Now, let’s just talk about London fashion for a minute. Before coming here, I had expectations of Londoners dressed to the nines, looking sharp and polished in that big European-cosmopolitan-city kind of way. I thought that I would stand out by looking, well, like a girl from Colorado who came with one suitcase of clothes for four months and two seasons. Let me just repeat the pertinent part of that sentence; I thought I would stand out.

Perhaps those always-dressed-up-by-any-Colorado-standard Londoners exist in Mayfair or Notting Hill or Chelsea and sure, a walk down Bishopsgate at lunch will confirm that the black or navy blue suit is indeed standard business attire, pinstripe variations accepted. But, London fashion as a whole, as far as I can tell, is simply 'anything goes.' I mean who said that you can’t wear a real fur cape with skinny jeans and leopard print Vans? What’s wrong with a print skirt worn with contrasting print tights? And while it might be easy to blame the fashion sense of the guy in the white pointy leather shoe-boots with red skinny-to-the-ankle pants pulled half-way down his butt revealing his boxers and a black and multi-colored patterned wind shirt that looks like something you might find at 1992 Veloswap on his Eastern-European-new-country-to the-EU heritage, his outfit is merely a few earthtones and a corduroy blazer away from the hippest London dudes out on a Friday night.

Let’s digress from fashion for a second and talk about this guy and, perhaps, some greater cultural implications. To complete his colorful duds, he’s tall and 70’s-rockstar-skinny with a lip piercing and asymmetrical hair. Honestly, in most US towns and cities this guy would, at best, get some giggles and stares, at worst a beating. But in a busy London supermarket, no one notices this guy. A spray-paint wielding representative from PETA is not threatening the fur-wearers. There are no disapproving looks at the Muslim woman veiled in a niqab and long dress with bare toes and sandals. How did America - land of the free, home of the brave, tender of the melting pot - get so, well, intolerant?

Here's another thing that got me thinking: Sitting chatting with some folks in a pub the other night, we got talking about all the fireworks at the beginning of November for Guy Fawke’s night and other holidays. I commented on how one might have thought there was a lot of shooting going on, as the fireworks sounded like gunfire. They looked astonished at this idea. This had obviously never come close to crossing their mind. I suddenly felt very American. In a city of twelve million there is very little violent crime, let alone involving guns (a small fraction of one percent of all crimes involve guns nationwide, according to one website). The police generally don’t carry guns themselves, save for a few well-armed exceptions I’ve noticed in front of the Houses of Parliament, the US Embassy, and near the US ambassador’s house. Yet, Omaha, Nebraska, a city in the American heartland of less than half a million, made international news a few days ago when eight people were shot down in a shopping mall.