T A B L E_T A L K Interested in visiting the former Soviet Union? Get advice on travel and living in the new Russia in Table Talk's Wanderlust area R E C E N T L Y An Italian romance: Chapter Two By Laura Fraser The first time, he had helped heal her heartbreak. Could their second fling be as good as the first? (09/29/98) Running with the Hadza By Eric Seyfarth Tanzania's Stone Age tribe represents a living link to our earliest ancestors (09/27/98) "Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse" By Lesley Hazleton Searching for the site where James Dean died (09/25/98) Letter from Pusan: The party's over By Rolf Potts The heady rise and fall of expat decadence in South Korea (09/24/98) Swimsuits -- and more! By Beverly Gage Past and present collide at Atlantic City's annual Miss America extravaganza (09/23/98) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner		IOWA HEARTLAND | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - The confusion is just as acute when dealing with Americans. I can speak from experience that all those studies disparaging our geography skills are true. Iowa might as well be Gabon or Belize. A high school student once asked me if Iowa wasn't part of eastern Canada. And when I was readying to move back, a medical doctor wondered if it was faster to drive to Chicago or Seattle from Iowa. Incredulous at his utter ignorance of how his own country is laid out, I blurted that the difference was 35 hours vs. three and left it at that. I first became aware that my fellow countrymen had no knowledge of or interest in my state when I traveled to New York City as a high school student. It was one of those chaperoned bus trips where teenage couples are trying to make out in the bathroom of the Greyhound at 2 a.m. and the teachers just want some sleep. After being herded from one predictable tourist site to the next, we were allowed an afternoon of freedom. In search of the Museum of Modern Art and a bit lost, I ducked into the closest thing to a landmark I could find: McDonald's. It proved to be a topsy-turvy version of the Golden Arches I knew back home. In lieu of clean tile, faux chandelier fixtures and fellow schoolmates behind the register, the place was grimy and worn, with clerks who looked about my parents' age. A patron with a torn jacket and patched scarf must have noticed my dazed look and started an off-the-wall conversation with me, the kind of interaction that city people know how to avoid. But it was 1982 and I'd never seen someone toting as many oddly filled bags as this woman had heaped on her handcart, so I answered her questions as the well-mannered 16-year-old that I was. "Potatoes!" she sang out when I told her where I was from. "That's Idaho," I corrected her, a bit dejectedly. "Iowa is corn." I've been correcting people on the differences between corn and potatoes and between Idaho and Ohio, and on the route of the Mississippi River, ever since. I sometimes wonder whether any of my impromptu geography lessons -- maps sketched on airline napkins, countries drawn on the sands of a beach -- have lingered with my momentary pupils. The woman nursing her McDonald's coffee certainly hadn't seemed enlightened: "Oh, one of those places," she'd chuckled with a little wave of her hand. It was interesting to try on being a Seattleite. From cabbies to the parents of friends, everyone seemed genuinely pleased to meet me, drawing closer for insider information about the place du jour. The city had made the cover of Newsweek and been given starring roles in several movies. Grunge had been born and Starbuck's had begun its ascent. Whether it was a party-goer in Chicago or a waiter in Boston, I was always getting pumped for information from people who wanted to move westward. Talking about the rain, Bill Gates and coffee became tiresome parts of the same tale. The shallow repetition reminded me of how the lesser-known siblings of movie stars must feel. None of this is a problem with Iowa, of course. There was a short period during the "Bridges of Madison County" craze when people, often overly made-up women, would ask horribly misinformed questions about covered bridges (I've never seen one). But more often, the mention of Iowa leaves people speechless. I can have a lengthy conversation with some happenstance person at a museum or while sharing transport to the airport. We get along well, perhaps to the point where I can even imagine having a coffee with this person and getting to know each other better. Then comes the question, "So, where are you from?" At my response, their face clouds as they try to think of some interesting fact left over from high school geography. They want to be polite, to have the right reply, but they're flustered. "Iowa. Really?" they say, looking me over again to make sure they hadn't missed some telltale sign. "How interesting." Although I'm less defensive about it now, rarely enumerating the Ph.D.s per capita in the college town where I live as supporting evidence of some respectability, I'm still angered when someone is blithely dismissive. The wife of an old college friend I met in L.A., for example, yawned when I told her that I get daily New York Times delivery, saying that of course it wouldn't be necessary to subscribe to the local paper since not much happens where I live. Another friend invoked my ire when, after returning from a three-month trip to some of the garden spots of the third world, she refused to stop here on her way from one coast to the other. "Frankly," she intoned, letting me in on a little secret, my husband and I had chosen an "undesirable" place to live. I'll have to remember that, I thought, the next time someone is throwing up on me during a crowded bus ride in the outback of Kenya. Though their ranks are fewer, there are others who surprise me. One New Yorker, sporting the tiniest metal-framed glasses and the shiniest loafers, let out a sigh, "What's it like to live in Iowa?" Before I could go into my defense strategy, I noted the dreamy tone of his voice. I could see the picket fences and rustic red barns floating in his eyes. When I told him that life here is pretty good, he returned to his legal pad and tapped his pen. "I'm sure it is," he muttered despondently. "I'm sure it is." I have momentary doubts myself about just how dreamy it is. In the middle of an ice storm and on the fifth day of below-zero weather, one wonders. It's my first 24 hours in a big city, however, that most make me reconsider. I ride high on a wave of culinary intake, thrilled by the freshest goat cheese or the most authentic pad Thai. The shops and their material promise are dizzying; the movie selection surpasses my wildest hopes. But after the initial glut, I quickly get drunk on the mundane repetition of things and money. The traffic and noise begin to take a toll on my nerves, and people, costumed in their urban finery, look less beautiful and more Fellini-esque. Stress creeps up and grabs me in its hold, just as it did perpetually when I was a city-dweller. I want to go home and walk the dog alone at midnight. I long to leave the house unlocked with little worry. The sounds of cicadas and birds, even my neighbor Earl's riding lawnmower, are welcome. Flying in over the sleepy airport north of town, I look down at the fields with their neat rows and black soil. For a moment, I'm embarrassed by the plainness of what I see: It's so unadorned. But then my eyes refocus. I downshift from whatever opulent scenery I've just taken in and I see the beauty in the simplicity. My pace slows to meet the geography and I settle back onto my true place on the map. SALON | Sept. 30, 1998 Jennifer New is a writer who lives in Iowa City, Iowa. Her last piece for Salon was "Leap of faith."