James Baquet Writing about the United States of America is quite a challenge. What can I say about my home country without seeming like a mere booster? So I’d like to offer a “tourists’ eye view” of the United States. In 2015, my wife and I took a 26-day train trip across the country, seeing many sights that were new to me. We started in Los Angeles and ended in New Orleans, with plenty of side trips. Things we missed: most of the national parks — Yellowstone, Yosemite, etc.; and quite a few popular cities, such as San Francisco and Las Vegas. Here are some of the highlights: We left the train at Williams, Arizona, and took the Grand Canyon Railway to the village on the South Rim of that great gulch. The next day, we again left the train, this time in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and took a commuter train up to Santa Fe, the state capital and a spectacular arts community. Two mornings later, we were able to observe the “Mass Ascension” at the start of the famous Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta before embarking on a very long ride — over 26 hours — to Chicago, where we met up with the bestman of our Hong Kong wedding, and saw the Art Institute of Chicago and the Field Museum of Natural History. Next stop: Boston. We walked a “history trail” and took a side trip to the homes of Ralph Waldo Emerson and other great writers in Concord, Massachusetts. The following day, we saw the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building in Manhattan. We also took a side trip to Hartford, Connecticut, where we visited the one-time home of Mark Twain. From New York, we trained to Philadelphia and the Liberty Bell, then on to Washington D.C., where we viewed the White House (from the outside), the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, and Ford’s Theater, where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Side trips included Mount Vernon, home to George Washington, and Monticello, where Thomas Jefferson lived. Final stops were Atlanta, Georgia, where we visited family members we had never met before, and New Orleans, Louisiana, where we met more family and friends, listened to some jazz, and took a ride on a Mississippi River steamboat. From there, we flew back to Los Angeles for a well-deserved rest. Vocabulary: Which word above means: 1. festival, celebration 2. killed for political purposes 3. in large numbers 4. fantastic, amazing 5. key points 6. promoter, supporter 7. narrow valley formed by water 8. getting on a vehicle 9. edge 10. rise, going upward | 