American Exports

H had a friend in culinary school from Greece who was way into Harley Davidsons. When I met him at one of the school events he had on jeans and a black Harley Davidson t-shirt. He was making small talk with A about music and he asked her if he had ever seen the film Almost Famous. We all started laughing remembering the scene in the film where they think their plane is going to crash. Harley Davidsons and Almost Famous, who knew they could be so universal?


I was thinking about that this week when I was talking to a colleague in Spain. After we finished up the business conversation we got to talking about taking time off this time of year. He told me that their big holiday was the 6th of January where they celebrate Reyes. I asked if this was the same thing as Epiphany and he said yes but no one calls it Epiphany, that’s too posh, they call it reyes for the kings. “But because of the Americans we have kids now expecting gifts on Christmas Eve too”. I laughed because unless there’s some secret mission happening, we aren’t purposefully going out and asking people to celebrate the holidays we celebrate, especially when not all Americans celebrate Christmas. What’s funny is that my colleague is a huge fan of gangsta rap, also from the U.S. If I was going to be upset about an import it would be gangsta rap, not Santa Claus.