Adam curry has returned to Amsterday from his native United States and has some great things to say.

I, too, had the same experience when I lived abroad for a brief period. It took being away from the United States to make me appreciate my country even more. When I left, I was a typical liberal American academic with a strong distaste for much that my country stood for and ashamed at the way my fellow citizens behaved. The Gulf War, the L.A. riots, the Rodney King beating, and the general ill feeling of over a decade of Republican rule had left me a little jaded. I had a wonderful time living in Vienna, and I would do it again for a while in a second, but the first thing I did when I got home was to purchase a little American flag sticker for the back of my car. My new resolve was to travel extensively in my marvelous country and to embrace American culture through the filter of my new-found “worldliness” (or at least what I perceived as such).

So here we are in another bad patch in America. But I haven’t forgot the lessons I learned back then. I still fantasize about being able to spend lots of time on the coast of Italy or Spain someday. But last night, while celebrating with a crowd of people from several nations, and a lot of Americans, and listening to the thousands of gunshots and firecrackers heralding the new year, I felt thoroughly at home: safe, stimulated, thankful, comfortable and in good company.