U S A ... U S A ... U S A...

Land of the free ..... and the home of the brave.

America. What is your image when you hear people say that word?

I think, baseball, Disneyland, apple pie, cowboys, Davy Crockett and television shows like the one below:

I'm sorry Americans who read this, us foreigners especially from English speaking countries get these programs on our televisions, so what do you think we should think?

In this blog post, I talked about how I consider some countries to be slightly introverted or extroverted. Japan, I said with it's abundance of vending machines I would consider an introverted country while the United States of America is without doubt an extroverted country.

I'm sorry, introverted Americans, just watching some of your TV shows suggests that to me. People go crazy yahooing and wooooooing for someone like me, it can sometimes be over the top.

I remember when I was a young boy. I was in the lounge watching television and my mother walked in just as the American audience started going off and I remember vividly what she said.

"Turn that off. I can't stand that American garbage." (She actually said crap but I want to keep the tone of this blog a little classy.)

It has only been recently that I understood why she said something like that.

My mother likes her own company or the friendship of a few people. She is not so interested in the big crowds so the idea of 500 people yelling at the top of their voices is not something that she would be particularly enamoured of.

This morning I watched the announcement of the the 17.3 workout for the qualifiers for the Crossfit Games. In these programs we get another idea of the extroversion of the United States of America. 200 or 300 hundred people going crazy as the watch a few guys working out. Each of them feeding off the energy created by those people.

It begs the question, are all Americans like that?

Of course not. But what we see on television and movies there must be some truth to it.

From what I can see, of course there is room for quieter people like myself in America but I believe that if you want to get anywhere you may have to come out of your shell on occasions.

Maybe I am going to have to go there to find out for myself.