A German tourist named Maximilian Kirch flew into Dallas for the World Cup this summer, bought himself a cowboy hat, and ate barbecue. “Of course I’m wanting to experience more of it,” he told Reuters. A Swiss fan from Zurich posted on Reddit: “Something new for me is how friendly and outgoing everyone is.”
Will Meara knows the feeling. He’s been having it for two-and-a-half years.
“There’s a great Twitter account … the Freddy LA one — it’s a German guy and everyone’s seeing America through his eyes and seeing real America,” Meara told me recently. (The account has sadly already run its course, with Freddy commenting on Instagram that he shut it down because “too many people seem to have a problem with us having a genuinely good time here in the country.”)
Meara said that he was surprised, just like Freddy was, when he finally met the real America. “I was obviously familiar with the New Yorks and LA’s of the world, but because of the cities and towns that we now operate in, like on any given weekend, I could find myself in North Dakota, for example; I was there a couple of weeks back, or rural Virginia. And it’s really getting to see the heartland of America and how great the people are and how friendly they are.”
