SEEING IT WITH MY OWN EYES Irina Matviitšuk

Irina Matviitšuk

SEEING IT WITH MY OWN EYES

Language school InterLink, Narva, Estonia

This autumn I came up with a new (for me) reason why it is worth travelling. When I got an invitation to travel to the USA, I was, frankly speaking, skeptical enough that this trip might be real – a visa, such a long distance, flights. But having applied for ESTA, to my surprise, I got a reply within 3–4 days: Welcome to the USA!

The author at Cloud Gate in Millennium Park, Chicago Though I stayed there only one week, I visited three cities in two states; even now I couldn’t believe how I managed it. My first stop was Chicago. From the first moments, I was impressed by its magnificent skyscrapers dotted along the river. It immediately took my breath away – they are of different shape and style. One reflects the water and changes its color depending on the weather and time of the day, another symbolizes unity with the previous centuries’ architecture. Interestingly, they don’t have windows, which gave the architects freedom to put their ambitions into life. Surprisingly, this doesn’t cause a chaos – on the contrary, it’s an ensemble united by its own concept. It is a rather amazing fact that nowadays only conceptual architecture is allowed in the city. I wondered what concept the architecture in Narva has? That’s a good question…

My next place of destination was Urbana-Champaign – a city, renowned for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I had been planning to take my time walking to the university to see how the city drifted by, but once I left the house, I was immediately taken along by a stream of young people of different nationalities and races who were rushing all together in one direction. Some minutes later this stream disappeared and I found myself standing in the middle of a huge territory with nobody around. I realized that it was a campus of one of the oldest and biggest universities in the USA. It’s like a city in the city with its own life – a library, a museum, a bell tower, a concert hall and, of course, numerous of educational premises.

The surprises didn’t stop there. Having explored the campus, I decided to go to another part of the city Urbana, which is famous for its picturesque and tranquil scenery. I

took the bus to go to the park and asked the driver (by the way, almost all of them are women) to show me the stop I should get off. She was a very helpful woman and did it with pleasure.

I have to stop here to describe my admiration of the park. Secluded tracks, wild lakes, which gave an impression that there is a crocodile around the corner, fairy bright leaves with the colors of the American fall – nothing left me indifferent.

Having walked around the park, I set off for home. I was walking along the deserted street when, suddenly, I heard a signal; I turned around and saw a bus. I realized that the signal had come from it. First, I got scared that I had broken a traffic rule, but then I realized that I hadn’t done anything wrong. All of a sudden the bus stopped, the door opened and … there was the same driver, asking me whether I was going home. I said: “Yes, but only another way.” She invited me in, closed the door, took me about 300 meters then stopped again and showed my bus stop on the opposite side. I was shocked: how did she recognize me from the back, not saying that she managed to remember me?

City Park in Urbana-Champaign

My second surprise was the next day when I decided to go to the local outlet. I had been warned that I should have some small money to buy a ticket. I had a 10-dollar note and was sure it wasn’t really “big” money. When the bus arrived, which I had been waiting for 25 minutes, and I gave the banknote to the driver, to my surprise she didn’t accept it, because it’s a rule that in order to get a ticket passengers have to insert money into the bus machine, which doesn’t give change. Imagine my disappointment when I realized that I had to go back to the store to change the money and wait for the next bus for half an hour. Needless to say how tired I was after shopping. However, at this very moment I heard: “Don’t worry, I’ll give you the money.” I turned around and saw a young man. I have no right to say that he was a beggar or homeless, I’ll leave it to you to judge, but he was sitting with two huge dogs and a mattress rolled up. I was confused not knowing what to do: my mind said:”No,” because of some prejudice and misconception, but my intuition said: “Take the money, you might offend the man, who wants to help you,” and I accepted.

These episodes say that kindness and responsiveness don’t have any nationalities and borders. Unfortunately or fortunately, we can only learn it when we see it with our own eyes…

The the final part of my trip was Madison, Wisconsin. On a whim we decided to go to the neighboring state, Wisconsin, to visit its capital Madison. Due to objective reasons we stayed there only one day. What impressions do I have from this city? I remember the high blue sky and the blue water of the lakes around the city, the domed State Capitol with a big square in front. Interestingly, every