Halloween

Americans who think Europeans hate America should try and live in Europe and experience the way Europeans adopt American traditions and culture.

The US dominates this world, not just economically and militarily, but also socially and culturally. Many Europeans resent this one way traffic of culture and ideas. This resentment is, however, not dissimilar to the way many Americans resent Hollywood's influence or the US mass medias pathetic news and current affairs reporting. Disliking bad American sitcoms and soaps is the same as disliking America or be anti-American.

Being a dual national gives raise to many interesting conversations and I have never met any real hate or dislike of America in Europe, no matter how many Republican presidents the US electorate keeps sending to the White House.

Yesterday, I experienced the way Halloween has taken over in Britain. Neither my wife or I had seen kids go 'trick-or-treating' in England before so we weren't prepared when the first bunch showed up at our doorstep. I, remembering how I felt as kid going door-to-door, hurried to Sainsbury to buy some sweets. I don't really like Halloween or anything to do with witches, ghosts and the underworld, but it felt good to be able to make some kids happy.

The problem is that I know that there's some candy leftover and I can't figure out where my wife has hid it...