Perspective from the US

I got back about a week ago and am finally over jet lag (you know, suddenly at 6 pm you feel like it's the middle of the night). I am always glad to get back to a (mostly) smoke free environment, one of the things I take for granted until I travel abroad and find everyone smoking everywhere. And particularly if I've been traveling someplace where public bathrooms are truly horrendous, I'm glad to return to that luxury too.

But what always strikes me when I leave North America is 1) how isolated we are; and 2) what a young country we are. The isolation hits me when I'm standing in a European airport and see flights taking off to lots of different countries, not just lots of states. And the youth of our country is evident when I am looking at signs of Roman exploration from 100 BC. Yes, there were people living in the US way before there was European "discovery" of this continent, and there is evidence of sophisticated cultures particularly in our Southwest and Mexico and Central America. But those cultures do not inform our current culture in the same way that the Roman Empire impacts European culture. Our isolation and our newness are not good or bad- they are simply facts of our existence that shape pur experience in ways that are more difficult to discern from inside the US.