America vs The World

Eighteen and female, traveling alone in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. American? Not a chance. But for Europeans, it´s not uncommon. With the so called 'Gap Year', a break between high school and college, you´re almost expected to travel somewhere and teach yourself personal responsibility. Thats one of the big differences I´ve noticed between people I´ve met. Not only do Europeans travel here more (with a stronger currency and perhaps a less violent perception of the continent), they travel here much younger.

I can hardly imagine being alone in a foreign land and still being a teenager. Yet I´ve met people traveling much longer and farther than myself-- up to a year at a time, covering the whole world-- who couldn´t legally drink here in the US.

But although this trip has highlighted a lot of the ways we´re different, it´s also highlighted some ways we´re similiar. We´ve all seen shows on TV demonstrating America´s geographic ignorance; a talk show host asking a person off the street to locate Japan on a map, and then the audience laughing (maybe nervously) when they can´t. For the longest time I assumed this was an American problem. But no-- it´s a world problem. I´ve asked Australians, Israelis and Germans how many states are in the US, and not gotten a single right answer. One person tried to argue that there were 50 states, until Alaska and Hawaii. Not that I know how many German provinces there are (14 or 15, the German in my group wasn´t sure of that either)-- but it surprised me because the world knows our language, it knows our television shows and our pop music-- but it doesn´t know us.

Maybe the world isn´t a small place after all.