Fun Fact

For the 49% of whiz kids at home who have a problem with our current President, I'd like to inform you of the rest rest of the world's opinion.

They LOVE him.

I mean like serious man crush love. The men love him and the women really love him.

Here's another fun little fact. He's single handedly made it ok for Americans to travel again. We no longer need to pretend we're Canadian. We can be proud Americans. Obama has given us international street cred, and it feels real good.

I've heard this on more than one occasion from the people I've met on this trip. " The great thing about Obama, and what his election meant for America, is that it's still possible for people to change the country. The American people weren't happy with the way things were going, so they changed it, and that says something to the rest of the world. It says that they (Americans) weren't ignoring the problems. All the bad shit that was making them look like an global joke. They realized there was a problem and fixed it. The world respects that."

That's a real good thing to hear, and it's an even better thing to experience. I can't tell you how many cities I've been in where complete strangers, knowing I'm American, shout across a busy street "America! Obama!". I can only imagine last year that it would have been something more along the lines of, "America! You suck!"

Walk into any market around the world and you'll find an Obama shirt for sale, or being worn by a local. Umbrellas, hats, buttons, stickers, everything you can imagine emblazened with his portrait. And this is 5,000 miles away from where the guy is President. I walked into a local restauraunt today, made of straw and reeds, in the middle of Tanzania, and I found a hand painted portrait of Obama greeting me as I entered. In Tanzania! Imagine that being a painting of Bush or Sara Palin. Ha.

I guess Obama has become the presidential version of soccer...err.. football. While 90% of the world gets it, half of America doesn't.