ben's chili bowl -- a dc institution

that's what people call a hopping place. but ben's chili bowl is more than that. it is a dc institution, soaked with history of its u-street location.

Obama made a point of stopping by places with Washington street credibility such Five Guys, a popular fast-food chain that started in the region where the -- full -- is the menu: Five Guys, Burger & Fries, and as president-elect at Ben’s Chili Bowl, a DC institution providing late-night hangover cures in the form of half-smokes, a local sausage similar to a hot dog, and chili cheese fries.

he's not the only one who payed tribute to ben's since it was founded by ben and ali virginia ali on august 22, 1958:

"It was not uncommon to see such luminaries as Duke Ellington, Miles, Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, Redd Foxx, Dick Gregory, Martin Luther King Jr., Donny Hathaway, Roy Ayers or Bill Cosby at 'The Bowl". [ ...] And on January 10, 2009, Barack Obama visited and ate lunch at Ben’s just 10 days before his inauguration. Just recently, President Sarkozy of France and his family had lunch at Ben’s."

ostpakete -- care packages from the east

one of the benefits of living abroad is the joyous feeling regularly induced by packages on the doorstep.














it must be similar to how people felt in the former german democratic republic (gdr) when they got a Westpaket, a care package from relatives or friends on the Western side of the iron curtain.

we never got any of these packages for a lack of knowing people on in the West.

but oh joy! when rare items arrive wherever that maybe. i can buy some of my favorite german products in specialty stores, which has become a hobby horse to locate. but not everything to my desire shows up there.

see the big golden package on the right of the photo labelled Zetti and Knusperflocken? well, they are a staple sweet for me. yet, as an eastern product (manufactured in my hometown) the crispy chocolate flakes never make it across the ocean in a commercial way. the same goes for the dark chocolate version seen in the middle of the photo. or Bambina chocolate bars. or Herzstärke, a sugary pink-white colored peppermint flavored fudge.

other items that are most frequently sent in my Ostpaket include bread and Kinderschokolade, which some u.s. americans around me have developed a liking to. nutella used to be a staple but i think i finally got the message across that nutella is pretty wide-spread in the united states. also hollow chocolate items were a standard until most of them arrived in sad shards. sometimes small books and clippings from my home town paper are among the contents, post cards of familiar places, brochures of local sights. whatever an Ostpaket brings, it makes me think again in german immediately.

as people around me frequently ask what else i miss in terms of food or products, here's a run down of items that are harder to find (or to ship):

• pudding powder (Ruf brand only)
  
• Rote Grütze with Sago (a kind of red jello with tapioca pearls)
• scharfer Senf (hot mustard) and herb mustard
  
• organic vegetarian Apfel-Zwiebel-Schmalz (a kind of apple-onion bread spread)
• Milchreis (rice to be boiled with milk and served with sugar and cinnamon or a chunky fruity sauce of cherries or raspberries)
• Salzgurken (salty cucumber pickles)
• Senfgurken (mustardy cucumber pickles)
• Quark (a kind of Greek yoghurt)
• Back-Camembert with Preiselbeeren (pre-deep fried breaded baked Camembert cheese with lingonberry sauce)
• Kloßmasse (potato dumpling dough)
• kohlrabi (similar to a big turnip or radish, coming in purple and green)
• celery root for soups
• Pflaumenmus (dark plum marmelade)
• Sonja and Marina (a margerine for baking)
  

well, the longer i think about it, the more i will find.

at one place or another i ran into almost all of them or items that come pretty close. and i have found allies. my favorite u.s. american has joined my hunt for german things; he proudly presents new discoveries and comes up with creative solutions to diminish my yearnings.

indeed, he located a german Kühne brand mustard at big lots a few days ago, has cooked pudding from scratch and found out that old pickles are in fact german salty pickled cucumbers. his home-made potato dumplings beat my pitiful dumpling attempts by far and are probably better than using pre-prepared german potato dumpling dough anyway. he long has learned to say Krumpel -- say krrroom-pell --, the small cube of toasted bread fried in butter and salt that is pressed into the center of each dumpling. and was a favorite snack of mine as a child to be snatched away in the kitchen of my grandmother.

because when it comes to homeyness, you just want exactly the thing you ate before, not a substitute, not something similar. at least sometimes. my care packages from the east, my Ostpakete, send a dose of home, of memory, i guess, in some way even of identification.

the hardest part: preserving the precious products instead of giving in to greedy hunger. after all, Ostpakete don't come every day.

reversed immigration -- "zur strafe ab nach deutschland"

-- the story of two americans at heart who got deported to germany, their official home

gary is brave and you can't help liking him by the end of this half-hour documentary produced by the german public station hessischer rundfunk.

but before rousing your interest, be aware, the documentary is only in german. so i apologize to my english readers beforehand. yet, i wanted to share this interesting slice of immigration tales which affects 150 people caught between the united states and germany every year according to the report.

as children brought into the united states by german mothers, gary and alexander never formally became u.s. citizens. now gary in his twenties and alexander who is married in his forties offended u.s. law and got kicked out.

gary stole a couple of pairs of boots, alexander dealt with drugs. any criminal offense, the documentary tells, that warrants more than one year in a u.s. jail results in deportation for anyone who is illegally in the united states. both never bothered to apply for regular citizenship because they had permanent residency, meaning, they could do what every u.s. citizens can do except to vote.

now they are banned from returning to the united states where they lived since early childhood for ten years. they were forced back to germany, their official home country feeling as a friend of alexander likens it as if they landed on the moon.

while the drug offender alexander doesn't speak german and struggles heavily to use the subway system in frankfurt, where both of them live, gary picked up his mother tongue again and copes as best as possible to start a new life.

both arrived with nothing more than the clothes on their back.

and it is the rather big optimistic gary that arouses great sympathy with the viewer. he works as a janitor in a home for disabled children, keeps up hope to find an apartment to escape the bureaucratically assigned dormitory even after the eighth rejection, and hunts for his older brother given up for adoption in germany before gary was born.

the documentary reminded me of a key issue for any immigrant: being allowed to be where you are. it sounds strange and simple. but your legal status is like a twin sister or brother. it is with you and be better in lock-step with where you are any time. it often has an expiration date or deadline to be aware of and planned for. also, being allowed to reside in a country state doesn't mean you can leave and re-enter it at whim.

but traveling is no option for alexander in the documentary at the moment anyway. he is fighting to even visit back in his u.s. american home at the pacific coast in case his mother dies during his ten-year absence. she is fighting cancer having gone through five surgeries already. maybe a visitation permit for humanitarian reasons can be successful, recommend lawyers without borders. but as the city is a maze for alexander, so is u.s. immigration law. after all, he lived in the u.s. since age two.

but, before spoiling the complete story for my german-understanding readers, see for yourself the curious case of two american-germans caught between transatlantic bureaucracy. by the way, at present overall about 400,000 people are detained in u.s. prisons destined for deportation.

"zur strafe ab nach deutschland"

-- eine reportage von götz schauder (hessischer rundfunk)
http://www.ardmediathek.de/ard/servlet/content/3517136?documentId=4161916

being a cilantrophobist

until i came to ohio i didn't know that i was a cilantrophobist.

cilantro as in german "Koriander", is a green herb that looks pretty similar to the flat leafed version of parsley. but only the sight is similar. as soon as you approach the plant the fragrance will reveal the difference. parsley smells lovely fresh to me, cilantro stings my odor cells like a chemical. it smells soapy and pungent telling me to stay away.

but cilantro is a core ingredients in many foods u.s. americans love and consume without thinking. it's in salsa, it's in salads, it's in tabbouleh (a lebanese dish with bulgur, cucumber, tomatoes, and lemon juice), it's in burritos. [addendum: a friend from bangladesh pointed out i missed to mention south east asian use of the herb. of course, cilantro chutney or cilantro mint chutney is served in any indian restaurant. also my friend writes cilantro paste as a side is common in bangladesh or its use in salad.] it's everywhere. maybe just sprinkled on top for good looks. latin american and middle eastern cuisine are omnipresent in the united states. so is cilantro.












omnipresently disturbing: a few green leaves ruining the biggest dish.

but alas, even the most finely chopped tiniest amount of the evil green ruins the tasties dish for me. no wonder with my german taste buds. a new york times article of april 4, 2010 details understandably why maybe europeans especially struggle with embracing this flavor.

"The coriander plant is native to the eastern Mediterranean, and European cooks used both seeds and leaves well into medieval times. Helen Leach, an anthropologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand, has traced unflattering remarks about cilantro flavor and the bug etymology — not endorsed by modern dictionaries — back to English garden books and French farming books from around 1600, when medieval dishes had fallen out of fashion. She suggests that cilantro was disparaged as part of a general effort to define the new European table against the flavors of the old."

and it stayed like that at least in germany to this day. cilantro leaves are not part of most of what i know as german cuisine. parsley is the decorative green leave of choice. fresh chives and garden cress are other ones -- which by they way are by far not as popular in the united states as in germany.

so tasty alternatives have gotten germans off the cilantro track.

"If the flavor doesn’t fit a familiar food experience, and instead fits into a pattern that involves chemical cleaning agents and dirt, or crawly insects, then the brain highlights the mismatch and the potential threat to our safety. We react strongly and throw the offending ingredient on the floor where it belongs."

i can just repeat: where it belongs.

why hating cilantro is not your fault: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html

politically second class -- east germans and a discrimination law suit

browsing the english website of the german spiegel magazine -- one of the most important political weekly publications in the country -- i bumped into an interesting article concerning the distinction still being made between east germans and west germans. people who know me know that this a topic i like to follow.

here's the gist of the article published by spiegel online on friday, april 16, 2010:

"A Stuttgart labor-court ruled on Thursday that former East Germans -- often disparagingly nicknamed "Ossis" -- are not an ethnic group in a case involving a woman who claims she was turned down for a job because she came from the former sate. German commentators on Friday warn about the prevalance of negative stereotypes about people from the formerly communist state."

read the entire article: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,689403,00.html

the article reminded me of an experience i had in a political science class i attended at ohio university. dividing the world into sections, the teacher insisted that still as of today, only west germans belong to the highest category of individuals in the world i.e. white western citizens. i reminded her of the twenty years that had passed since the german reunification. nevertheless, the teacher insisted. in the political hierarchy of the world east germans are not on top of the olympe but live a notch lower thanks to their communist history.

the fact that west and east germans are still paid differently working in the same jobs is a common place. one of my friends decided to become a teacher in west german rather than east germany partially because of that. higher unemployment, more troubles with right-wing groups, more exodus of young people are other topics in the catalogue of east west comparisons.

but overall, i think my generation of twenty-somethings (well, in the upper echelons of the twenties anyway) are the last generation to remember a distinction. the sister of a former acquaintances now in her early twenties once replied ten years ago already that she didn't know if she was an east or west german child.

my german friends come from east and west. traces of two different socializations still linger on. a couple of friends migrating west for jobs have told me that when they settled in their new home town they felt a more common understanding with other "ossis" or even eastern european immigrants before making friends with west germans.

in the united states there is little awareness overall between east and west germany. generally most u.s. americans i meet have visited west german towns because they were army brats, know someone stationed there or wanted to see the pretty rhine and southern regions. it remains an exception that people do know dresden or leipzig through a personal visit or a even a longer time of living there. in fact i just met one, a professor of german language, who knew what i was talking about when it came to east german culture.

so when people ask me where i come from i have developed a standard answer: from germany. so far so good. for the follow up of where exactly in germany it has boiled down to: geographically from the middle, politically from the east. whatever that means to different people.

the cupcakization of germany

-- or don't let mcdonald's define what your taste buds should feel

















almost simultaneously i and a friend found this new york times article detailing the attempt of mcdonald's to introduce cupcakes in berlin, germany since march 30, 2010.

"Although they are a staple of bake sales and birthday parties across America, cupcakes were all but unknown in Germany until recently."

so what's the secret recipe behind this new u.s. american oven product dumped on the german market? in fact, there is none. or more precisely, there are as many recipes as there are cakes and pies as the collection in the photo below illustrates.

these trays are lined up in a shop in washington dc solely dedicted to proliferating the baby cakes.

at e street and 7th street in northwest washington dc, the red velvet cupcakery offers you a slice of individuality in a paper cup. actually a friend made the connection of the often hailed u.s. american individuality and this bakery item. with a piece of their own special choice everyone feels special. a type of personal pizza (the size of a saucer), or baby bundt cake or a finger food to be dumped into the hungry mouth almost all at once. more of the same, individuality brand name usa.


















in fact, you can really individualize your cup cake before a chain lures you with commercially produced overprized faux symbols of individuality. asking an old friend and community cook book conributor for advice on home-made cup cakes the answer is as simple as it gets:

"You can put the batter from any cake recipe into the paper cups in a muffin tin, even a cake mix, just fill the little paper cup about 2/3 full, bake 18-22 minutes at 350 degrees [Fahrenheit]. Then cool them and frost with any frosting you wish to use. Easy!"

Easy!

stilettos and cobblestone: georgetown

an old university of harry potter quality founded by monks, posh store fronts luring passers-by into trendy vietnamese, indian and chinese restaurants, gas lamps with real flames, cobblestone, brimming young women in stilettos and men in polo shirts. that's georgetown, named for its prestigious university and the hardest to reach, most exclusive part of dc. walk with me along the canal, visit the baby harbor and inspect the old brick houses.

flower capital -- a lesson in english biology

walking through the color sea of spring flowers i was reminded: my commandment of the english language is limited.

beyond tulip, oak, and carnation (thanks to the american pie song) my knowledge of even simple english biological terms is annoyingly absent. names for trees, shrubs, bushes, and flowers that i easily know in german have to be painstakingly relearned here.

here's a sample phone conversations with j. to describe dc in the spring:

me: i am walking along the street and there's is this yellow flower with sort of a crown in the middle and other yellow leaves around, and it is more of a pale yellow. i can't think of the name in english. in german we call them, when you translate it in to english, easter bell.

j: mmh, i see, i might need to see a picture.

me: and there are these bright blue-purplish flowers with many little balls on top, we call them hee-ya-zeen-ta.

j: you mean, hyacinth?

me: could be, sounds kind of what i mean. they are very blue. and, you know, in march in germany we have what would translate into march cups [Märzenbecher]. they are small like snow bells but have tiny bright green dots around the white blossom that hangs down.

j: yeah, i can't think of a flower like that right away. maybe we can leonize it? [meaning to look it up in our favorite online german-english dictionary called ww.leo.org hosted by the technical university of munich/München].

me: okay, i'll look it up later. also we usually have a flower called key flower that i don't see around here. it is yellow on top and, i guess, looks like the shape of an old-fashioned key. can you think of a flower like that here? why is it not blossoming now/

j: i wonder if they grow here.

me: well, the weather is somewhat similiar. but there are other flowers i haven't seen. in may we have what we call in german may bells. they are poisonous and have littler white bell-like blossoms hanging on a stem.

j: are you talking about a may apple?

me: no, there are not apples attached to this.

jn: well, they are no real apples, much smaller.

me: they don't have any apples whatsoever. they are just little flowers growing in the forest often.

j: yeah, i don't know.

me: i don't know how else to explain. i need to look it up. anyway, it is very pretty here, very colorful. i really need to learn the proper words for all these flowers.

j: i think latin words would help. then we know we are talking about the same thing.

me: i think i'll be busy just learning the english vocabulary first.

the german in the general

germans pop up everywhere around dc. from occasionally overheard pieces of conversation on the streets to the omnipresent beer references. the fun is doubled when friends i go with get excited about me being delighted to spot german stuff. that's for the obvious. more hidden are statues such as the samuel hahnemann memorial, founder of homeopathy, at 16th st & massachusetts ave i stumpled upon one day.

then there are the less obvious scenes that remind me of germany such as the old canal that runs through georgetown in what was once an industrial area. my leipzig friends will know what i am talking about. also leipzig in its formerly industrial part of plagwitz offers a nicely set canal running along old brick buildings.

or this colorful row of houses. it awoke memories of the lovely hessian town of marburg. there, along the river lahn also small, cutsy houses are set side by side and people like to walk along side them. okay, i admit the small u.s. flag in the photo ruins the german feeling a bit.

some objects brazenly point out their german character. this bus rolled around the corner one fine sunny day and i quickly learnt from one of my germany-excited friends that it's used for a photo competition by the german embassy called "spot the bus". see it, snap a picture, and submit it. first come, first serve -- i did and won base cap sorely needed from the broiling southern sun when hunting for german busses outside.

to close the round of germanness the way it started, this menu offers doses of germanness in form of blond and dark liquids. without forgetting to remind the waiter that the funny dots above the o in the word Kostritzer are missing, i order a homey feeling far away.

Switzerland -- Happiness is Boredom: Guest post by Hoyt Anderson reviewing Eric Weiner's Geography of Bliss (part 2 of 2)

One of these rare and fortunate opportunities to post a guest contribution has arisen again. A very dear and inspiring person to me, Hoyt Anderson, wrote a paper on The Pursuit of Happiness. As part of his paper he reviewed The Geography of Bliss, a book authored by National Public Radio's (NPR) veteran foreign correspondent Eric Weiner. For the book, Weiner roamed the globe to find out how happiness looks outside home. For his paper Hoyt Anderson captured the highlights of Weiner's view of how happiness is lived in Switzerland. Despite the differences between Switzerland and Germany a couple of the notions talked about reminded me of German culture: the reluctance to talk about money, the cleanliness in the cities, the maybe sometimes slow humor and love or rules.

SWITZERLAND – Happiness is Boredom

The Swiss occupy a place near the pinnacle of Ruut Veenhoven’s happiness pyramid. The stereotype is true. Switzerland is efficient and punctual, also wealthy and with hardly any unemployment and the air is clean. The streets are nearly spotless and the chocolate is plentiful and delicious. But happy? “I saw no joy on the faces of the Swiss. Only quiet satisfaction tinged with just a trace of smugness." He quotes a female reporter from New York as complaining that “the Swiss are culturally constipated and stingy with information”. They are reluctant to speak out lest it be considered insulting since it assumes ignorance on the part of the other person. But his New York friend finds many aspects of Swiss life endearing -- the civil mindedness for instance. “The way you’ll be riding the bus and there will be this teen-age boy with a Mohawk and combat boots, looking like trouble, who will politely offer his seat to an older woman.”

So, what is the source of the Swiss happiness? Cleanliness says one of Weiner’s Swiss friends. “Have you seen our public toilets? “ At first he thinks the man is joking, but quickly rules that out. “The Swiss do not joke. About anything. Ever.” Everything works. There are no potholes in Swiss roads. Switzerland is a highly functional society and, while this may not be a source of joy or happiness, it eliminates a lot of the reasons to be unhappy.

The Swiss go to great lengths not to provoke envy in others. The Swiss know instinctively that envy is the great enemy of happiness. One of Weiner’s Swiss friends explains:”Our attitude is, don’t shine the spotlight too brightly on yourself or you might get shot”. The Swiss don’t like to talk about money. They know that money, more than anything else, triggers envy. A rich Swiss person doesn’t show off his money because he doesn’t have to. Everyone knows he’s rich.

“The Swiss are as fond of rules as the Dutch are of marijuana and prostitution.“ In many parts of Switzerland you can’t mow your lawn or shake your carpets on Sunday. You can’t hang laundry from your balcony on any day. You can’t flush your toilet after 10 P.M. Weiner relates the story of a British woman who enjoyed a couple of beers and some laughs in her apartment with friends and found a note on her door the next morning saying “No laughing after midnight”.

The Swiss live attenuated lives. ”They hum along, satisfied, never dipping below a certain floor, but never touching the ceiling either. Happiness researchers have found that, from a statistical point of view, the Swiss are on to something. Better to live in this middle range than to constantly swing between great highs and terrible lows.”

To sum up : “The Swiss are a humorless, uptight nation. Everything works, usually, and envy is squelched, but at a cost: You’re always being watched, monitored, judged.” Where’s the bliss? It’s simple. Nature. The Swiss have a very deep connection to nature. You can’t understand the Swiss without visiting the Alps. The naturalist E.O. Wilson gives a name to the warm fuzzy feeling one experiences when connected to nature: biophilia –- the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms. Wilson sees this connection to nature as rooted in our evolutionary past. The biophilia hypothesis also explains why we find natural settings so peaceful. It appeals to a much more base and human proclivity: selfishness. It says, in effect, protect the environment because it will make you happy.

America -- Happiness Is Home: A guest post by Hoyt Anderson reviewing Eric Weiner's Geography of Bliss (part 1 of 2)

America -- Happiness Is Home: A guest post by Hoyt Anderson reviewing Eric Weiner's Geography of Bliss (part 1 of 2)

One of these rare and fortunate opportunities to post a guest contribution has arisen again. A very dear and inspiring person to me, Hoyt Anderson, wrote a paper on The Pursuit of Happiness. The very American concept spelled out right in the beginning of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. As part of his paper he reviewed The Geography of Bliss, a book authored by National Public Radio's (NPR) veteran foreign correspondent Eric Weiner. For the book, Weiner roamed the globe to find out how happiness looks outside home. For his paper Hoyt Anderson captured the highlights of Weiner's view of how Americans perceive happiness.

AMERICA* – Happiness Is Home

Erik Weiner lives in Miami which is associated with happiness if not paradise itself. He tells of a billboard there advertising a yellow convertible V.W. Beetle with these words “Woe isn’t you. Dare to be happy”. American happiness isn’t left to the gods or to fortune, as was the case for most of human history. No, happiness is there for the taking . All we need is enough will power to summon it, enough gumption to try it in the first place, and, of course, enough cash to afford a convertible V. W. Beetle.

America’s place on the happiness spectrum is not as high as you might think, given our superpower status. We are not by any means the happiest nation on earth. One study by Adrian White at the University of Leicester in [Great] Britain ranked the United States as twenty-third happiest nation on earth behind Costa Rica, Malta and Malaysia . It is safe to say that the United States is not as happy as it is wealthy. Since 1960, the divorce rate has doubled, the teen suicide rate has tripled, the violent crime rate has quadrupled. There are increases in rates of depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. What about all that money? Basic survival is not an issue for most Americans. Wealthy Americans are only slightly happier than poorer ones. As a nation we are three times richer than we were in 1950 yet no happier.

One dynamic are rising expectations. We compare ourselves not to the America of 1950 but to the America of today. And more specifically, to our neighbors of today. We give lip service to the notion that money can’t buy happiness but act as if it does. When asked what would improve the quality of their lives, Americans' number one answer was money, according to a University of Michigan study. By telling us that happiness lives inside us the self help industry hasn’t helped us because it focuses us inward when we should be looking outward to other people, to community and human bonds –- not to money. We are able to acquire many of the things that we think will make us happy and therefore suffer confusion and disappointment when they don’t.

America is a profoundly optimistic nation. Two thirds of Americans say they are optimistic about the future.

No other nation’s founding document so prominently celebrates happiness. But The Declaration Of Independence only enshrines the right to the pursuit of happiness. It’s up to us to catch it.

One way Americans pursue happiness is by physically moving. Ours is a nation founded on restlessness. Even the Pilgrims were hedonic refugees searching for happiness somewhere else. Our much heralded frontier spirit is simply a yearning for a happier place. The ability to choose where we live is, in the scheme of human history, a very recent phenomenon. Historically most people live where they were planted.

The mobility of Americans makes many of them hedonistic floaters whose perpetual search for a happier place prevents them from making permanent commitments and this can be a dangerous thing. We can’t love a place or a person if we always have one foot out the door. This calls to mind an Icelander’s observation that you can identify your true home by answering the simple question, “Where do you want to die?”

To illustrate the kinds of considerations –- the “calculations“ –- that are involved in finding “the right place” he follows the decision process of his friend Cynthia. She didn’t want anyplace flat, either topographically or culturally. She wanted four seasons but a temperate environment. Low humidity gives her headaches so that eliminated places like Arizona and New Mexico. Food was important too. She needed regular access to not only feta cheese but “a variety of feta cheeses”. She is a nature photographer so she needed to be close to the natural world. She needed an arts scene and live music and other signs of cultural life. She wanted a peaceful place of “human size” -- not a large city with crime and traffic problems. With all of these considerations in mind her decision was more intuitive than rational. She selected Asheville, North Carolina and she moved there. Weiner asked her if she was happy in her new home. “Yes”, she says. She likes the fact that she can get anywhere in fifteen minutes. She likes the mountains, so close and embracing. She likes the fact that she can see an opera or a theater performance. It doesn’t meet all of her criteria. It isn’t near any large body of water and there is no major airport -- but even paradise requires some compromises.

Weiner asked Cynthia if Asheville was home. She hesitated briefly. Then with a lack of commitment she said: “I’ve lived here for twenty years so I guess this is home. All the parts I care about are here.”

The problem with finding paradise is that others might find it too. And that is what’s happening with Asheville. Word is out that this is a great place to live. Asheville is on the cusp. It could go the way other places have gone –- from quiet village to “greedy, uptight anywhere.” Paradise is a moving target.

*The term "America" was introduced and used by Weiner in his book when referring to the United States; Hoyt Anderson uses it interchangeably with the term United States.

Switzerland -- Happiness is Boredom: A guest post by Hoyt Anderson reviewing Eric Weiner's Geography of Bliss (part 2 of 2)