I’m getting goosebumps while keeping up to date with the current events in Egypt. My spine is tingling up and down. Of course, it could be the caffeine and liberal amounts of sugar from my Thai iced tea at lunch. What happened in the past few weeks in Tunisia was a shock for the entire… [Read more…]
November 15, 2010
Whether or not Americans have a culture, which is an argument beyond the scope of this entry, there is one thing that we do have that is perhaps more developed than most (but not all) other cultures. Phone etiquette and particularly the etiquette regarding mobile phones. Etiquette is a big word for manners or politeness. … [Read more…]
June 10, 2010
One aspect of the American lifestyle that I am completely frustrated with is the obsession with material objects. OK, to be fair, Americans are not the only materialistic gluttons on this planet, but it almost seems like we invented materialism–at least in the exaggerated form that is seen today. I believe that many young Americans are taught… [Read more…]
March 9, 2010
I’ve noticed that, while traveling, if I am in a country that generally doesn’t have a lot of spoken English, it is very difficult for people to figure out where I am from. In other countries (where people are much more acquainted with the English language) people can identify me mainly by my accent alone. In… [Read more…]
January 12, 2010
If this particular entry seems like a rant, well, it probably is. Europe was the first place I traveled outside the US. I was young and went with a large group of my family. In fact we went for a “family reunion” of sorts in Luxembourg to meet our distant relatives who were descendants of… [Read more…]
December 16, 2009
My very first “Twitter-debate” was with a foul-mouthed British woman. I was defending Amanda Knox after learning of and being horrified by the news of her conviction. The truth is that it was really not much of a debate because of my aversion to responding to hostile language, but the point is that I was… [Read more…]
December 15, 2009
Why this blog, and why this topic? Because leaving my country has made me love my country at a level most people don’t have the opportunity to experience. I became obsessed with traveling at a young age. My very first cross-cultural experience was in Europe where I met with distant European relatives in Luxembourg who… [Read more…]
November 9, 2009
A French co-worker recently asked me about the current debate in the US regarding healthcare. He told me that the debate is something that the French just don’t understand. He asked me to give him my opinion about what will happen. “Not what you want to happen,” he said explicitly, but what I think would… [Read more…]
January 27, 2011
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