I'm seeing my feed flooded with posts about Europeans realizing that they were lied to about America.
The consensus of their posts is that America is safer, more prosperous, and more welcoming than they were told.
This might be the most powerful effect of the World Cup.
We have Italians discovering free refills,
Japanese discovering unlimited chips and salsa, and Germans road tripping the country becoming Ella Fellas.
In this USA 250 simulation, it’s quite simple, we’re winning the World Cup.
Stateside, a gas station. I drank a frozen blue beverage too quickly, and was struck down by a punishment this entire nation knows, and accepts, and has named.
The drink is called a slush. Ice, sweetness, and a blue that does not occur in nature. The day was hot. I was thirsty. I drank like a soldier at a river.
The pain arrived in my skull like a war horn.
Behind the eyes. Above everything. Total. I gripped the roof of my car. I may have made a sound.
"Brain freeze," said the cashier through the door, with no urgency whatsoever.
It has a NAME. The affliction is so common it has a household name, like a cousin.
"Tongue on the roof of your mouth," called a man at the pumps. He did not look over. He prescribed the remedy mid-pump, casually, the way one mentions weather.
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth. The war horn faded. The healer nodded at his pump, finished, and was gone in a Chevrolet.
In my land, punishment follows crime by way of courts and seasons. Here, the sentence is instant. Drink with greed, and the ice strikes the mind directly. No trial. No appeal. Perfectly fair.
And here is what moves me. EVERYONE has felt it. The cashier. The healer. Children. Elders. An entire nation united by the same small lightning, all taught the same cure, all passing it on to strangers at gas stations, free of charge.
You cannot fully distrust a country once you know it shares one pain.
The freeze does not punish thirst. It punishes haste.
I finished the slush slowly, like a scholar. Blue tongue. Clear mind.
Then at the door I forgot everything, drank deeply, and was struck down again.
"Tongue, hon," said the cashier, without looking up.
Discipline is a journey.
Seeing all the foreigners visit the United States for World Cup and talk about how amazing of an experience they are having and how fortunate Americans are makes me happy. You take for granted how fortunate we are, when people come here and have a good time, that's pretty cool.
There is simply no equivalent to the Fifa World Cup.
Not the Super Bowl. Not the Olympics.
You have ducks wearing soccer jerseys in the streets of Mexico, random German bros like Freddy going full National Geographic mode on X documenting the beating heart of America while South Koreans are wearing sombreros and dancing to Gangnam style in a taqueria.
As a European at heart, seeing people from Germany, Scotland, France, Spain and so many more discovering the endless and exceptional energy that makes this country so beautiful is an unparalleled joy.
As a French living in Chicago, I cannot even explain how happy it makes me to see my US friends finally feel the magnetic power of the World Cup on home soil.
C'est magnifique.
So far this World Cup has been a great reminder that we make too many assumptions about one another, and that the vast majority of humanity is awesome.
It's been pretty damn refreshing, honestly.
Why does everyone hate American tipping culture?
I’ve never had as good service anywhere else in the world before. Staff go above and beyond to make you feel welcome and that you have everything you need. If anything I’m happy to tip more
We found another surreal place on our way. I know some people will say I’m too positive about everything I see, but this place was crazy. They had a shooting range in the store.