Part I (the part where i romantically and naively elocute about my trip)

Sing in me O Muse!

And through me tell the story

Of the man of many twists and turns

Who crossed the plains of America,

Thinking an adventure he would find,

But really had a chic internship at a large firm.

The man who in his narcissism thought himself a hero,

Thought himself out, alone in the world,

One who would see the West and learn from it.

Thought maybe it would be good for him in a cliché type of a way.

Perhaps it will be.

Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.

I. Departure and Arrival (the part where i romantically and naively elocute about my trip)

After a forty minute delay on the tarmac, the plane took off, on the way from Chicago, Illinois to Omaha, Nebraska. Almost as soon as I had boarded the plane the weather broke and rain began to beat down on the thin fuselage, causing the passengers to look around at each other nervously. They all had places to be. We waited because of the pouring rain, but the rain was still coming down as we took off, and I could tell no real difference in the weather from when we had to wait and when we were allowed to leave. But I am neither a pilot nor a meteorologist, so I am not at all qualified to question the authority of the flight staff.

The sky was filled with thick rain clouds from on horizon to the other, and as we entered them, the plane began to shake. The plastic that made up the interior expanded and contracted as the plane was moved by the elements, making a creaking sound that only stressed plastic can make. The woman sitting next to me (slight, young, honest looking Filipino woman wearing a Harley-Davidson T-shirt beneath a beige sweater, sitting in seat 11C) pulled out a set of white plastic rosaries from her leather bag, and clutched them in her hands. The man sitting across the aisle from me (thin, professional looking man with short blonde hair, sitting seat 11A) pulled out his iPod and began to watch a cartoon. I pulled out the first book I planned to read over the summer, The Seven Storey Mountain by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, an autobiography about his path to faith in the vein of St. Augustine’s Confessions, plus a little bit of added narcissism. My type of spirituality. The Filipino woman held her beads the entire flight, drifting in and out of sleep, moving from rest to reverence seamlessly.

As we headed west, the clouds began to thin. Although they still took up the entirety of the sky, they were the thinner, wispier type, that seemed like they were placed there to give the inhabitants below them just a little bit of shade from the hot sun. Still, the Filipino held her beads. And then, as we began our decent into Omaha, the clouds dissipated, giving way to clear skies, in a cliché scene that would have made even James Cameron proud. I felt like the girl Antonia from that book by Willa Cather about heading out to the prairies of Nebraska… My Antonia.

We landed, my seatmate crossed herself, and we said goodbye. I picked up my bags, got a taxi and heading towards the house I was staying in for the summer. Heat rose up to meet me as I stepped out of the cooled airport into the sunlight.

Nebraska is a land of immaculate lawns with no one to play on them, even on a hot Saturday afternoon. Despite the lack of people to frolic, men have worked out to perfection a system of irrigation that creates an aesthetic beauty that only a lush carpet of grass brings. Next to the grass are long roads. The roads are new and evenly paved, straight lines that take no cars nowhere. The land was hillier than I thought it would be; the city seemed framed by a series of hills, covered in thin trees, delineating the human from the elemental.

The tax-driver and I pulled up to the house I am staying in. It is an old, large, two story house, with flaking green paint on the outside and lawns that are embarrassingly small and sparse. My landlord, Cole met me there to let me in and help me set up. Cole is what for me, a native New Yorker, the picturesque Nebraskan should look like. His shoulders are wide, biceps large, hair blonde and neck seems to go straight into his head. He is young, industrious, and hardworking. He wore a T-shirt that said “Proud UNO Alum” and was clearly very proud of the small business he had set up, providing cheap short term housing to graduate students and “young professionals.” He was nice, helpful, and even smart, but not in a New York way. It was pleasant. None of my roommates were there, so the house felt a little empty, but traces of my roommates lay strewn about the apartment. A bike here, flip-flops there, and food that spoke volumes about each one of them, these young, lost souls, who needed to resort to Cole to try and find a cheap place to live.

My room is sparse at best. The only piece of furniture in it is a mattress. My clothes are arraigned in piles along the newly painted orange walls, with my mandolin and guitar taking a special place in the corner. A large pile of books lies next to my bed. I doubt I will read them all, but carrying them made me feel powerful.

My house is in the Hispanic section of midtown Omaha. Stores whose names begin in “tienda” line Leavenworth Street. Small bars are built into the sides of hills. A short way away is a large new development complex, with newly paved streets, empty condos, chic restaurants and spas (that are all “coming soon!”), a large movie theater, and its own police force on segways. No people inhabit it yet. But there is obviously a big plan for the future of midtown Omaha. Churches pepper both neighborhoods, a large Greek one is the most imposing, but smaller, more typical colonial style protestant ones also line the streets.

My roommate Jess took me to the “A Taste of Omaha!” festival at night along the river. Jess is a strawberry blonde, a little taller than average and just a teency bit chubbier than average. In an endearing way. She is twenty-three and is studying computers at some professional college and working a couple of jobs in her off time to get by (grocery store, etc.). She grew up a little bit outside of Omaha and is extremely proud of the area (“did you know Omaha has the highest per capita number of restaurants, golf courses and millionaires?”), but she claims to want to get out of it someday. She is a little bit spacey and a pretty bad driver. While we were driving to the A Taste of Omaha!” festival, she was bemoaning how bad Nebraska drivers were, when she proceeded to run a red light. And then did it again. And again.

To get to the “A Taste of Omaha!” festival, which was held in the ConAgra plaza, we drove through downtown Omaha, a place which is called Old Market. The old market is a section of town that you get the feeling was partially designed by the local board of tourism, but also partially rose up out of the soul naturally. The buildings are mostly old warehouses, with intricate fire escapes and facades that have been preserved. It was here that I got my first glimpse of white Omaha. As we entered the market, we saw a group of siblings playing fiddle tunes on the street corner. From the youngest, who looked to be about ten, playing a violin against the eldest, to the middle brother seated, plucking away at a cello, it reminded me of what I wished my family could do. A crowd had gathered around them and they seemed to be doing a lot better than the old man who was playing guitar along the side of the highway when my taxi drove into town from the airport. Maybe it’s because they were cuter and had a gimmick. Maybe it’s because people were walking instead of driving and could actually hear them.

The stores that inhabit the old warehouses are small boutiques, where one wouldn’t need to buy anything but would anyway. The store that caught the most people’s attention was the one that sold Christmas decorations all year round. I guess that’s what Omaha can support. New York has a store that sells Halloween supplies all year round (in the east village). I guess it’s basically the same idea.

It was very difficult to find parking (because the whole town was out for the “A Taste of Omaha!” festival, so we had to park in the large lot of the Gallup campus, the massive calling center from which Gallup Polling calls thousands of Americans to ask them their opinions on every sort of matter. It is said that people from Omaha have the least distinguishable and most American of accents and that they can blend in anywhere. I guess such a large complex proves the point.