Houston

about 26 hours after returning from india, i had to go to the U.S. for work. it was my first trip stateside, and although i knew it was going to be a long week, i was looking forward to visiting a new place. as it turned out, i got to see the factory, the hotel and i managhed to get to the 'mall' before i left. i didnt see one single bit of Houston the whole week i was there. the jetlag was unreal, from india to norway, then further east to the US was not fun. let me tell you, the tv at 4am is not of the highest quality. i took a couple of crappy phone photos just to say 'i was there'.

a few things of interest though from talking to my american colleagues:

1. the topic of guns came up, now in the uk, we dont have hand guns...well, 99% of us dont. people there have 2 or 3, they love their guns. i asked the question 'wouldnt you prefer to ban ALL guns totally'? (this was the same week as a teenager in the U.S. had run amok in a mall with a machine gun killing 8 people). and i tell you, the response i got back was frightening, i was told in no uncertain terms that banning all guns would be the same as " a hitler style regime"!! i didnt understand this myself, but i could see how emotive people were getting on the subject so i dropped it.

the next point sternly made, was that 'we need guns to defend ourselves'...hmmmm...you need guns to protect yourself from people with guns.....the irony was totally lost on them. i didnt mention it again, it got quite hairy. these were lovely lovely people, and i guess its just a part of culture i dont understand so i cant pass judgement.

the other point that made me wish i was around non americans just to see if anyone else thought this funny, was that 'the reason the world hates americans is because of the tree hugging environmentalists in california'....hhhmmm, now, for me, the reason the some people appear to dislike america/texas so much at the moment is george bush and his aggressive foreign policy, so i was astonished by this comment. BUT we were in george bush country. it does make you aware of how biased people can be. again though, it was an emotive topic so i said nothing. but peoples perceptions of themselves can be so far off other peoples perceptions. the question of who is right and who is wrong has no answer, but its interesting to hear both sides

oh, and at the airport, there was an iPod vending machine. this made me chuckle, capitalsim gone mad. i also bought from the gift shop at George Bush airport a t-shirt that said 'Dont mess with Texas'. again, the irony is sadly missed