Rant n Rave

I work in hospitality and therefore have interaction with hundreds of people daily all who have different experiences, opinions, educations, concerns, etc. Most of the people have opinions of the U.S. that they really like to share upon first meeting me. Most of the questions I receive include: "Did you vote for your President?" "How do you live knowing that your neighbor might have a gun?" "Did you hear about the lawsuit in America..." etc, etc. I used to just respond with the truth but now I've learned to respond by saying "Did you vote for your Prime Minister?" or "well I read in your newspaper that some silly Australian...." because that seems to be the only way to get them to recognize that their country has faults also.

One funny story I heard was told by my Aussie friend who travelled to the U.S. to be a camp counselor. She was standing in line with a couple of British friends talking when a hill-country guy from North Carolina tapped the Aussie on the shoulder and said in a country accent "Scuse me, but can I ask where y'all are from?" and she responds "Well I'm from Australia and these two are from England." The American says "Well welcome to America, how long have you been here?" and the Brit replies "about 3 weeks." The man then proceeds to say "Well that's great, I can't believe it's been only 3 weeks... your English is reeel gooood." hahaha! My friend (the Aussie) says "Sir, you know that's THEIR language right, they speak English in England?"

Well I thought that was pretty dumb but lately I have had my share of dumb questions from Aussies... when they find out I live in Texas they have responded with things like "Wow, is this culture shock working on the water like this?" or "What's it feel like to live in a city with so much going on?" My response is usually something like "Well considering I used to work on a huge lake and I grew up by the beach, this isn't culture shock at all... in fact, Texas has about 20 lakes, lots of big cities, and a beach that extends from the southernmost point to about midway up the state." You should see their faces ... I know they just think we ride horses around through the desert and run through hay fields for fun!

Grr... I'm just slightly frustrated about these questions that I about 3x per day. One man told me I should be paid by the US Embassy to promote Texas as a vacation spot ;) I just feel like it's my job to change stereotypes... it's a tiring job when everyone has one.