While touring London, Edinburgh and Paris, the thought occurred to me that I might as well have stayed home. Here's why... cultural homogenization. Blech! - I went as a designer, hoping to find a new and refreshing alternative to American design. Something that I didn't even know had been overlooked in these United States. What I found was the same thing as here. Posters with a big picture and one sort of funny headline in sans serif text. No new color combinations, no new typography, no new way of displaying images. - I went as a disgruntled clothes shopper, hoping to find any shirt that looked good without having to pretend I was back in the 70s. Unique t-shirts that didn't constantly look wrinkled. Shirts that didn't look like the ones we used to hate getting from our grandmothers' vacation to Florida (but with outrageously high price tags.) Sadly, most of the stores we saw were just chains that one can find in this country. - I went as a music lover, hoping to find unheard-of artists with local flavor and unusual sounds. Something that hadn't been permanently imprinted on my brain (after I have my stroke, I'll still remember the words) because of Top 40 radio. But every store I visited just had their own Top 40, looking suspiciously like our Top 40. How do we overcome this loss of cultures? The easy answer is "Support unique, local stuff" but I think it's much harder than that. At it's finest, curtural drift is a great thing... I can be exposed to some great new thing from somewhere else. So it's very hard to disagree with what has happened. For example, I ended up eating at Pizza Hut a few times because, after wandering the streets for an hour, it really did look like the best option. Now how can I fault Pizza Hut for invading Europe if it's actually better that the alternatives? If it weren't, then people wouldn't eat there and it would go out of business. How can we avoid this? How do you find the unique local stores?