We Do Adventure

Living in another country does make you aware of how easy it is to fall into culturally imperialistic attitudes. By that I mean the assumption that your norm is better that the new norm you’re encountering. With this can unwittingly come the urge to convert all around to your way of thinking. I could quite easily become a crusader for the supremacy of the three-pin plug! I’ve long held that the UK as the best system of delivering electricity to devices I’ve ever encountered. Or I could campaign against the common practice here of attempting to overtake four cars at once into a blind corner. Such behaviour is not normal in the UK as we generally relieve such drivers of the undue pressure of holding a driving licence. However, these and similar desires have to be curbed because different is so often just different; not better or worse. The danger is every new experience is greeted with a value judgement rather than being embraced for what it is. While I don’t underestimate the power of l...

I think I achieved the impossible today, or at least the highly improbable. I had a couple of conversations with an American and didn’t once mention the ‘I’ word or the big ‘O’! Am I the only person to achieve this feat? Probably not, but I suspect I’m in a very small minority. Still, the events in Washington did not pass me by. My mother had sent a text before I left the house this morning expressing her hop all was well with me ‘on this auspicious day’. But it was our Welsh friend who seemed most excited about the Inauguration. He was positively gushing about Obama’s speech. For my part I caught a little of the proceedings online, thanks to the BBC. That snap shot including watching a number of ex-presidents taking their seating, listening to the tail-end of Rick Warren’s prayer and hearing the first sister of soul, Aretha Franklin, do her thing. Oh, and I did get a minute or two of that Speech too!