All rights reserved.
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