Hi Everyone,

Welcome on board, I guess when I set this up I was thinking that the main forums are all a bit focused around America some of us are a bit left out by not knowing where Oakland is, or being in a time zone where it is 2am and we are still posting to people who haven't left the office. Or its 10 am in the morning and no one else is awake.

I have learnt so much about Americans from being here, just like all stereotype, they are in practice individuals and represent a huge spectrum of opinion and the stereotype is not surprisingly as inaccurate as most with only limited truth.

I think some parts of the stereotype seem to hold pretty good, they are obsessed with profit and money. And they are very right wing, I get the feeling that most of them here are pretty left wing compared to the norm, so I am a little scared of the rest of them now ;-)

So this space will hopefully be somewhere where we can talk about Mambai, Manchester and Montreal and have everyone else wonder where they are.

Contrary to rumour Americans are, it seems really interested in other peoples points of views, so this is also a place for those Americans who are interested.

I did think about making an exclusivly European group, but to be honest there are so few of "us" and so many of "them" it didn't make sense.

Talking of us and them, they are different, some of them can be a bit touchy, American bashing seems to be what the slightest critical comment is called.

I only ask 2 things.

1/ Try not to upset the Americans (they have guns, lots of them)

2/ Americans, please don't shoot us, we are harmless (or is that armless in that we don't have guns)

**Please introduce yourself in one of the "I am from ..." discussions"