I am Back to the United States. This time on holidays; we picked up Matilde at UCLA (which is the LA part of the same University to which belongs Berkeley) and we will travel California for two weeks. After 3 days in Los Angeles another difference between Europe and the States seems clear to me: The United States are much more "internally globalized". I had read, that going from one neighbourhood of LA to another is like crossing the border between San Diego and Tijuana. I have never been to Mexico, but some streets of Los Angeles reminded me strongly to some business streets I had seen in India or China. Also the extreme differences between Elegant and expensive shopping malls and dirty streets with electronic shops where you can get the same goods for much cheaper are present. (I paid for my new digital camera less than half the price of the ticket on the box) Hollywood Boulevard This is not only about ethnic diversity. Also im "Ruhrgebiet" there are neighbourhoods predominantly Turkish. But walking through this neighbourhoods gives you not the same impression than Holywood Boulevard or Broadway in Los Angeles (Which are NOT part of the ethnic mexican quarters of Los Angeles). The USA are already internally much more globalized than the rest of the world. Obviously this means also to have internalized much more global poverty. Homeless in San Francisco Europeans find this often disturbing and allarming. I believe it is a strength of the United states that they internally represent already the distribution of wealth on earth. Europe still has to come to that.