Lebanoff

This week I was talking to a man from Lebanon. To be honest (and to understate), he was a complete jerk. Now I don't assume jerks are any more common in Lebanon than anywhere else in the world (they could be, or they could be rarer). But this guy was a piece of work.

One of his least jerk-y moments, though, was when he asserted that Lebanon was the best country in the world in various areas, including its natural beauty and standard of living. As to the natural beauty, he supported his claim with, "ask all of the Germans that come."

When I was younger, I lived in a very beautiful part of the US. But I remember thinking to myself how much more beautiful the area must be, compared to the rest of the world, if so many tourists came all the way from Germany to visit. I mean, if the place I lived were not amazingly beautiful, why would anyone really come from so far away to see it?!

How much difference 15 years and few hundred thousand miles make in my evaluation of that sort of argument.

What I realize now is that Germans (Australians, Swedes, Japanese, and lots of other people) travel lots of places outside of their countries (to be fair to early teenage Uncle Mattie, Germans travel internationally much more frequently than most Americans and Lebanese do--hence my thinking that a trip to my state was some monumental event for them). The fact that thousands of Germans or Australians pass through your town might say something about Germans or Australians, but it really doesn't mean much about your town--except, in this case, that it's probably sunnier, warmer and cheaper than Germany at some point in the year.