President Obama was here the past few days, and it seems to be a much bigger deal than, say, back home, if the PM visits Perth. It was Obama's first visit for non fund-raising purposes. The visit was announced with a certain amount of fanfare on the news and I saw that they had footage of his arrival on local TV. When he departed and went back to Washington, it was as if he'd gone a long way away.
I wonder if this has less to do with the distance travelled than with the fact that much more country is traversed. I don't mean the mileage (San Francisco to Washington wouldn't be much further than Perth to Canberra) but he crosses California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, the bottom tip of Illinois(?), Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, all those states and all their different cultures, systems and histories. And which in the course of a term he must attend to.
I know the middle of Australia is not empty, but Western Desert culture essentially covers Kalgoorlie to Areyonga. Here there is much more packed in.
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