As I write this AMD, I am in the bus driving back from a debate tournament in North Carolina. Looking out my window, I am always amazed at how the geography of Appalachia reminds me of some areas in Germany. I've done this drive many times before. After traveling in Germany the summer before my junior year in high school, my school drove to this same college for a debate tournament that fall, and the fall of my senior year. I remember thinking how similar things looked, flying past. The same craggy rock faces and rolling foothills, which gently sloped down from the highway to reveal a misty panorama. This time, however, I noticed some differences. As we drove along the river, I was surprised by the abject poverty. So many homes were ramshackle, worn, and falling down. Windows were boarded up, and many homes had rusty lawnchairs and broken cars out front. This vision of Appalachia was one markedly different from the Germany I remembered. In Germany, much of the development lies in quaint villages, that together make up an urban region. But perhaps I was just romanticizing my trip, I thought, so I looked back at my pictures. Below are a few of them with comments:
I was surprised to find this picture I found of a German "trailer park". I guess our worlds aren't that different after all! Interestingly, one of my host families (who were very financially stable) actually owned what the American equivalent of a "cabin on the lake" would be, but for them, it was a "trailer on the river."
Some visions of Germany were very similar to what driving around Northern Michigan (wo ich komme aus) in the summer looks like.
This is a picture of the small villages. From what I understand, collections of these villages comprise a larger urban city or town.
I thought this image was remarkable because it could pass as a view from any American highway passing through North Carolina/Virginia/ Southern Ohio.
Here is another image of a German village.
This is an image of a typical German village (Eberbach) around the river (this is the Neckar River). Here, the buildings are nice and expensive. In America (and in similar terrain), many of the riverside homes were in disrepair.
