It seems appropriate, as we leave the city of London, to discuss the whole \u201cUgly American\u201d thing. We never felt much impact for being Americans in the UK. Nobody seemed to be particularly pro- or anti-us (or -US). <\/p>\n
It didn’t even often come up, at least not in anything addressed toward us. We did have a lady in the grocers at Chepstow, Wales, ask if we were Canadian (figuring, probably rightly, that an American would not take offense at being mistaken for a Canadian, while the reverse would not be true). And once, standing in front of a shop window near Leicester Square, while we were chatting away at the art there, a woman pressing by us commented, “Please don’t bomb Iraq.” (It\u2019s not my department, lady, nor, I fear, were it, would your comment deter me. But I digress.)<\/p>\n
There was a permanent demonstration camp on the square opposite Parliament speaking to the subject of Iraq (guess which side they took). And, of course, we managed to be in Wales (fortunately) the weekend of the Massive Demonstrations in London and Elsewhere on the Iraq subject. <\/p>\n
By and large, the discussion about Iraq in the UK seemed more along the lines of how long the Blair government can maintain its position, backing Washington, in the face of apparent widespread disagreement with the policy (vocal disagreement, perhaps; it’s not clear to me that most British hesitance over the subject isn’t along the lines of “They haven’t done anything to use yet,” which is understandable, if tragically shortsighted).<\/p>\n
Aside from that, I think we managed to not be bad tourists. We were loud, of course. Doyce and I alone can project as though we were on stage, and when everyone got caught up in the revelry, it was probably disturbing to others if indoors. Heck, a couple of times at castles and such out-of-doors, when I wandered a bit from the group, I was a tad dismayed by how far our boisterous voices carried.<\/p>\n
But we also tried to be polite whenever dealing with the locals, and self-deprecatingly admitted where we didn\u2019t understand the customs or expectations. I think we did okay, if loudly so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It seems appropriate, as we leave the city of London, to discuss the whole \u201cUgly American\u201d thing. We never felt much impact for being Americans in the UK. 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