Exactly the same but with a different accent

Sept. 29, 2008

One of the things about travelling is you come to realize that people everywhere are really the same. Yes we have different languages, different religious beliefs, different customs, but when it comes down to it, we are all more alike than we realize.

Back in Strasbourg at the film festival I attended, New York filmmaker Ari Taub made that exact point about the common bonds of people in his feature film Last Letters from Monte Rosa. The film about the Italian and Nazi perspective of battles in World War II portrayed the soldiers not as the monsters we learned about in American History class. They are just men struggling with the situation they are thrown into, yearning get home alive to be with their family and friends.

In London, I stayed at a household full of Australians. We spent one night just hanging out, drinking beers and playing Uno which the Australians pronounce "you know." The Aussies were all talking about the then upcoming Grand Final for the AFL (Australian Football League). The underdog Hawthorn Hawks would be taking on the Geelong Cats, last year's Grand Final victor. The Aussies I was with are all rabid Hawthorn fans. The team hadn't won a Grand Final in 17 years.

"If they win on Saturday I will actually cry," my friend Rob told me.

I sat back for a second sinking into my own thoughts. A sudden deja vu struck me about the situation, an unexpected comfort in this house in a foreign land. Just a month earlier I had been hanging out in a living room in Stamford, Connecticut with some friends drinking beers and listening to conversations about the New York Giants. I realized then it was the same exact situation as back home. Just a different game with a different accent.

Update: Hawthorn won. I wish I had been with my Aussie friends to see that.