My American vacation Date Thursday, April 25, 2024 - 09:47 AM PST Topic Experiences Beloved fellow Shmenglings… As some of you recall, El Squiddo came to visit Norway about a year ago, we had much fun, and he certainly piqued my curiosity of America. Norway, like most of the so called civilized world, is rapidly becoming a weird blueprint of (supposedly) American culture, or imperialism, as many of my friends would choose to call it. So, with Burning Man as main incentive, and a possible date with a certain gentleman in New York whom I’d just met in Norway, I did the last thing I’d expect of myself – I went on holiday to the US of A. The plan was to meet up with Squid in San Francisco and stay a couple of days there with a friend of mine whom I’d also met while on vacation in Norway, then off to Nevada for The Burning Man Festival, and then hit the clubs in New York. On the plane from Amsterdam to San Francisco I had the first meeting of the infamous American Imperialism: Just as I was all excited about seeing Finding Nemo, the sound to my headset got stuck on the bleedin’ COUNTRY CHANNEL. Well, that left me with plenty of time to ponder the huge country I was about to experience. I realized, even with all the Americans I’ve met through the years, mostly in real life (actually!) that most of my expectations were still from movies and sitcoms. Kind of scary, don’t you think! Of course, you have to be pretty daft to avoid knowing the general political past and present, but that does not represent the nation of people, after all. So I was thinking about lawsuits, freedom fries, weird healthcare, Al Bundy and Fran Fine, not to mention a great deal of curiosity towards all the different flavored cereals I was supposed to encounter. (Most of them I later discovered could be called ‘Crispy Concentrated Sugar’.) I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if there was a certain arrogance involved in all these musings too, coming from ‘the old world’ and all… I got a marvelous reception at the airport by Squid and Andy, and true to form, they took me straight to shop for produce at an organic food store in Berkeley… Hehe, those darn hippies… Jetlag and all, well, my first US meal consisted of the first tofu I’ve ever had that actually tasted GOOD. Andy’s roommate, Roy, was a bit of a surprise… Even though I do know – not the least from frequenting these very webpages! – that many Americans are indeed both literate and humoristic, I had not expected the first American I got to know in America to know more about European – even Scandinavian - history than myself and most of my friends. It is indeed a good feeling to see some prejudices crumble! Squid and I made it to The Burning Man, with a lot of help from Shmeng, as I understand. (Thank you to all who helped about that darn ride!) The BM experience was certainly something to remember, and like most say, impossible to describe. So I won’t even try to go there. When returning to what I now know is called ‘the Bay Area’ it occurred to me that it might be a better idea to stay there, especially since I’d met a whole lot of extraordinary people, not to mention one who was especially intriguing. So to cut an otherwise looong and tiresome story short – after five weeks I went back to Norway, packed up my belongings, played a last (for now anyway!) concert with my band, tied up a whole lot of loose strings and got back on that plane. On April 16th this year I posted the following comment to a Shmeng article: "I though I’d bring up the three aspects the ancient Greeks had for love: Eros: The sexual love (duh…) – more like a ’force of nature’. Associated with the god by the same name, or by the Romans as Cupid. Passion and lust sorts under this term. Philio: Familiar, or brotherly, love. The ’noble’ love. Agape: The Divine Love, often called unconditional. The term used originally in the Bible to describe Jesus’ bid for his followers to love one another. Radical Xians claims this kind of love is impossible to obtain for unbelievers, as it derives from God. I suppose I truly hope to feel these three things for one and same person and have them returned, at some point." Yep, that’s exactly what I found. The roommate… We’re getting married in March. Long live the New World, and thanks to Shmeng! This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=613