In my travels I have come across pubs in London that have been around since 1666, churches in Paris built in 1207 and have seen pyramids in Egypt built in 500 BC. It makes you realize how young America is. It also makes you realize how rich in culture America is because it is truly a mix of nationalities from all over the world.

I think every American should Google their last name and find out a little bit about why their ancestors immigrated to the US. Even if its just to understand the origins of the name and historically understand what was going on in the world at that time. Then go out to those places and see where your family comes from. It will make you respect your great great grandparents more and will make you prouder to be an American. Visiting Berlin and Krakow truly made me saw the struggles my parents faced growing up in post WWII Poland and then it made me understand why they fled communism. Plus, you will add to the very low number of Americans out there traveling.

Another issue I wanted to bring up.  American backpackers!! Where are you? I have been traveling for a while and the number of Canadians, Australians and British people I meet far outnumber the Americans I meet. And in Australia? I can’t tell you how many Americans I did run into who have told me, you are the only American I have met traveling. Americans do travel yes, but just not to the same degree as other countries. WHY? We have much more people that Canada, the UK, or Australia.

Is it really because we are such a big country that when we want to travel we can just go to Florida or Colorado? That we really do not need to leave the country to vacation? Is it money? Perhaps, but there are people who can afford Hummers so there are people who can afford to travel. Non-American backpackers claim its America’s size that keeps Americans in its borders. I do not agree with this. I think it is time. Few Americans have the time to travel. And I think it is a shame. What is eating up all of Americans time? Is it work? School? To do lists? I don’t know, I could attempt to blame it on corporate America, but I know that wouldn’t be fair, or entirely true. This is a topic I have thought about a lot and will return later too.  It needs much more contemplation.

Only 20 percent of Americans even have a passport.  A shame.  Truly a shame.

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After reading Beata’s email, I decided to include my response here.

So why don’t more Americans take time to travel?  I’ve seen it time and time again on my trips to Europe.  There are tons of Europeans and Australians and even a fair amount of Brazilians and Chinese.  I’ve seen about the same number of Canadians as Americans, yet Canada is about 10% the size population wise as America.

I don’t think it is size.  I think there are many factors.  First, work and vacation time.  Americans get the least amount of paid and unpaid vacation of any developed country.  Most companies start new employees with 2-3 days of vacation for the first year, whereas Europeans get at least a month.  Americans are putting in ever longer hours to keep up with the Jones’.  This leads into my next point.

Materialism.  There is a huge percentage of Americans who would rather have things than experiences.  They would rather spend their money on a big screen tv, a new Hummer or a house with an extra bathroom.  It seems to me that many people in the rest of the world would rather spend their discretionary income on experiences, rather than things.  Many Americans think in terms of things, rather than experiences.

Third, the bastardization of American exceptionalism.  I think that there is a decent sized chunk of the US population that thinks “America is the best, why should I go anywhere else.”  Whereas previous generations thought that America was great but still respected and wanted to experience the rest of the world, it seems that currently some think the rest of the world isn’t worthy of our time and energy.  This change is sad.  It’s the same phenomenon as when people made fun of John Kerry for speaking French when he ran for President.

                          

AT&T has been in a battle with Verizon for mobile phone dominance for the past few years.  Verizon still has more subscribers and a bigger network, although AT&T has closed the gap and even taken the lead in some areas.  AT&T’s launch of the iPhone has been a huge boost for AT&T, but lately Verizon has been hitting back.  They launched a commercial that shows two maps of the US, one showing Verizon’s 3G coverage and the other showing AT&T’s 3G coverage.

ATT&T wrote an open letter trying to explain the situation, but they also created their own commercial to show that they too offer service in most of America.  It sounds like a good idea, but for me, the commercial fails.  It opens with Luke Wilson standing on a map of America saying that he got postcards from people all over the US who are able to use AT&T’s network.  Wilson reads off tons of cities and tosses the postcards where the cities are on the map.  Pretty soon, the entire map is covered in postcards.  It might be a cool idea, but they picked Luke Wilson.  As the viewer, I immediately think, “why couldn’t you get Owen Wilson?”  Is AT&T really the second most famous Wilson brother and Verizon is Owen, the big movie star?  It’s almost too perfect since AT&T is playing second fiddle to Verizon and had enough of an inferiority complex to respond to Verizon’s national 3G coverage map with an open letter to consumers.  At least they didn’t pick Andrew Wilson to be their spokespan.  Then people would think they were US Cellular.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjwBHqa6lZI

Sears has always had fairly tame advertisements around the holidays an this year isn’t any different.  Their ads are actually fairly good until the end, when they show their 2009 Christmas slogan.  Their slogan is “More Values, More Christmas.”  It hardly seems right to equate buying more things with more Christmas.  Wal-Mart does the same thing with their slogan “Christmas Costs Less at Wal-Mart.”  It seems wrong to me to equate being able to buy more things with “more Christmas.”  I’m not even going at this from religious perspective, simply a materialistic one.  Both stores are equating buying more things with being happier.  It’s a good message for the stores’ bottom line, but not for everyone else.

Finally, the last of the bad.  Kopps Custard, a local institution in the Milwaukee area used to have a billboard on I43 that showed the flavor of the day.  It let you know if you should take a right turn when you got off the highway or continue to your destination.  If it was a good flavor, you got off and got custard.  If it was bad, you continued on.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve stopped because the billboard showed Tiramisu, Chocolate Peanut Butter Chocolate or Grasshopper Fudge.  It was a great ad because it motivated people to change behavior and buy.  You can now follow Kopps on Twitter, but it’s just not the same.

Now, onto the good.  This year, Best Buy sent out their Black Friday circular in newspapers around the country, just like they did in other years.  The only difference was that in heavily Muslim areas, they included a bubble at the top that said “Happy Eid Al Ahda.” Eid Al Ahda is a holiday celebrated by Muslims that runs from Friday until Sunday.  Predictably, Best Buy’s decision has drawn criticism from some right wing Christians, including some who want to boycott the store.  I think this is yet another manufactured issue and commend Best Buy for using some innovative marketing to try to tap into an underrepresented market.  As an aside, I also laugh at companies that refuse to mention Christmas in their holiday ads.

Happy Thanksgiving and if you are shopping today, good luck finding those deals.  Remember, door busters don’t mean that you should literally bust the door down.