So I just had the best talk ever. Overstatement Dreamscribe.
I'm not from Norway, nor am I the slightest bit Norwegian. Let's get that out of the way first. Secondly, some background on me. I'm a college student who lives about an hour west of Chicago and goes to college in the city. Specifically, I attend Columbia College Chicago, the biggest liberal arts college in the world. I italicize "liberal" because I'm proud to be a liberal. Part of that liberal ideology is an attempt to empathize with those around me, especially those who may not share my opinion.
That's why I decided to ask a friend of mine on the floor who happens to hail from Norway (population: Wasilla x 1000) what she thinks of America. My first question was the obvious one but I had to ask it.
"What do you hate about America?"
"Your government."
I saw that one coming. So I asked if it was just Bush or did she just not like the way we do things in the States. It was the latter. So rather than get into a debate about the philosophy of government I moved on and asked the question I really wanted to know, especially considering everyone always focuses so much on the whole "we hate America" thing:
"What do you like about America?"
Without a moment's hesitation she said quite plainly: "The people". She then went on to say that we, the people, are probably the nicest people she's met and that in a lot of ways she feels for us when our country deceives us.
I left that talk feeling good, feeling inspired. I left that talk feeling hope shining in my heart that if we get the right guy to talk to the world, we really have a hope of repairing that divide.