Understatement
When we decided that it would be amazing for us to meet and take things from there, it suddenly dawned on me that this was the beginning of one of the most incredible adventures of my life. Having never been to the US of A before that in itself would be pretty spectacular, but to meet the woman of my dreams just sent the whole idea off the scale!! To say I was excited was the biggest understatement since the Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail conceded he had a flesh wound!!
So for those of you who’ve never been to the USA I thought I’d write a piece about my experience of America and what I thought of the country and its culture.
I remember the excitement when I’d bought the flight tickets! C’mon!!!
Anyway to cut to the chase, I went to America last Sept (2011), taking a BA flight from Heathrow’s new terminal 5, needless to say this is one awesome place!! You can’t help but be anything other than impressed by the scale of the place, for me it adds a great deal to the whole experience. I love travelling and have only travelled in Europe before, so this trip was by far the furthest flung destination for me and I was going to savour every minute of it!!
It’s vast!!
I arrived in Dallas Fort Worth Texas after my 10 hour non-stop flight on this bad boy!
When all the guff at the airport was done with I finally got to meet Tammy and boy oh boy that was something special that I shall never forget for as long as I live!! We kissed for sometime 😉 and then thought we’d better crack on and meet the family!
Get this! Texas had been in a drought for many months and the day I arrive it bloody starts raining lol!! A good thing for the Texans but I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. In this photo you’ll see that we were at an American football game, just a inter-school game, but they had cancel it because of the storm that whipped up only moments after this picture was taken. If you’re not used to big weather and you want to experience it, go to the States!!! They don’t do anything small!!! Crikey only a month ago Tammy’s house came within a mile of being wiped out by an F3 Tornado, I was actually on Skype with her at the time it was raging outside her house, very scary, but I knew she’d be alright; I just knew.
This thing actually changed direction at a junction and then when it had gone about a mile to the right of their home, then changed back on to it’s original course and wiped out 300 homes and buildings!!! Miraculous!!!
I digress……..
So yes it hits you immediately just how vast the place is and how spread out everything is, when you’re used to living on top of your neighbour and having no real space to your own, save inside your house, seeing the size of the houses and their gardens here was an eye opener. When you consider that for a 6 bedroom house with a swimming pool and double garage and an 1/2 acre of garden could only set you back approx. $160 – $180,000 or £100 – £110,000, you begin to understand how much land they have and how little it costs.
The Texan skies are just something else, they really are huge, that sounds odd i grant you, because they’re no bigger than ours, but the scale of everything changes your perception of the sky, it appears to be much bigger.
This picture was taken on our way to the iconic drive in cinema, I’ve posted about this before so I won’t bore you with that again, needless to say if you come to the States, go to the drive in, it’s and ACE way to watch a flik.
You drive everywhere in the States, it’s too big and all the shops and schools and stuff are just too far apart for you to even attempt walking. I didn’t see a bus in Lancaster, (save a school bus) the whole, entire time (lol, private joke) I was there. Sure they had them in Dallas city but where I think they need them they say is too risky to have them. That should tell you a whole other story about the States!
We’ll soon need one of these!
One of the most noticeable things is the trucks! To the Americans they’re just run of the mill vehicles, but to me it was like the Monster Trucks were on a day out!! You know what a Hummer looks like right? That giant truck designed originally for military use, then domesticated and blinged up to the eyeballs, well they’re small!!!
I mean these trucks are huge man!!! To give you some idea of how big this puppy was, the picture was taken from a rather large people carrier, with a high driving position and then this truck rolled past us!
Can you imagine sending your kids to schools where they have signs like this dotted around the entrance? Actually it’s not a problem that’s unique to America , I remember as a teenager going to Brixton Academy (London) to watch the girls play basketball, they had signs similar to this one at the entrance to the gymnasium halls. That said the signs in Lancaster TX, did seem a little more menacing, and to have them at a school is very concerning for any parent. I think living in an English market town has me taking certain things for granted, for example, how safe life is in King’s Lynn!!
Sky’s the Limit
One of the things I really hoped we could find time for was a visit to Dallas, luckily we had an afternoon free and after Tammy’s morning lecture we made our way 30 mins north of Lancaster to the big city! One of the things about this part of Texas is that it’s quite flat and open clear land, so as you leave Lancaster you can see Dallas in the distance. The skyscrapers thrust themselves skywards and like shards of light they demand your attention, a very impressive sight that I’m so glad I got to enjoy.
Iconic!!
The land of the free?
Revelation
I knew that Americans are very religious but I hadn’t imagined how much their faith is integrated into their daily lives, by that I mean the church owns schools, universities and community rooms and no doubt many other things that I’m blatantly ignorant to. Tammy is religious and even though I’m an agnostic I respect her beliefs greatly, and I wanted to go to her church and appreciate her life and all aspects of it.
This is church American Style!
This is a Baptist church and they believe in delivering the message with a high tech theatrical style, with a big show, music, lights, videos and guests. Actually the service was very entertaining and I was pleasantly surprised, that said after the first salvoes of music and song had finished the Pastor dived straight in with how important it was to give, to support the church community by offering tithes. Tithes are donations to the church, which have been in existence from the start of the whole church movement and usually run at 10% of your income!!!
This is a profound cultural difference and it made me feel a little uneasy about the rest of the service, but when you step back and consider that the church invests huge sums of money in education and supporting the community; it may actually be a good thing……..I’m undecided.
Fast Food and Lots of it!!
Everybody knows that America is the home of fast food, but again I don’t think many people really understand the scale of this industry unless they’ve been there and witnessed it for themselves. In England Mcdonalds is the big daddy of fast food and even though they are probably the biggest in the US too, it certainly didn’t feel like they have the lion’s share like they appear to enjoy in the UK.
My most memorable fast food experience whilst there was the breakfast we all enjoyed at the IHOP on the last day of my visit. IHOP stands for ‘International House of Pancakes’ lol you gotta love these guys!!
I had a stack of blueberry filled pancakes and they messed me up for hours!!!
So there you have it, just a few of my observations that I made on my visit to Texas, It’s definitely a wonderful country, but I’m not sure I’d want to live there full time, I suppose it’s like anywhere else, if you find the right place it doesn’t matter where that is; also it’s like Tammy says “Home is where the heart is”.
Adam x
Love, Hope, Skype 