Ticket To Ride

A very good friend of mine from Australia sent me his personal copy of a great book called Ticket to Ride, written by a hilarious young Australian, Sarah Darmody, who wins a United States greencard. She decides to travel the continental US by Greyhound to discover her new country, along the way finding a lot to love, as well as a few things not to love.

Having spent about a year living with other international students in Uppsala, Sweden, I was one of only a handful of Americans studying there. I know (and usually heard) firsthand a lot of assumptions about our country: fat, stupid, arrogant, too friendly, noisy ... I'm sure you can think of some on your own. Sometimes I felt very frustrated trying to portray the "good" America to all of my friends; other times, I embodied their own frustrations about me (it must be in my genes to eat peanut butter straight out of the jar and call it a "healthy snack" because it has nuts in it). That's the thing about traveling. You find out that stereotypes exist for a reason: mainly for you to dispel them.

That's what Ms. Darmody's book does. It's a breath of fresh air in an otherwise rather smelly atmosphere of all of the negative attitudes towards America that's been going around lately. She describes the people she meets, the places she goes and everything (and I really mean everything) that happens to her. She has quite a soft spot for Krispy Kreme donuts, and who can blame her, really. I imagine if she ever came to Columbus she would park herself outside the Wonderbread factory downtown and just wait to soak up the delicious aroma it emits.

If I ever had the opportunity to travel in a foreign country by bus, I doubt I would take it as well as this author. If you ever come across it, snatch it up and give yourself a few hours over a rainy weekend. As my friend James wrote to me when he sent it, "If this doesn't make you proud of your country than I don't know what will."

As we discussed in class recently, good writers read good books so here's to hoping it rubs off on me.


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Darmody, Sarah. Ticket to Ride: Lost and Found in America. Sydney: Bantam, 2005.