We arrived home last night to a clean house and dinner. Have I mentioned we have wonderful children who did this for us? And while I was dreading a drastic temperature change from the 30’s of Europe to the 100’s of Phoenix, we woke up to tourist-friendly 70’s; the afternoon is reaching the mid 80’s. It’s still hotter than I prefer, and sweaters are already washed and ready to pack away. But heck nowhere is perfect.
But don’t underestimate the impact of our media and products to spread worldwide. What is surprising is how much American music, in English, plays on the radio and in stores. Polish taxi drivers had Polish language radio – but not stores. In fact walking down one street at night there were a group of students strumming a guitar – can’t remember the song – but it was American. And while Europe uses metric, instead of non-metric, Centigrade instead of Fahrenheit, and calendars start on Monday instead of Sunday, for the most part many things are the same. There’s a pharmacy on nearly every block (think apothecary and you’ll recognize both the Polish and German version.) Dan Brown’s Inferno went on sale this week in Polish, and you’ll recognize other titles as well. And some American brands – well they’re just everywhere. 
