We (the adults, anyway) have been abroad in all kinds of political climates and have seen Americans abroad greeted, proverbially speaking, with everything from open arms to raised middle fingers. So we're not sure what kinds of welcome we'll receive out there in the big wide world at this crazy time in history. We're prepared for the worst, and hoping for the best.
If, however, anti-American sentiment seems to be running high in any particular spot, we've always got that age-old standby: we'll just pretend to be Canadian. I mean, nobody (well, pratically nobody) hates Canada. And it shouldn't be too hard to train the kids to just say "Calgary" instead of "California" when they're asked where they're from. If we end up going this route, we'll tell you all aboot it here! Wish us luck, eh?
9/2018 Update:
Three months in, we’ve got a better idea of the climate in Western Europe. Here’s our point/counterpoint:
Christine here: My first trip to Europe was in the mid-1980’s. Ronald Reagan had recently visited a Nazi cemetery in Germany, and tensions were still fairly high there. I’ll never forget browsing in a Benetton in Heidelberg, cluelessly flipping through the sweaters until the shopgirl told me that Americans were not welcome there. What? I said. Like, do you mean you don’t want me to buy this overpriced neon-green sweater vest? She repeated her wish that we would all leave not just her store, but her country (I later found out there were still American army troops based there). Puzzled, I informed her that I couldn’t even vote yet, but that should I ever meet anyone in charge of the government I’d pass along her message. And that was my first introduction to the dark side of cultural imperialism.
Anti-American sentiment waxes and wanes around the world, and given the current state of American politics, I was not really sure what we’d find overseas. So far, the few people who’ve said anything about our nation of origin have expressed sympathy for us.
One sweet Irish lady, on hearing we were traveling for a year, said, “Ah. Escaping the Orange Man, are ye?” And I’ve so distanced myself from American current events that for a minute I thought she was referring to the Dutch.
An Egyptian pasta cook we chatted up in Berlin mentioned that he’d like to visit the US, and when I suggested he wait a few years, he told me he’d meet us there in 2021. From your lips to God’s ears, sir.
Any other disapproving looks we’ve gotten, and there have been several, have mostly occurred in restaurants and subway cars in our more uptight locales (ahem, Berlin and Vienna) and I think had more to do with our noise levels than with our nationality. What can I say? Our default volume is set to 11. Adam, what have you noticed?
Adam here:
I can't add much to Christine's thoughts about how we feel about being visiting Americans - I concur - but I do have some thoughts about being here as Jews, and how that's changed during that same 30-year timespan.
This is a bit long-winded, so apologies in advance for running long (What's that saying? This would have been shorter, but I ran short of time...).
In early 1987 I spent a college semester in Jerusalem, studying at Hebrew Union College's beautiful campus near the King David hotel, looking out over the old city. I'm sure that location was not so spectacular in the 1960s, when it was given to HUC and first developed; in fact, until 1967 that land was right on top of what must have been a fairly hellish no man's land between Israel's capital in West Jerusalem and Jordan-controlled territory, including the old city and east Jerusalem. See, e.g., http://passia.org/maps/view/58
Of course, by the time I visited, Jerusalem had been reunified for nearly twenty years, and we visiting students had the privilege of taking for granted the ease with which we enjoyed the sights and sounds, moving between ancient and modern, east and west, hardly noticing where the '67 border had divided the city. The first Intifada had not yet begun; the city was at peace and felt secure. We did spend some time in a museum dedicated to the memory of life in the divided city from '48 to '67, but most of those memories had to be sought out, and were mostly mixed in with the jumble of pre-'48 stories.
Before returning to college that fall, I enjoyed some backpacking time in Europe, and a highlight was several days in Berlin, visiting a friend I'd made on kibbutz. I had to get to West Berlin from Copenhagen on an overnight train, and arrived exhausted: throughout the night, teams of GDR K-9 units loudly searched the under carriage for people trying to escape for the west, and state police woke me repeatedly to search my cabin and check my papers. I'd clearly entered a police state. West Berlin seemed an island of sanity surrounded by a fairly nightmarish environment.
After a recovery day, my friend and I day-tripped to East Berlin. I can't remember where we crossed - probably near the Brandenburg Gate. The east seemed to me a mess; most of the buildings and homes along the border had been boarded up to prevent people from jumping out of the windows over the wall and fleeing west. We met many young East Germans, buying them beers and hearing about their lives. They were hopeful - they were young - but not optimistic; in fact, they were really down. I don't think they knew things were going to start changing for better or worse anytime soon; none of us did. If there were any hints circulating of the forthcoming end of the Soviet Union, we had all missed them. Now I recall that just a few weeks earlier Reagan had called for Gorbachev to "tear down this wall", and I think Gorbachev had given his first public Perestrojka speech in late '86, but so far as we all knew, the cold war was going to rage on, and these nice people would remain stuck in a tough situation for the duration...
As a Jew visiting Berlin in '87, and especially coming from my time living in a strong and re-unified Israel, I was particularly curious about how the history of Nazism and the Holocaust was being processed. I was discouraged in that I didn't find much, even with the help of a locally-based Jewish host. At Checkpoint Charlie, there was a private museum that recorded the more exciting and adventurous ways people escaped from east to west, and the sacrifices made by those who helped. But there was not much I found on either side about the Holocaust or the Jewish community about those insane 20 years marking the rise of Nazism and everything that had gone wrong for Germany and Europe because of it.
Of course, the wall went down in '89 and Germany wasted no time getting busy with reunification. As of earlier this year, Berlin has been longer without the wall than it was with. During my '87 visit, Berlin was a city (and Germany, a nation) divided, and I think that consumed its citizens. Beyond the challenges of daily living, many in both east and west were focused on getting their country back to a unified state. They'd get to other stuff later, when they were at peace with their frame of living.
On this summer's visit to a unified Berlin, we spent entire days touring the old Jewish quarter, Holocaust memorials and nearby concentration camp museum (Saschenhausen, in the east). Looking back at the speed with which Berlin and Germany reunified, and the billions of euros they've poured into bringing the east up to speed with the west (an ongoing project, to be sure), I'm impressed by the attention that's also been paid to these painful historical/institutional memories, at least in Berlin. The Topography of Terror museum, which lays out the rise and fall of the Nazis and their victims - Jewish and otherwise, is fittingly located right on top of Berlin's old Gestapo HQ, and is one of the most amazing and exhaustive historical displays I've ever seen.
In sum, as a Jew visiting Berlin in the '80s, I expected a lot of Germany and I was disappointed with the lack of attention paid to the evils of WWII and the Holocaust, but looking back at the circumstances, and as they've restored order to their house, it's clear to me now that they had other things occupying them, and it seems they've made tremendous progress in outwardly expressing their communal knowledge of and regret for what transpired in the '30s and '40s. I give them credit for that shift, and have a deeper understanding now of what took so long. And so, I feel all the more comfortable being open about being both Jewish and American in Germany and Europe this summer.