Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Listening to NPR this morning. Some guy talking about coal, why it was used, and why it now is not, said that "we realize that God doesn't send electricity down from the heavens in a golden bowl."
I beg your pardon! God does send electricity down in a golden bowl. I'm amused that he used the term "golden bowl" - it so well describes the sun. Someday we will learn how to use it.
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Sometimes I'm not American, and that suits me just fine.
In Mexico and France, almost everyone thought I was Canadian. I didn't correct them.
In England, for some reason many people decided I was Welsh. I sort of liked that, because my mother's people came from Wales.
In Wales, and this is weird, most people thought I was visiting from England. Sometimes it was funny. I overheard a discussion between the hosts, husband and wife, at a B&B. The conversation went something like this:
She said to him, "The American woman will be checking out today, so make up her bill."
He: "What American woman?"
She: "The little one. With the daughter, the little girl."
He: "She's not American."
She: "Yes, she is. Where do you think she's from?"
He: "She's English, isn't she? Or maybe Canadian?"
She: "No. I saw her passport. She's American."
He: "Are you sure?"
She: "Pretty sure. What makes you think she's not?"
He: "She's too nice to be American."
I'm quiet. I speak softly. I clean up after myself. I accept. I say please and thank you. I smile. I don't complain about things that are different from what I'm used to. I don't take up much space or air. I guess that makes me not American.
Many of the places we stayed had other American guests at the same time, and frankly, they embarrassed me. Loud. Rude. Banging and thumping. Making messes. Complaining about the food, and the lack of mixing faucets, and the roundabouts, the dampness, and everything else. Bragging about how much better "we" do everything.
I didn't mind disassociating myself from them.
It's worse these days. It used to be my fellow tourists who embarrass me. Now it's my government, too.
I almost don't want to leave the country.
My passport is a liability.
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Blogger bug!
Ever since Blogger started periotic autosaves, it's been adding blank lines between paragraphs. Very annoying. I look at the HTML to see what Blogger has added, and nothing shows up. Anyone have any idea what's happening? Someone else has to have noticed it. Why hasn't it been fixed yet?
Ok, so much for not complaining....
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4 comments:
After we'd been in England a week and a half some American tourist asked me where in England I was from. Evidently I'd adopted the accent.
I fell all over myself to be polite. I found if you start every question with "I am SO sorry..." they like that.
When I was in England, I got mistaken for a native a couple of times. Usually, people thought I was Welsh. And I've got the map of Ireland written on me face so when I was there, no one thought I was a tourist.
But, fess up now, ladies, did you PREFER not being American? Or were you flattered, and then corrected them? Did you declare your nationality proudly, or did you go undercover?
We (two women and a child) were on a houseboat on the British canals in the mid-80s, when the US shot down the Mid-eastern commercial airliner, killing everyone on board (remember that?). We had been flying the stars & stripes on the boat, and immediately removed it. Incognito for survival that time!
I had an American flag sewn on my backpack (in the early 70s), so no, I wasn't trying to hide it. I heard a lot of lectures about how awful Americans were and thought, yeah, well, we pulled your nuts out of the fire in WWII, didn't we? But didn't say it.
What I liked was not standing out. I liked fitting in.
Alas, no one in Paris mistook me for a Parisienne.
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