American

I might be the only American many of these people have met in real life. I live in the south of the Netherlands, Holland for the unfamiliar, or the country where Amsterdam is, for the less... culturally explorative.

While America has a huge presence from fast food chains to music and movies, shopping, you name it, a lot of the people in my town haven't been further than Belgium, if at that, which is the equivalent of a New Yorker having only been as far as New Jersey, a Californian having only been as far as Nevada, a Hoosier having only been as far as Illinois.

So yes, almost every day I am asked something about America and usually it's "Don't Americans usually just eat a lot of fast food?"

I can't help but laugh, because I really am not most Americans. Sometimes I tell them, in all honesty, I've eaten more fried food in my month in Holland than I had in my -just under- 25 years in the U.S. of A. Other times I go into a full repartee of my years as a vegetarian, vegan, or raw vegan, the six months I spent living off the grid, or the time I worked on a self sustained organic farm.

I've debated asking them if the Dutch really do keep boxes of flaked skin to save for later, as one of the Austin Powers movies implies, but I don't think I have quite the audacity to be that blatantly rude.