Accents and tee shirts

1. Like many Americans, I use to hold a stereotype, irrational as most stereotypes are, that people with a British accent are just a little bit smarter than everyone else. This trip has given me ample opportunity to reevaluate that assumption. After 2 months of travel I can say with conviction that I am no longer burdened by that stereotype. This trip has also given me the opportunity to examine my stereotype that Norwegians are lovely warm people (we just spent a day on a boat with 6 more Norwegians + our time traveling in Norway). I am happy to report that stereotype is still firmly intact.

2. The streets of Italy are full of people wearing clothes with English words. Mostly it is just Polo or Abercrombie or some fake rowing club shirt with an American town name. Occasionally though, the English hits at a different level. Some of it reads like the Jinglish we saw throughout Japan (we had to stop taking pictures of all the funny tee shirts in Tokyo or we were never going to get anywhere) and Prague. Our absolute favorite was a teenage girl in Prague wearing a shirt proclaiming: “all our pretty face go to hell.” Out walking today we saw a woman carrying a bag that said, “I want you to love me.” I thought that was very honest of her. On Saturday I asked Andrew to remember the nonsensical words on a woman’s shirt in the old town in Genoa. Alas, he was too sleepy, and it made no sense, so it did not stick in his brain, we think it was something close to “Spring now music movies”. Of course I had to snap the photo at the top of this post. I also think we should “save the mind”, although I am not totally sure what that entails. All of this is really just an excuse to write about the man I saw on the ferry from Sardinia to Genoa. I should say, he looked like a nice guy. He was hanging with his buddies and being polite enough. If it wasn’t for the shirt nothing about him would yell douche. On his shirt were two arrows. One pointed up to his head and was labeled “the man.” The other pointed down to his penis and said, “the legend.”