After spending a couple of weeks in Europe touring historic sights and visiting family (my mother-in-law is British) besides seeing the expectedly awesome castles and Big Ben hovering over the Houses of Parliament, we saw something that surprised us: Obama everywhere.
From the kid who serves frozen "yoghurt" by the sea at Brighton who thought Obama was "cool" to the British car with the bumper sticker which is unheard of in England. While the new president's popularity has fallen in his home country, he stills seems very popular in Europe and particularly England. The Pew poll proved that by showing 86% of Britains have confidence in President Obama. Americans came behind that at 74% at the time of the poll.
I guess I shouldn't have been a surprise to see extensive news coverage of the American president in Europe, but it was remarkable to see detailed analysis of what American health care reform could mean for British companies. The London newspapers covered small details of Congress' emerging healthcare bill. I saw repeated references to the "Obama factor" in Europe. I can't image we'd ever see this much coverage of a British politician in mainstream American news. Now back to reading more than a thousand emails with a jet-lagged brain.