Minnesota

Welcome to my new bog!

I am sitting in an internet cafe in Huachuca, Peru. It is a small fishing village that woke up one day to find itself a popular tourist destination for beach lovers and surfers, Peruvians and gringos alike. Its iconic icon is the reed boats the fishermen here use, they have remained unchanged since anticquity, and paintings in a nearby mocha culture pyramid clearly show fishermen using identical boats, circa 2000 years ago. True the fishermen spend allot of their time taking tourists out for rides and the design has been updated with a polystyrene core, but still, pretty neat. But before I start yappering about Peru I would like to yap about Minnesota. I spend a wonderful month with Kelly and her family in Minnesota prior to coming here. I whiled away many a happy day cross country skiing, snow mobiling and of course ice fishing. It is pretty chilly at times in Minnesota, one cannot deny minus 40 to 60 Celsius is cold even if one likes to think of ones self as a wee Scottish hard man (and I like to think that with my tongue half in my cheek, but only half). Actually I liked the weather there, it was an improvement on the Scottish winter I had left behind. Although it only fell to perhaps minus 5 in Scotland (and that was early in the morning) the wet and wind make it much more miserable. And boy can it get windy, I went on a hike with my dad and his walking group and we literally had to crawl on our bellies for the last 10 meters to the top of the hill, hugging the ground for fear of being blown away! It was as we say a little fresh that day. And back to Minnesota, they really like hunting and fishing and such like, this I discovered. Within days of arriving I had been out looking for deer castings, shooting squirrels with a bb gun, playing a hunting, fishing and camping version of trivial pursuit and waited outside a giant outdoor equipment shop to get in as soon as the doors opened. OH! And also allot of the petrol stations here also sell live bait (as in little fishies to catch bigger fish), and this not considered unusual at all! I spend some fun evenings drinking in very small bars that all had a hunting arcade game. I saw many paintings and statues of ducks. I also had more opportunity to experience the American state of being. It is indisputably a very wealthy country but also the wealth is used in a different way to Europe. For instance a family here can be very well off in terms of possessions, with things the average brit wouldn’t consider having but still not be able to have medical insurance. Or as another example the large quite affluent city of Minneapolis and or Saint Paul was wondering how on earth it was going to afford to extend the one tram line in the city. European countries seem to have no problem sprouting train and tram lines up the wazoo! This said I and many Americans do hope the healthcare system in America will be sorted out. And it's not as if the NHS in the UK is not a big mess. I suppose if I could afford it I would like to have my healthcare in the US but on the other hand as I am now an unemployed bum I quite appreciate have the HNS at my service in the UK. More soon!