And Oh! The land, she bleeds!

Mom and Phill are going to Paris and Wales for Thanksgiving. I'm only slightly jealous, as I'm sure they'll be hitting up the old and ancient areas of which Phill is so very fond. He took us overseas last Christmas and showed us the things over there that America is specifically lacking, i.e. a history so deep that even the locals can't locate a road less than a mile from where they're walking (this happened to us when we were trying to find the farm from where my dad's side of the family originated). He took us to a tavern from the 1300's, which looked like every other tavern we had gone into except for the soggy old men, who appeared especially old and soggy. Apparently we're not the only ones he's done this to. When his nephew was about 15, Phill took him on a trip around the country (must've taken hours....), stopping at every ruined castle and historical blemish on the map, while his nephew was wishing he was windsurfing on the coast like everyone else. Phill considers it such a huge cultural difference, that we have such little use of the land compared to what they've put into theirs, that he waited for our jaws to drop every time he mentioned a date of founding. I think we were never as astonished as he wanted us to be, but what do we know, being American and all?