The perfect place in the world. That’s what you think when you hear America: Big cities, fat people, technology everywhere, the best and coolest high schools, intelligence… that’s all Hollywood movies show. When Europeans as me think about America, what come to our minds are mostly these areas: Florida, Texas, California, Hawaii, Alaska and NYC. For us America is a combination of Disney World, cowboys, Hollywood, good weather and exotic beaches, cold and the best city ever.

It looks like America has the most advanced culture, that it’s a place where liberty is present everywhere. We think that America is a place of not religious people and that Americans are open to all types of ideas. This, for we, who came from the old Europe, is amazing because in Europe religion is not very important, but it’s everywhere. What a surprise when we come here and we discover that, there are dress codes and that people are totally connected to religion, and that the old Europe seems to be more liberal. I’m not saying that any of that is wrong, but is just surprising when you’re expecting the opposite. Although Europe seems to be antique and backward in many actual politics, it looks like we are not so bad when you see some problems that America has, for example, with racism. I love America and actually I think it’s perfect as it is, but sometimes I miss being able to wear whatever I want in school and not being worried if it is too short or if it has sleeves.

Let’s talk about Europe now. I didn’t know what American people would think about Europe so I decided to ask. What a surprise when one of the first answers I got was that Europe is a country. I decided to finish my interview there. What most Americans think when they hear the word Europe is England, and I totally understand why. After all, America used to be a British colony and both share the same language. If you ask people if they can tell you more countries in Europe they would tell you, in most of the cases, but not really correctly, because, dear friends, Germany and France are not the same. I thought it was funny that Europeans think of certain things when we think about America (Hollywood, NYC…) and Americans had their own thoughts about us, and what can I say? I understand totally why. 

Let’s look at Spain. There are 45 million people in the US population who speak Spanish. Spain is not something unknown, but here people think of just Mexico and parties. I remember one of my first weeks here when someone told me that I didn’t speak the real Spanish, yes, apparently there’s a real Spanish if you didn’t know it, because that was Mexican-Spanish. That was funny because I had never heard something like that in my whole life. What about Germany? Well,  I’ll say only one word, Hitler. Italy? Famous for its fashion or cars, it’s just pizza and pasta (I have to say, I think sometimes about Italy that way too). Russia? It’s the vodka and the communists’ place and Turkey? It’s the place where Thanksgiving meal is from. It seems like Greece is where democracy was born and Romania has Dracula’s house.

I think it’s interesting to contrast the vision of two societies about each other and also to realize that we should learn more about what is surrounding us. During this column I’ve been making assumptions about the European and American thought, like I’ve told you that other people do, and that’s not good. I hope you can see in my little piece of thinking here that prejudices are not good and that we should research or visit the places we’re talking about before we give our opinions.  For me, this is important. I’ve experimented by myself what it is being in a foreign country, and I can say that this really has opened my eyes.  There’s a lot more than what we see, and we can apply this idea also to people. Nothing is like it seems, and everybody should take a moment to investigate and take a look at what is inside before judging.  Both America and Europe are similar, and different, and I think that’s what makes them so interesting. I could not be happier to have the opportunity to discover these cultures and their people.