I am going to respond to the original question. When I was young - so much younger than today (!) I went to the USA to see the country where everything was supposed to be so much better than anywhere according to all the people that one encountered who came from there.

Nothing prepared me for what I found and how my breath was taken away. It was bigger, it was so open, and my goodness that air of "can do" that abounded. It was a country without history to tie it down and that looked to the future. I loved it then and I love it now. The sheer level of manners and courtesy was something that Britain had long since ditched, sad though it is to say.

Years on and a home owner in the States (Hawaii which I love and which has avoided the sheer slumminess and Latin American bipolarity of Puerto Rico - in spite of the phoney "foreign-ness" of the Tourist nonsense in Hawaii such as the Mahalo which is meant to be breathed as opposed to snapped by so many FAs) I still love much about it.

This is not OMNI so I will not go into the things that I do not like about the place as the list would be still not be as long as that about the UK. Suffice to say that the one thing that I really appreciate is being able to forget totally about home. The news barely mentions anything outside the USA unless the USA is engaged. Europe does not exist outside BBC America.

Suffice to say that I long learn that America is a collective noun as there are so many components and different parts. It is vast. Unlike most people NYC, I can take or leave - I would not spend my money to go there - I far prefer Boston, Chicago, or San Francisco - but that is purely taste. It is big and it is beautiful and it is a country of incredible contrasts. You can fly for 90 mins and not leave the state of Texas (loads of friends made in the Branniff days) All I will say to conclude is that I have met acts of spontaneous kindness and generosity in the USA that my love affair lasts to this day. Actually I am off there later today.