Toying with Geopolitics

Some of you may have already heard me talk
about this before. If you've been to my room, you
must have noticed this map and heard me voluntarily elaborate about my special interest in this ordinary image.

I have always used this as an example of how BIG a differences lays between my two nationalities; Of why size actually does matter. Although Israel is practically the 51st state, there’s still a world of difference.

Be There or Be Square
I was putting together a jigsaw puzzle for ages 3 and up, of "The map of the United States" when the realization struck me. It made me laugh and not because I was successfully completing an infantile cardboard game. I was looking at
Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. All perfectly cut squares states. Are these actual states? geometrically shaped countries were a strange concept to me in more than one way. aren't there mountains or rivers or population to determine borders? ; it seemed big, spacious and very contemporary. As if the founding mothers had said: Hey, how do we want to divide our new place?... let's just cut it in squares! As if talking about Lasagna.

Meanwhile, in Europe, squares were being beaten and eaten or drawn by a very drunk shaky hand. A much more complicated puzzle for sure. For Hundreds of years Europe has continued to dissect - and didn't say the last word yet. Every year, in the Eurovision song contest, there are more new formed countries and the contest goes on longer and becomes more bizarre, but that's for a different post.
So is the bigger the better? does extra space make people crazier, more violent or insanely polite?
Not only does the big fat boxes states demonstrate the imaginable frontier Americans grew up with, it also makes you think of how new, recent, this great state is. How lovely. No fighting, no bloody wars and so much room for everyone. Wait, was it really big and roomy when the first 'Coloradoins' got there?

On that note, without being petty, it is funny that the 51st state is just a 1/30 the size of Texas.

So here I was, with my foreign thoughts, at 9 am on a Monday morning, while a woman's hair was in my face, some boy's loud bad ipod music in the background, ice coffees dripping and newspapers filling the limited air remaining on the train. I smelled a dash of irony, remembering how, when my mom asked me on my recent visit, what I miss the most in New York. She actually knew before I answered.
"The space".