Comparison

             The world is not as big as it seems. More one travels, more one grows as a person, the world takes shape and form that is -- yes, still mysterious -- but not so strange anymore, not so unknown anymore, not so incomprehensible anymore. After all my modest travels I feel that I have so much to share about every distant place I've visited. There are towns that are so painfully similar to each other and oh-so-different at the same time.
             Santa Barbara and Cape May. Both are America's favorites. Both small towns with glorious past, peculiar architecture, inviting beaches and little boutiques. Both have so much to offer to wandering tourists -- excellent antique shops, sophisticated art galleries and world-class restaurants. Both celebrate the quiet majesty of whales and impressive variety of vocal and colorful migrating birds. But both attract so many but very different crowds. I have never seen wandering German or French in Cape May. Only respectful senior citizens strolling among almost rotten Victorian houses full of restless ghosts from charming bygone era, happy families and sweating eastern European students, selling themselves in the unbearable humidity of summer heat, trying to make a fortune slaving in this promised land of promised millions.
             Santa Barbara bears completely different picture. Unlike Cape May, it is point of interest not only of tired working-class America, but it is dreamt about destination of anxious travelers from all over the world. I find myself feeling like citizen of the world among these different people with different backgrounds speaking different languages in this paradise of sleeping quiet mountains and blue eternity of the Pacific.
             Cape May cannot even compete in this invisible contest of nature with Santa Barbara. Yes, it is on the coast of Atlantic, but the beach is so ordinary and so boring, like many others. In contrary, Santa Barbara has sweeping palm-shaded...

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