COOLER TO BE CANADIAN
While I agree that grilling citizens abroad for the policies of their government at home is at the very least obnoxious behaviour, I cannot help but be a little bit gratified at the humble pie apparently being served up to traveling Americans as detailed in this article from USA Today, chipping away at the previously untarnished mantle of proud ethnocentricity that has rubbed Europeans and European wannabes the wrong way for decades. My favourite quotation from a stung Yank is this one, which demonstrates beautifully how confused about differing perceptions of various nationalities the average American is: "One girl turns and says, 'We were hoping you were Canadian.' Canadian? Since when was it cooler to be Canadian?" As any remotely cosmopolitan traveller knows, being Canadian has been cooler than being American as far as Europeans are concerned for quite some time. Sneaky American tourists have been known to try to pass themselves off as loud, linguistically-impaired Canadians in order to get a warmer reception in Europe. The Washington Times weighs in here. Again, I do not support persecuting people on the basis of their nationality, but I do support Americans having a bit of a reality check. It's time.
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