The first week

I've been here for not quite a week and I'm already amazed at the amount of European history, culture, and politics you run across in your daily life. Within the first few days I had a very interesting conversation with a man whose family fled Poland during the Second World War. Fearing both the Nazis and the Soviets, the family headed to Hungary. I study and research the history of World War II in Europe all the time as part of my job, but I rarely have the opportunity to talk to someone who experienced it when I'm living in Rolla.

Walking back to the flat through my neighborhood also gives me the opportunity to see history. Sometimes it's marked right there on the building! Not only do the streets and the buildings themselves have histories, people who lived in them also have their own histories. Not far from my flat is the house where T.S. Eliot died. Eliot seems especially appropriate to discuss in a blog related to our Missouri London course on 20th century European politics and culture. Time Magazine even calls him one of the 100 most important people of the twentieth century. Eliot was born in St. Louis but became a British citizen in 1927 (according to his Nobel Prize biography.) Eliot has been called "one of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry." His works often reflected the disillusionment of people after the Great War and are linked with ideas of modernity, especially his poem "The Waste Land." I've heard that Eliot's friend and fellow poet, Ezra Pound, lived in the street behind our flat. I'll have to go take a look. Who knows? Maybe they even walked by this house on their way to the pub or on a shopping trip.

On a more pop culture note, I've been noticing the similarities between British and American tv. Why is it that we both seem to have the same bad shows?? I saw a less-flashier version of "Deal or No Deal" the other day; then there's "Big Brother" and "Wife Swap." I think I saw something similar to "American Idol" (I didn't watch long enough to confirm it) and I had to watch "Dancing on Ice" last night! It's like "Dancing with the Stars" only on ice and with more chances for injury. I saw a football player smash head-first into the ice and another contestant who had to sit out last season because he broke his ankle skating in practice. Even though I have no idea who the celebrities are that I was watching, I just couldn't turn it off. I had to wonder if the show would be migrating to the US next. One part of me says no because Americans aren't huge skating fans, but then again Americans aren't big ballroom dancing fans and "Dancing with the Stars" is still a big hit. And there's the chance for injury and we Americans seem to like watching things with an element of danger. So who knows?? [NOTE: I remembered that the US *did* have this, but all I remember about it was the celebrity gossip. It obviously didn't make a lasting impression...]

I wonder what this tells us about European culture? In some ways I guess we are more similar to the Europeans than we often think. Or maybe we're just more similar to the British (although I saw "Deal or No Deal" in France before I saw it in the US). Reality tv seems to be just as popular here as at home. Is this a reflection of culture in general? What is the different between "high" and "popular" culture? Is "high" culture disappearing? These are definitely things to think about and explore. It certainly shows the global nature of our world.