For all it's faults and haven't we all got them, us over here included..we are very lucky to be living where we are...I was over in the States in the early 90's..i drove from Niagra Falls all the way to Nashville,and i had the most enjoyable trip and holiday,then drove back to Cleveland to stay with friends...I played a few bars,and i was offered a job in a big Irish/American bar ..BUT didn't take up the offer...sometimes i wonder mybe i should have!..i found the Americans very friendly indeed,tho to be honest they have a different sense of humour from us..of course that wouldn't be hard...even the English don't share our humour!.and thay are just over the border...Tho i must admit in my travels thru all the states i encountered,i saw both sides of the coin..extreme poverty in some of the Southern States,and wealth and prosperity in others...What i found a little disturbing to be truthfully honest,is how you can be driving thru a seemingly wealthy suburb,then within a few hundred metres,encounter a "ghetto",and immediately "smell" the menace,then a few hundred metres further on,back into suburbia..found that strange...and these area's did seem to me as sort of no-go-areas...and me being a tourist and Scottish to boot.i stopped for Gas in a suburb of Kentucky off the beaten track.i went in to the station to pay for the Gas..The coloured attendant said and i quote"we don't get many white guys filling up in here"..i said why is that? in my Scottish Accent..he just laughed and said "oh i thought you must be a foreign guy or something"..then i guessed,the Southern States must have their own agenda...but that aside America is a great country.and i find these upcoming presidential elections fascinating to watch from the outside....