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Originally Posted by Nid Noy
Native Cali boy here. I live in San Francisco, a tourist mecca. Yet, still, I wanna get the hell outta here. I didn't dream of Florida or Hawaii at all. My first vacation on my own was to backpack around Europe with a Eurail pass. Had the time of my life. Still have not been to Hawaii or Florida. I am glad I saw New Orleans and NYC, though.
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When you grow up in California, you don't dream of going to CA, and, in fact, Florida sounds pretty tame, 'cause it's not as spectacular as CA, and it's full of mosquitoes! Hawaii sounds better, but before you are old enough to get there, you've already heard how it's overrun by tourists and not what it used to be. So it's passe before you ever get there.
You hear things about Europe, Asia, India, Africa, stories from people you meet who have been there, and it gets your blood going. Possibly you even get a taste of the excitement of another way of life with a trip to Mexico while you are still a kid.
Where I live, all the kids head for Europe when they get out of high school, if they haven't already been there on summer vacations. Most have already been to Hawaii and Mexico before that. Florida? What a joke! Nevada? That's where your ski trips are every winter since you were a baby!
People born in SF or LA, which are international cities, get a completely different view of life. They see foreign cultures of all sorts right in their cities. The idea of people speaking in foreign tongues is not strange at all. You almost have to know a little Spanish, just to get by. And, as you experienced, with the Japanese kids, all kids here grow up with other kids who come from other countries, and usually can speak another language. No exceptions to that. Every school has some immigrant kids in it.
And if your parents do have money, then you are for sure going to travel. That's just the way it is here. Much more like Europe, although in Europe it would be hard to avoid it, because foreign countries are all around you, which they are not in the US.
But this just points out that people speak of an average American. I don't think there is such a thing, any more than there is an average European. Maybe less so. There may be an average Alabaman, an average Kansan, or average Dakotan. But an average American? I don't think so. America is really 50 states, which are like 50 countries united as one union. Many states are bigger than European countries, and there are probably more than 2500 counties in them, many as big as European countries. Is there even an average New Yorker or Californian? I think not.
A state like California is bigger than most European countries, more populous than many, and far more diverse than any European country, IMHO.
Average American? As mythical a being as a Unicorn!!
JayBee
