My visions of California before taking this course were a sunny, beautiful, happy, carefree place and those visions are partly because I visited nine years ago. During my visit, I concluded that I would eventually move there when I am ready to start a family. My visit to California had left me with a tainted image in my mind, an image of a place where I could leave all my worries behind in hopes of looking with new eyes, but what left me speechless, it is the fact that I have no memory of particular events that leads me to this strange obsession with the State. When I first visited California I was 13, and at thirteen there isn't much to do there, the options are very limited. My mom and I stayed at a hotel in downtown Los Angeles for an event where we did some basic, but not great, sightseeing, so why am I so obsessed with the state? Physically, California is a beautiful place with lots of space. Downtown Los Angeles didn't look like the typical downtown areas of cities like Chicago, New York, or even Atlanta, but it was more spacious and "clean." I haven't seen much public transportation like the ones that frequently bring together typical cities with high population rates, which means less traffic and noise. California, for many of us, is like the Promised Land to the Israelites, a place of absolute happiness, delight and peace. While I was there I found myself at peace and when I returned to Chicago, at O'Hare Airport, I felt as if my peace was disturbed, disturbed by loud honking horns that honked at pedestrians and by large buses taking up a lot of space. I found myself agitated and annoyed wishing I was back in California, where I could have saved my peace. Oddly, I did not bring back any turbulent memories from the environment of paper districts and economically disadvantaged ghettos. These events are key to understanding how the United States is following California's lead while being a model for other nations. The locals who believed they had arrived in their Promised Land soon realized they were in hell because natural disasters began to occur, natural disasters like earthquakes, fires and floods were constantly ravaging California and all kinds devastating tragedies like pollution. , poverty, riots, tax limitations, spending limits, prohibition of affinity actions, harsh laws and denial of services to illegal immigrants. On the surface, California seems like a great place with endless opportunities, but underneath it is one of the biggest disappointments of all time, and if we follow a state like California, we will also become a disappointment..