>I wasnt trying to hold it over anyones head or shame them or
>something. If you arent around it, you just around it.

No doubt, I didn't think you were.

I feel pretty confidently that the average poster
>here would be a little weirded out for 5 minutes and then it
>would be whatever.

I had an experience like this in Marseille, France, kind of. I was (dumbly, whitely?) trying to ride a bike from Florence, Italy to Pamplona Spain and got pretty sick North of Marseille and couldn't find a hotel or hostel. So I ride south through the city and after what seemed like hours of riding in less and less light through what seemed like probably projects I finally find a hotel and it's a super Muslim area, hotel has a crescent moon and star, al jazeera on the TV, all that shit. I'm so tired and sick I'm hopeful for any place I can lie down, so I get over my apprehensiveness. It wasn't a great hotel by any means and the people working there seemed surprised at my appearance (lone American in full bike gear, at night, they had every right to be surprised) but nobody made me feel anything less than welcome.

I was definitely in heightened awareness mode for a little while at the beginning (which I was on a lot anyway, alone in foreign countries on a bike) but there's no reason to keep that up when you start realizing the people who feel foreign to you intend you no ill or harm.