We are officially on the race. This has been a truly eye opening experience so far. Talk about the appreciation of everything back home. Surprisingly enough Im thankful for our home economy and social standards when it comes to having manners and social behavior. I thought America was bad. Its definitely not the best but it is far from being the worst. Example Story time. So I decided to get a coffee from a local shop instead of McDonalds because thats not why I’m here. I’m here to experience the world as it is, not as I would have it while bringing home with me. But anyways back to the cafe. There was only one man, for the sake of the story we’re going to call him Jeff, working the shop, and there were about 5 tables, of which 3 had dirty cups and trash on them. I couldn’t believe that. It doesn’t take anytime to take the tray to the counter and put it away for the man. Part 2 of this story begins when I was ordering my drink. As I was doing this a family of 3 (two parents and a 20 something man) came up and started demanding things from the Jeff and I could start to tell he was getting agitated. They even slightly pushed me out of the way to get to the counter. When I got my drink they continued to hassle Jeff. I felt terrible for the man. And as my first ever experience dealing with the language barrier and culture from a different country, I wasn’t quite sure how to react. Was that how all of these people were going to be? No it’s not, but American’s do the same thing. I have never realized that until this morning at the airport in Portugal. The moral of the story is, don’t wait to travel across the world in order to start appreciating how people treat you and to treat people the way you should. Parents, teach your kids the importance of respect for people. Not just their elders but all people, even complete strangers. We need to teach more compassion to everyone. The best way to teach that is to lead by example, whether it be with kids or elders.
