virginia is for lovers

i can't believe it's may 1st already. a year ago today i was a senior, wondering what was going to happen to my life. well, i still wonder that quite frequently, actually, but my how time does fly.

i came down on monday to virginia and d.c. to do college fairs, and i'd forgotten how beautiful virginia is. and parts of d.c. for that matter. but more on virginia: it really is for lovers. i was discussing this with my sister; we were trying to pinpoint why, exactly, virginians seem immeasurably more laid back, happy and optimistic than your average new york city metropolitan area-dweller. is it the richer soil? the temperate winters? the abundance of waffle houses?

no matter which road you take from the north, at any point in which you cross from a non-virginia state into terra firma herself, everything becomes instantly more beautiful. this is not an exaggeration; i won't deny that i do exaggerate, but this is totally true. somehow, in an almost distinguishable line across the mason-dixon, to the south you can see lusher trees, greener grass, cleaner roadways, and lovely and vivid wildflowers that refuse to grow further up the road. and the drivers: careful, considerate, they let you pass in front of them without giving you the finger. can't we all learn a lesson from virginia?

when i was visiting high schools in the fall, i noticed that at almost every school i saw, students held the same view that they didn't want to leave virginia for college; i was annoyed at the time, since gettysburg is only 90 minutes away. but i'm beginning to understand, as i could only vaguely grasp then and on my numerous family vacations to colonial williamsburg, that if i lived in virginia, i might not want to leave either.

luckily gettysburg has a lot of lovely qualities that i admire in virginia, but virginia has it in the whole state. their state motto should be "you want to hug people when you come here."