I was out of the country for a few weeks and had the opportunity to spend it in London, United Kingdom. I still suffer from currency conversion shock as my dollar doesn't get me a lot of British Pounds (GBP). Here is an example of what $100 dollars gets you in GBP --> 62GBP. Yeah my average meal was probably in between 25-40GBP so let's just say London ain't cheap. However, this is a must visit location for soooooo many reasons. This is a very socially, historically, and economically sensitive country and I learned a lot while I was across the pond. Here are my few examples of each:
Socially - I ran into a number of instances where I saw the social consciousness of the people on display. In a restaurant, the group next to me had excess food they could not finish, and decided to give it to a homeless person sleeping on the street. I also really enjoyed buying groceries in the UK as the food had more information on its label, tended to be made from freshly grown products, and locally provided.
Historically - I loved the fact that the major museums were on display for free. It was a deeply enriching experience as I visited the British National Museum and saw the contributions and evolution of man from the Egyption, Assyrian, and Greek cultures. I also visited Tate Modern and saw many beautiful works of art including a number of Warhol paintings.
Economically - I was reminded of the need for government to play a strong role to incent people both negatively and positively to do things for the good of all. The infrastructure for public transportation is excellent and they incent people to use them as there are cameras situated throughout the city that capture all plates to charge people for a congestion tax. By moving people to a well maintained public transportation system I found that I got more exercise each day as I walked to and from the train station and to the office once we reached our destination. There is also a push to have people bike to their destinations and bikes can be rented and returned as certain locations and appears to be another strong policy. I also learned of a ticket policy used in Finland (I believe) that implements the fine based on your income. So if you are caught speeding, a person making more money will be fined at a higher value than someone making less. The story I was told mentioned that the CEO of Nokia (who is very rich) was once fined $50,000 for a ticket.
I used these points of my trip as an example of things that we can possibly learn from and see which ones make sense here in America. We already have toll roads but there are new policies being used around the world that we can experiment with. There is a debate in the thoughts of how we take care of our people, roads, schools, and health will continue to be discussed as we come up with new and thoughtful ways of doing those things.
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