What's missing?

When I was in China the first time i started to get unsettled after the first few weeks.  Couldn't figure out what it was - we talked about the strange surroundings, but that didn't seem to be the problem, we talked about the work but that was pretty much the same as the work we did at home.  We talked about the food and finally realized we hadn't eaten bread the whole time we had been in china.

That was the feeling today as we made our approach to Boston - it was so incredibly green.

Phoenix is desert and I hadn't realized how brown it was.  It s beautiful in its own way and I love the feeling of the desert but it is almost monochromatic - shades of brown.

Phoenix and Boston are different in other ways - for me the major difference is the use of space - I like wide open places - and Boston is not that in any way - houses and buildings seem to be on top of each other. Phoenix on the other hand is so spread out - at least in Scottsdale - that it is hard to see the city with all of the empty space around.