The Obama effect. A friend just got back from Europe. Last year she felt like a pariah. Porters in Paris refused to pick up her daughter's bags. At a ski lodge in Switzerland people screamed "Bush" at her over dinner. Of course they hold Americans responsible. Everything was different this time. "We came into Berlin. It was different from the moment we came into the airport." People congratulated her, people smiled at her when they learned she was an American. "We stopped in London, and saw an expat friend. He told us, 'People are just hysterically happy with us.'"
(P.S.S.S.T. The mood is changing in the U.S. too. Radical!)
