Blaz on the USA

Posted on October 25, 2002 in Encounters

Blaz is back in Slovenia having left California on Tuesday. He sent me an email today which he has given me permission to excerpt. American readers should note the comparisons he makes between the United States today and the communism he used to live under:

I’m still trying to cope with my terrible jet lag. This night I woke up at
4 AM and could not get back to sleep, so I did all the useful things: made
my laundry, read all my backlog of e-mail, etc. While sorting through the
pile of credit card receipts I collected during my US visit I found your business
card and decided to visit your web page.

Hey, am I famous now? 🙂 I have my own page complete with a story on
your web. I have to say that the black and white photo of me taken on the beach is actually one of the better shots of me. It is possible that the reason
is, that it is black and white….

I noticed one amazing thing during this visit that I didn’t notice
previously. It’s probably because I was traveling alone, also I had very little
contact with home and I didn’t have an internet connection.

So my main information source was the TV I watched every now and then in
my hotel room. I’ve tried CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and Fox and all of them only had news on the sniper shooting and that was mostly it. I haven’t heard anything about things going on outside the US, except when Bush was talking about “weapons of mass destruction” and that was it. It almost seemed like the USSR in the old days – you only see what you’re supposed to see.

If you don’t read any newspapers (I haven’t) and don’t have internet
access (I didn’t have) you don’t know anything about what is going on in the world. And I think this covers most of the lower income population. I think I now better understand why most Americans think the way they think.

Another thing that I more fully realized on this visit is, that it is very
hard to find decent food in the US. If you don’t like junk food (I do, but
only in *extremely* low volumes, like maybe once per month) then you’re mostly doomed. Either you do it yourself (if you have a way) or you go to a
restaurant, which is also often either hard to find or quite expensive.
For example, about 4 blocks in all directions from my hotel in LA (near 3rd
street and Vermont) there is not a single “normal” restaurant except for junk
food places. I have to admit that lunch and dinner with you was one of the
better meals I had during my stay (thanks again!).

All in all I have to conclude: it was a fun stay, but I’m happy to be
home again 🙂