I was born and raised on foreign soil, and have travelled a bit. Quite a bit, actually, though not to Italy or France. European travel has been limited to England and Scotland.
My good friends throughout the years have been Mexican, Mexican-American, French, Argentinian, German, Honduran, Guatemalan, Germano-Mexicans, Franco-Mexicans, Indian, Dutch, Kiwis, Ecuadoran, Irish-Americans, and lots and lots of Heinz 57 'mericans, including tons of Louisianians [it's a different world down here,] and lots of 'merican ex-pats to places like England, Indonesia, Russia, Australia.
I even count Kiwi Mq. as a a-more-than-just-an-acquaintance friend even though all my dealings with him have been online.
My family likes to travel, and enjoys discussing our experiences. My sister went to Spain for her two week honeymoon, ended up staying a year; picked oranges to make ends meet because my father cut off the moolah.
My grandfather used to pick a point on the globe and just go. He once took my youngest aunt--born when my grandmother was in her 40s--out of school because he decided he wanted to take her and my grandmother to Turkey. He planned the trip and started it in the space of about a half hour.
I went to Central America, Honduras, specifically, in 1969 as part of a volunteer youth group for a six week tour which was shortened because the Hondurans and the El Salvadorans started a shooting war [Soccer War, before your time, sonny] which required my group to get the hell out of Dodge quicklike. I didn't know who he was at the time, but I might have crossed paths with Ryszard Kapucinski, who was also beating the bushes around there. Dollars to doughnuts you have no idea who he might be.
Though I have not heard from my French friend for some time, I used to tease him because he was insufferably snobbish and affected--though very, very rich. He had his own wine shipped to him while at law school, and thought nothing of getting on a plane to go play "poleau" in Argentina.
He shared his Bordeaux with his lowly 'merican friends, but was always pestering for something in return, usually help with his law classes. He had a very commercial outlook on things. Wine for help--I thought it was a fair exchange. I arrived at my first views on the commercial nature of the French through first-hand experience and, later, through subsequent reading and study.
Plus, I regularly read and subscribe to Foreign Affairs, a publication which you might be surprised is the forgotten raison d'etre of this board. See, I can do the French bit a bit.
I speak Spanish like a native, can recognize any Spanish accent you can conjure, and can get along a bit in French and Portuguese. I can read them both with about 78% understanding. Italian with about 56% accuracy. My estimates.
I regularly represent a couple of Central America's most influential folks.
So, please, please, please, don't ever, ever suggest that I have no "foreign" experience or that my outlook is singularly xenophobic.
If you think I'm sometimes sophomoric, simply remind yourself when you start putting your boots into the stirrups of that high horse you are about to ride that I like to have fun. And that I'm sometimes talking to an audience that really, really has no idea who or what I am, and consequently makes some very stupid perception errors, like yours, that amuse me no end. |
