American privilege. Check.

Going abroad has been one the best decisions I have ever made. In fact, it comes right up along with my decision to come to Duke and making that crucial switch from boxers to boxer-briefs.

I thought I would meet new people spending my semester in Spain, but never did I think that my Barcelona crew would be an array of Belgians, Dutch and Germans. While we may come from countries miles apart from each other, it didn’t take long to find things in common. Eventually, we formed a post-class gym crew, hitting up Body Pump every Thursday after Creative Economics. We also jammed out to “Blank Space,” watched the annual "Victoria Secret Fashion Show" and even caught the latest "Hunger Games". What I found especially interesting was just how normal it became to see just how instinctively people from different European countries would speak English to each other, even when neither spoke it as a native language. I honestly don’t know how they all spoke English so well. Some of these people had never stepped foot in an English-speaking country for more than a week at a time, yet their English skills were light years ahead of my Spanish ones. They learned because they had to. As Americans, we have the luxury of travelling the world without being forced to understand a new language or explain the basic aspects of our culture—but rather just assume that it’s widely known.

If 2014 taught us anything—it was just how relevant privilege still is in our society, whether it was white-privilege, socio-economic privilege or heterosexual privilege. So, I figured since we are already spending our day “checking off” our daily boxes of privilege, we might as well add one more to the list—American privilege. American privilege is turning on the television in any country in the world and seeing information on our county and in our language.

We are arguably the only country in the world that prints memorabilia that says, “Back to Back World War Champs,” and chants our nation’s name in totally irrelevant situations. However, this sense of pride has quickly transitioned into implied cultural dominance. Go to any European airport and English will almost always be a language on every sign. Go to Oktoberfest, and you’ll find entire rows of tents blasting “Sweet Caroline” and “All the Small Things.” American privilege is walking into a movie theater in any developed nation and catching the new "Hunger Games". American privilege is assumed dominance, or at least global recognition, in the worldwide music, tech and even journalism scene.

Being abroad was one the most amazing experiences of my life. When else in our lives can we country hop on the weekends with out best friends and have places to crash all over Europe. I travelled to places that were built for Instagram posts and met some of the most interesting people I’ve ever had the pleasure of raging with. However, all along my journey, this idea of American privilege just kept coming back to me. I like to think I’m somewhat culturally aware and know what’s going on in the world, even while I can still only name a handful of world leaders and still get confused over the whole Amsterdam/Holland thing.

While taking a class on International Journalism and Global Media in Barcelona, I found the scope of US media absolutely astounding. At one point during class, we began discussing the major players in world news and various American students expressed that they would never trust something on Tele Sur or Al Jazeer. Meanwhile, I found our blind acceptance of American media even more astounding. We are so busy arguing over the bias of FOX or CNN that we omit the heavy American bias that they all carry.

Eventually, I figured it might be interesting to explore a day in my life in Barcelona: American Privilege Edition. I woke up and ate a couple Ritz crackers I bought last night. Check. Turned on the radio and jammed to the new Taylor Swift song. Check. Walked to the metro and bought a metro ticket in english. Check. Went to class. Grabbed a Starbucks. T-Swift was playing on the speakers. Learned International Economics in English. Check. Check. Headed back to my apartment and turned on the TV to watch some "Storage Wars" on Discovery. Check. Went out to a nightclub. Jammed to some more T-Swift. Check. Check. Check.

American privilege is everywhere around us, but like any other privilege, difficult to see without taking a real look at the inherent cultural advantages we hold. So maybe next time, just take a quick check to see what inherent advantages we hold and use them in a positive way to learn about a different culture or way of life. But remember, T-Swift should still be playing in the background.