So, I've been in Maine for almost two weeks now—the "attic" of the United States, the northeasternmost point, bordering Canada and the ocean coast. I had dreamed of coming here since last year, when fate, in the form of the International Exchange Center and a ready offer, threw me into Texas—which I don't regret. If only because that summer, the Great American Dream took root in me, resulting in a month of diligent and this time independent job searching, "blindly" wandering through labyrinths of online forms, and finally, on the very last day, a letter from my future employer. That's how American dreams tend to come true. Why Maine specifically? Honestly, I don't know. I was just looking at a map of the country, not knowing anything about any of the states, when suddenly one, in the upper right, looked back at me. Fate, as Evdokimov used to sigh. Now, of course, one can find rational explanations: like the fact that in the northern border regions, they are supposed to speak French, which I once liked, and that the Atlantic is nearby. And now I already feel and understand that there is really something to this—being on the edge in the north and east; and the state motto, Dirigo—"I lead"—sounds, damn it, so romantic: it turns out that with every rotation of our planet, it is Maine that leads America into a new day and sees the sun first. When zooming in on the map, another feature was found, and as a philologist, I fell in love with the names of the towns and places. "It probably affects one's worldview," I wrote to my employer in the spring, "when you live next to your own little Poland, Paris, China, and Oxford." There are also wonderful Cherry Fields and Green Forks here. True, it later turned out that their own Parises and Polands (as well as Odessas and Saint Petersburgs) are scattered all over America, but it didn't matter anymore. So, I am in the USA for the second time. We flew into Boston in rain and cold, and the three hours in the drizzling, shivering capital of Massachusetts were not memorable for anything. Except perhaps that the girls wear rubber boots—and this is right now, on the eve of Pushkin's birthday! From all this, a five- or six-hour Amtrack, Downeaster train, which connects two states, takes you to Portland. I save five dollars and take the 5:40. The clean and very comfortable, spacious Amtrack for some reason travels backward—well, okay. The view from the window is currently according to Wikipedia: "Over half the territory is occupied by forests." Yes—coniferous, deciduous, in which even nostalgic birches flicker, as well as rivers and lakes, lakes... Beauty, I can imagine how in clear weather the sun and clouds are reflected here on the surface of the water—like in a mirror, and a mirror as far as the eye can see. And now the weather is such as happens for some reason every time Harry Potter goes to school—gloomy and cloudy (by the way, the older the grade, the darker the clouds); so the train in my consciousness, which hasn't seen dreams in two days, turns into the Hogwarts Express, and it seems that the castle towers are about to rise above the lake. But the architecture presents other wonders. At several stations in a row, there are buildings like abandoned workshops of an old factory—long red brick buildings with half-broken windows. Not renovated, not demolished... semi-ruined, as if that's how it should be. Well, at least under the gray clouds, they look truly impressive. At the small, neat, and very beautiful stations, one or two people get off the carriage, take out umbrellas, and disappear into the fog and drizzle, behind which their town lies. On the road through the rain, pieces of streets are visible—winding, drowning in greenery, and for some reason reminding me of Europe. There were none like these in Texas, dry and drawn with a ruler, just as there was no such weather and, apparently, nothing like this at all. This is, in general, apparently, a completely different America, which I will
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