Americans in London

Some of the people I worked with used to say they hated Americans and from what I saw of many Americans in London, I understood why. For many people in the world, there is a love/hate relationship for Americans. They love much of what America has to offer but many Americans think of the USA as the center of reality and the rest of the world as their playground. And either consciously or subconsciously, they think they’re cool and everyone else thinks (or should think) they’re cool. As I had an American accent and was perceived as American, I actually felt the aura of this kind of attitude myself. 

Most of the Americans who are travelling are the ones who have more money so they are generally a certain class of people. But what people with “the rest of the world as a playground” kind of attitude do not see is that people in other countries are individuals with their own personal trials and struggles. Many are just trying to get by and make a living.

The largest majority of Americans in London are also from the northeast. In general, Americans from the northeast tend to be very brusque and in its negative permutation, obnoxious. These are the kind of Americans that my work mates were talking about and this was their perception.

While I could see their point of view, I knew from my experience that, on balance, Americans are some of the most wonderful people in the world. I told them not to judge Americans by the ones they encountered in London. If they had a chance, they should go to the US to see what Americans are really like.

Speaking of Americans, Baskin-Robbins is an American company so the Americans in London knew it well, even to the point of being a little piece of home to them. It was funny how many of them, when they saw us would exclaim, 

“Oh, Baskin-Robbins!”

It was also uncanny how many of the young, female Americans would come in and say exactly the same thing, 

“I know what I want. I know what I want. Jamoca Almond Fudge on a waffle cone dipped”.

London had a lot of second-hand music stores where I would peruse their inventory and started buying tapes again. It was all stuff I had heard before. But if I liked something, I felt like I had to buy everything the artists had ever done. One of them was Simple Minds. They had had a popular song called “Don’t You Forget About Me” from the movie The Breakfast Club. I started to buy up all their stuff which was a lot. And it was all very different. They kind of paralleled U2, starting with a punkish sound and moving into stadium rock.

Wembley stadium in north London was once the best-known football stadium in the world. Many music acts have also performed there over the years. One day, I heard the group Wham! was going to have their final concert there. I had seen Wham!’s video “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” when I watched MTV at the Ala Moana mall in Hawaii. The music video was rather fruity but I did really like George Michael as a solo artist. It sounded like a fun event so I decided to go try get a ticket. I bought one from someone who was selling them outside the stadium and participated with the other 72,000 people in attendance at that little piece of history. 

People came to visit - my parents and sister and aunt and uncle and cousin. London is such a focal point that they all passed through here and there. Jackie Nutter and other friends from the ship visited too.

Visitors in London - My dad and Jackie Nutter


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