A little over seven months ago, I moved to the United States from Europe. It was time for a new adventure. Never before had I been to the US, never before had I even been on an airplane. For seven months I have been trying to adapt myself to life here which, when looked at on the surface, is not that different from life in Western Europe. However after a while many differences become apparent.
In Europe we tend to say that the ‘Americans’ want everything bigger and better and this little phrase applies to a lot of things here. For example the infrastructure; houses, neighborhoods, streets, shopping centers, stores and restaurants. Everything is bigger than in Europe. What many people like about Europe, the picturesque little towns, the small old churches, town-squares etc, the United States (for as far as I have seen it), lacks. Although I have seen my share of tiny churches along the side of the road.
‘Americans’ (and excuse me for using thins term so boldly and generally) raise their children with different values. Not just in the family life, where I see a big lack of respect for not just the parents but all elders, but also in schools. It’s very natural to view events that have occurred in history from your country’s point of view. All countries do this as it is ‘our’ ancestors’ history. However the prejudice I had about Americans being ignorant when it comes to Geography has so far, sadly, only been enforced. Many times I have had to explain that The Netherlands is not a collective name for Scandinavia (which is the collective name for Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland), nor is it the collective name for the BeNeLux (which is the collective name for Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg). My country is not located near Greenland or Iceland and yes, another name for it is Holland, they are not two separate countries.
Less often, but still an annoying amount of times, have I had to explain that no, we do not all wear wooden shoes, live in windmills, grow Tulips and smoke weed all day. The Netherlands is in current society, but also history known for some very big achievements. Have you ever stopped to think about where the names ‘Brooklyn’, ‘Harlem’ and ‘Flushing’ came from? You can find their Dutch equivalents in your atlas (resp. Breukelen, Haarlem and Vlissingen). Ever wondered where the CD came from? An invention from the Dutch company called ‘Philips’. How about the microscope? Yes dear readers, also a Dutch invention, by sir Antoni van Leeuwenhoek.
Now don’t get me wrong, I know many Dutch people think the United States has 52 states instead of 50, and have a lot of prejudices about Americans, so I am not saying one is better than the other. It’s merely the point of perspective.
There are many things I have grown to like about the United States, such as: Low airfares, cheap gas, drivethru banking, stores opened on Sunday, stores opened until 11pm, midnight movies, butter on my popcorn, 500 channels to chose from, $1 movie rental, someone who packs your bags at the cash register, amazon.com and many more. To me, the whole country is built for convenience. You can just hop into your car (if you have one) and the whole world is at your disposal. At first I was amazed at the big diversity in just drive-thru restaurants, and at their frequency. Where in Europe I pretty much had the choice between MacDonalds, macDonalds, MacDonalds and an occasional Burger King, Pizza Hut or KFC, here there’s Zaxby’s, Wendy’s, Arby’s, Chick-Fil-A, and many more. And you never have to drive more than five minutes to get to one. I remember back at home, on a lazy Sunday with an empty fridge we would sometimes say: let’s go and get some drivethru! Even though there was a McD’s just five minutes away from home, we would drive 25 (!) minutes just to go to the drive-thru… How lame was that?
But comparing food I have to say many things here in the US are very bland to me. I am used to foods with strong and distinctive flavors where here, everything gets covered by a layer of either butter, cream or BBQ sauce… Bread tastes sweet and is so loaded with preservatives you can leave it in the pantry for two weeks and it’ll still taste ok. I have to pay 25 bucks a lb for a decent imported Dutch cheese, you sweeten your icetea, but don’t flavor it, Pancakes are yellow, thick and ALWAYS covered with butter, you eat sausage or sometimes steak and hash browns for breakfast and WHY do you have milk and cookies before bed? Another thing that dazzles me is that you can get a fastfood meal for 5 bucks and will not know what to do with half of it, but if you want to shop for some decent fresh ingredients, you might have to forget about going on vacation during the spring.
When I just got here I took some driving classes, just to get familiar with the roads and the traffic rules here ( a whole other chapter that is!), and my instructor would ask me every two minutes: “Do you like…food?” (fill in any kind on the dots) and we would just then pass a place where I could get some. Everywhere there are restaurants, everywhere you can order take-out, everywhere, the portions are too big and everywhere, you can take a to-go box. Try asking for one in my country, the waiter will try his best not to laugh at you. Here, I can order a decent meal and a drink for 12 dollars and will have enough to take home for a second meal. In the Netherlands we used to make a sport out of finding a restaurant where you could eat for less than 25 euro’s (which is about 35 bucks). If we managed to succeed we had a cheap dinner!
Over Christmas I went home and one of the days I was there I went out for dinner with a friend. At the restaurant I ordered a Diet Coke (Coke light in the NL) and after a few minutes the waiter comes in with the tiniest glass (0.25 liters), filled with 3 ice cubes (thank god for that) and a 0.2 liter bottle of coke. After four sips my glass is empty and soon enough I start looking out for the waiter, hoping that he will replace my empty bottle. However when he finally spots me, nearly dehydrated by then, he gives me the option to order a new coke, and another 2,5 euro’s (3,5 dollars) is added to the bill. Excuse me? I was so happy to come back here to the land of the bottomless cup!
However what I do really miss about Europe is its cultural diversity. It took me at least four months here to not get lost anymore because landmarks, no way! Every shopping center looks the same, every community or subdivision looks the same and I got lost everywhere! In Europe, you KNOW when you’ve crossed the border and drove into a different country, when the traffic-signs are suddenly in a different language. And believe me, it’s not that hard to suddenly cross a border from my country. In fact, one of my favorite ways to spend a lost afternoon back at home would be to drive to Germany and go shopping. Especially when I knew I was moving here I loved going over there to practice my English. I would find the smallest town I could find and go into a bank or a pharmacy and start asking questions in English. It soon became a game to time myself in giving them a panicked look on their face. I know, cruelty right? But you would think that in a developed country in Western Europe, everyone would speak English. Apparently not!
All in all there is definitely a balanced scale present and if I were to move back, there will be many things I would miss about the United States. Perhaps it would take me 25 years of living in the US to not feel homesick for Europe anymore. Either way, living here or in Europe, I must admit I feel very privileged to have been able to live in both places. In the future I plan do try and do so in many more of the magical places of the world. After all, although my roots are European and more specific, Dutch, I feel like a citizen of the world.
