International Conversations

What I love most about traveling abroad is the people you come across, and the stories they share with you.  Travel doesn't just bring you in contact with the locals, but also with the internationals that are visiting the country as well.  Tonight I spent the evening with a bunch of Germans, a woman from Poland, and an Iranian.  What a mix, huh?  I met my German friends at the graduate session on Australian culture, and one of them called me later to arrange a hang out at a place on Brunswick street called the "Comfortable Chair".  This was a perfect place for hanging out and talking without having to scream at each other in order to be heard like you sometimes have to do at a bar.  The group sat down in some cushy couches on either side of a big coffee table and just exchanged conversations the whole evening over a few drinks.  Of all the different conversations that night, the ones I had with the Polish woman and the Iranian man were the highlights.  We ended up discussing American politics and I commented that I was a bit surprised at how much they knew about the election.  She said to me, "Well, you all are the angel of the world, okay?"  She was insisting I stop acting so modest, but it did legitimately strike me as odd that they should know so much of my politics and I know so little of theirs.  Then I began to speak with the Iranian man who told me of his strong desire to go to Colombia University, and how he was accepted but his country wouldn't give him the simple papers he needed to get in.  So instead, he came to Australia and is doing his Ph.D. here.  He expressed frustration with his government and commented on how the people of a country get very badly represented by the governments in certain cases.  The whole time I kept thinking the same thing about my government is true.

I just find it refreshing to meet these people, discuss politics, life, anything, and come away thinking we aren't so different from one another.