I will admit that I am one of those people -- the ones who studied in Britain (Portsmouth, England, in my case) and have since incorporated that fact into daily life.

I am an unabashed Britophile.

I pay too much for beer because it is British. I complain that Starbucks doesn't have proper tea. I sprinkle my speech with "bloke" and "bloody," and occasionally I accidentally put a "u" in "colour."

It's a sort of disease, a bit like chronic flatulence; it is impossible to be near me without knowing my affliction.

I make everyone around me suffer my love of all things British. So it is no wonder that after my visit to Britain last week, very few of my friends have asked me: "How was the trip?"

There's no need to ask because they know I will tell them regardless.

The trip, I'll have you know, was lovely. It was my first time back in four years. From the very start, it confirmed one of my favorite things about Britons -- they are incredibly nice people.

They don't want you to know this. Britons enjoy promulgating the myth that they are stodgy and cold and that the whole place has gone to hell. When other Europeans complain that the island country lacks hospitality or culture, Britons are filled with a secret glee.

Most Britons fail to live up to the stereotype, though. I spent a few days in London with my friends Chris and Jenny. Even though I was snoring in their spare room and dirtying up their towels, they insisted upon showering me with hospitality.

"It's my Scottish upbringing," Jenny said. "We would rather starve children than deprive guests."

That may be true, but the friendliness seems to extend to the English mindset as well. At a friend's family home in Ludlow, England, I was offered tea and sweet things almost nonstop. When I went to bed that night, I reflected on the fact that I had consumed no less than eight cups of tea in a two-hour period.

Tea is a major facet of British hospitality. At an office in Cardiff, Wales, a woman was baffled when I politely declined her offer of tea.

"Are you sure you don't want any tea?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm fine," I said.

"But it's sitting right there."

The Welsh are amazingly hospitable. As such, my Britophilia is especially acute when it comes to their nation. Every time I meet someone in Wales, they seem to kick themselves for not having baked me a cake: "True, I didn't know when I got up this morning that I would meet this random American, but I really should have been prepared."

They are a proud people, like their Celtic cousins the Scottish and Irish, but with fewer catchy folk tunes about military campaigns against England.

And they are just a little strange.

In Cardiff, the rule for street performing appears to be this: you don't have to be good, but you should be surreal. It isn't enough to play the violin for money -- you must do so whilst wearing an enormous toy monkey. A legend of the city's central shopping area is Toy Mic Trevor, a man who croons swing standards into a child's toy microphone.

"Cambrophile" is the word used to describe someone who thinks Wales is the bee's knees. The title comes the Roman name for Wales, " Cambria." I think Cambrophiles have latched onto this particular title because it gives us the opportunity to tell you something about Wales just in explaining what we are.

I have become the sort of person who can somehow connect the tiny Wales to every good thing that has ever happened; Abraham Lincoln was part Welsh, as were St. Patrick and William "Braveheart" Wallace. Similarly, bad things have nothing to do with Wales; there is absolutely no Welsh connection to Hurricane Rita.

I saw a survey recently that showed that 70 percent of Welsh people identified "going to the pub" as their preferred way to spend free time -- these are my people. Indeed, the whole of the British Isles are my kind of people.

I feel really lucky to have had a chance to visit with so many great people last week. I know that the next time I visit, I will stay for considerably longer.

Hopefully some of their hospitality will rub off on me and I can return the favor. Perhaps one day there could be a British Internet columnist who confesses to complaining about the lack of decent cheeseburgers in London.

Chris Cope is married, with no children. His column appears every other Tuesday.