Friday, May 29, 2015

It Hasn't Even Been A Week Yet

Truth is on Sunday after such a long day of traveling I was ready to be home, well I thought I was. I haven't even been here for a whole week yet and I already want to go back to London. Can we do it again?! Just another two weeks? Please?

I love the United Kingdom. I love the accent. I love the diversity. I love the food. I love having to say "the loo". I love the fashion. I love the shopping. I love the tube!!  I love the accent. (did I say that already?) I want an accent.

Again though I had some extremely special opportunities that I won't have again, some won't ever have, which might factor into my maybe bias opinion about this country.
The way I think about it is how music or fashion become popular in bigger cities in bigger states first places like California and Texas, and that trend usually spreads to the middle states places like Wyoming and Nebraska. So bigger picture The United Kingdom is way ahead of The United States.

With that said, let me explain what I mean.

Start out with little things like not using paper towels in every public restroom, saving tons of trees and instead providing hand-blow dryers. Really think about the huge impact it could have on companies saving money not having to constantly order paper towels, one more thing to clean once a day, yea maybe, but once less thing to restock twice a day.    

Almost every school being in uniform. One of my most favorite things about London. This prevents so many things but most importantly separation from the poor and the rich, doesn’t allow for “class” discrimination. Everyone receives equal opportunity to be judge based on their intelligence, potential and personality instead of clothes, shoes and accessories. An idea that will hopefully stick with the students throughout life.   

On a bigger scale the daily pollution fee of 11 pound 60 pence the city of London charges to drive a vehicle in the City of London. I didn’t see a whole lot of beat up old cars on the street which leads me to believe majority of those driving cars have to be pretty wealthy. There are so many means of public transportation, it would be silly to not take advantage, with the population in my opinion it’s more convenient. But the idea is to slow down pollution. In my opinion it’s brilliant.

How the communities in London provide for their homeless. They have houses, food and are treated with respect. In the US we are sort of disgusted with our homeless and we blame them. The United States government provides assistance to the families that need it, however instead of being embraced most make fun of or look down upon those on government assistance. I learned while visiting the rich live next to the poor. That type of environment provides inspiration, in my opinion and that’s not how it is here.

The death penalty was abolished in The United Kingdom over 15 years ago, Nebraska just this week abolished the death penalty. Gay marriage has been legal for over 5 years, in my opinion that only leads to acceptance for all types of diversity. Seems to me we are just figuring out things they seem to already know.

I have noticed the United Kingdom tries to focus on preventing something instead of dealing with something when it happens, I don’t think in the United States we try as hard to prevent, we usually do a good job dealing though.

So maybe instead of “being ahead” like I said before, it’s more the level of social responsibility each country focuses on and achieves. Comparing the two, the lack of social responsibility the Unities States truly practices surprises me.

This trip completely changed my opinion about the United Stated compared to other countries, just in two weeks opened my eyes. 

1 comment:

  1. I WANNA GO BACK TOO!! Do you think we could sneak on a plane? I love how you mentioned them not using paper towels in London. I was in a restroom the other day and was almost shocked that there were no hand dryers. Not only do they dry your hands, but they also warm them up from the damp London weather!

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