Had always been told "America is the Greatest country in the world" and as a young man was contemplating moving there.

Went and was shocked at the amount of homeless, D**g addicts on the street, people with stories about how their lives fell apart due to medical debt. The fact that things i took for granted in my country "6 weeks government mandated vacation" and free healthcare was not a thing.

And that is before i met people at the college i was studying at that had friends, or had themselves seen school shootings or knew people who died in them.

To me, America felt like a 3rd world country it was like walking into an open prison where tripping on the sidewalk could "lock you up" in debt for life.

A place where my host family told me not to leave after a certain time due to fear that if i wandered the wrong neighborhood a gang could accost me and potentially hurt me.

I was shook to my core and gained a huge apreciation for my home country, a place where the only homeless people i had seen had been so because they completely refuse to interact with society, where no one had to worry if a knee operation or their education would shackle them with debt for life.

I left my home country wanting to move, and came home apreciating all i had so much more. My country has its own problems but by god i am so much more free than i thought.

Americans do monuments really, really well. Was awed by the size of Arlington cemetery but sickened by the pride the tour guide had in announcing it was almost full and they’d be opening up another section soon (this was 2015 with troops still in Afghanistan). Also struck by the hypocrisy of Americans thanking vets for their service while ignoring the number of maimed and homeless ex-military I saw begging in different parts of the country.