The Great American Reach Around - The Northeast & The UK

This article is part of the The Great American Reach Around series.

Welcome to week three of the Great American Reach Around, where I tell the world about America and the world tells me in a funny accent to "get fucked!" Actually, three gracious foreigners will be providing a counterpoint to the coverage of my homeland.

In week one and week two we covered the Midwest, where I grew up and spent most of my life, but this week we journey to the right side of the map and the Northeast of the United States. Geographically, the Northeast is the smallest of the regions we will be covering, but don't be fooled; it has big heart.

There is a portion of the Northeast that contains thousands of tiny states that most of America likes to call "statelettes". These adorable little collectible states constitute the region within the region of the Northeast known as New England. According to science you would have to be using a map the size of a zeppelin hangar to actually fit the names of these wee states within their boundaries on the map!

The Northeast also plays host to some of America's most famous and populous cities, including the big daddy of them all; New York City. It also encompasses many of the 13 original colonies, giving it a long and colorful history. Remember, most of the Continental United States was unexplored or barely inhabited until the late 18th and 19th centuries. Some states, like Montana and Wyoming, may not even exist to this day! But, the Northeast has been there since the beginning, and the inhabitants are not going to let you forget it.

For our purposes the region known as the Northeast is comprised of the following states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Even though they are considered part of the South, both Delaware and Maryland are often thrown into this group because they share much of the culture (and the Boston and Washington urban sprawls) with their Yankee kin. We'll be covering them in our articles on the South, so if you live in Delaware or Maryland don't take it personally.

I will begin our tour of the Northeast with a trip to Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The GARA foreign representatives this time around hail from America's abusive uncle that we outgrew; the United Kingdom. Pete "Opired" W. will take us on a tour of his home town of Lutterworth, England. Alasdair "AlMac" MacKenzie will explode our Hollywood misconceptions by showing us around Glasgow, Scotland. Finally, John "deathmike" Doe, found dead in a canal, will give us a look at his rural home in Nuneaton, England. Purely by chance, Lutterworth and Nuneaton are only a few miles from one another.