I am proud to be an American (or at least I'm not ashamed)

There's a lot of talk out there about how now is a bad time to travel as an American, because of our government and our reputation as ignorant people. People are so quick to slap on a Canadian flag patch on their bag, before boarding the plane.
That couldn't be more wrong. One should try to hide what they are, really it's only the geographical location one happens to be born in. Nor should an American think that it is a bad time to travel abroad. In fact, it is just the opposite. The fact is, the bar has been set so low, a baby could crawl over it. Yeah, maybe when you first let someone know that you are an American they will assume the worst (most don't). However, it doesn't take much to impress them and change their view of you, and then maybe even their view towards Americans as a whole. In reality, people do base stereotypes of a society on very few encounters or more pathetically-on hearsay.
I have found language to be a very simple way of impressing and also just learning a little about the world around you and not only from an American perspective. But about language, as an American one doesn't have to know much of another language, they just have to try. But nobody is impressed if a German, or anyone else for that matter, is speaking English. Of course they can. It's English.
Really when it comes down to it, don't act like the "ugly american" people expect you to be and nobody will give you trouble. I promise it's not that hard. So I just thought I would share that.

While I'm venting, and sort of on the topic of languages. One thing that bugs me in German is when I hear English words that have a different meaning in German. I'm sure more example will come to me later, but one I can give is "handy", which is a cell phone. Then one can't imagine it would be a different word in English. Understandably, but what dumbass thought of the word in the first place. But then I realized that we have plenty of words like that in English. Like "salsa", it means sauce in Spanish or "gelato" in Italian, it took me a while to realize that it simply means "ice cream", nothing specific. We specify general terms. These things could bug Spanish or Italians. But only the fussy ones like me of course.

I promise I will write about my life soon. It's just that Rebecca and I were talking about these things the other day, so I was thinking about it and I though I'd write about it.