My trip to Europe

As I am writing this post I have not slept for 30 hours. I thought I'd share with you some of my impressions of the UK over the last day. Here is the recap of my day. Upon arriving at London Heathrow I knew I had to make my way to the London Paddington train station to catch my train to Bristol (my final destination in the UK). To get from Heathrow to Paddington I boarded an express train, and with a little help from a co-worker I managed to score a first class seat for this 15 minute journey. What did the first class ticket provide besides charging most people double the regular fare? I would say absolutely nothing. I could not understand who in their right mind would pay an additional 20 dollars to sit in the first class car, and yet there were three other passengers in the first class. And then I realized, I'm in Europe. Unlike the US, class tensions have dominated political and social discourse on the content for the over a millianea. Here there are distinct differences between the son of an aristocrat and the average joe's kid. For all of Europe's idealism and self-righteousness this simple example illustrates that the in Europe class warfare is a much more significant topic than in the United States. Where in the United States would you see passengers split out between the haves and the have nots on a fifteen minute journey?