Rich Kurtzman
Head of student exchange program, 29
Arrived in Barcelona in 2002 from Chicago

     The topless beaches are of course number one on my list of the reasons I like liberal Spain, but others include that you can have a beer before you are 21, there’s more separation between church and state, there is no death penalty, there is a socialist government in place which seems to care about equality of gender and races.
     Something I’ve found since living abroad, is that I tend to defend the U.S. a lot more. But then when I’m home, I defend Europe. Basically, I want people to have an open mind, and be able to see that there is more than one way to look at things, which I think is the number one problem with the US.
     There is a statistic that only 20% percent of Americans have passports, for Europeans, it’s unheard of. A lot of Europeans don’t understand the distances within the US. You can fly 6 hours, and still be in the same country, speak the same language. Where as from here, it’s 2, 3 hours to Russia, an hour in the car to France, with a different culture and language. There is a joke here, people say that Americans don’t know where a country is until the US invades it, then they find it on the map.