London, UK

For some reason, I was always reminded of this clip when anticipating going to London. Notorious for their food, weather, and snobbish attitudes, the once reigning father of America, and in fact, half of the world. In one time or another, much of the world was ruled by this small island-nation, which serves terrible, flat, warm, beer.

But, not all is bad here in London. Okay, the food and the beer are terrible, but what about everything else? Well, there is much to see and the city in general is quite cool. Very clean, and very unique. Maybe it is the stereotypical red double-decker busses, or maybe it is all of the phone booths, but everything here is, well British -- very, very British.

As an interesting tid-bit, I have been living in Spain, which has ridiculous amounts of days off (including puentes, which are days off between holidays just because!), but this year, the Brits get to take the Royal Wedding as a holiday -- and next year, they will celebrate the current Queen's reign (as the longest reigning royalty in UK history) with days off.

I would expect nothing less from Britain than I am experiencing now. As with all of the countries in Europe, there is an extreme pride for your heritage. Everyone here is from their country, and often times, a region within their country (ie. Catalunya, Wales, Scotland, Provence, North Italy, etc) first. Americans erroneously have the view of the European Union as a "United States of Europe," but no people in the European Union will identify themselves as "European" because first and foremost they are "British" or "Catalan" and secondly, no one will be caught dead in the same country as the French, and the French wouldn't be caught dead with any of the "lesser europeans."