Travel is the biggest teacher – I have read somewhere, it indeed is. It's my second trip to America this year ,I share with you’ll some of my observations and experiences as I hope this will be of use to both of you sometime later in life.
Once you drive away from the airport ,the first thing that strikes you about America is the sheer size of things – especially since we come from India. Big roads, multi lane highways, huge size pickup vans, long limousines, big cars, tall buildings and of course many big and huge Americans – both men and women.
Next a few things that irritate you are that they are among the only nation’s in the world which uses 110v electricity while the rest of the world uses 220v. So you need a different set of adaptors with a step down transformer to keep your electronic accessories charged.
Americans don’t walk – they drive. American’s drive on the right side of the road which again is a visual departure for our Indian eyes. Most American cars are automatic transmission and stick shift cars are more expensive than their automatic cousins. Apart from the business districts of New York and Chicago, I have rarely seen Americans walk. Everybody seems to have a car , even the waitress who served you your last meal in the restaurant would have a car to drive back home. I must say that it is scary phenomena to even attempt to cross the road in some of the towns of America – cars, trucks of all sizes ,shapes and colours just whizz past you.
I am at a loss of words as also scared of repeating the same adjective to describe America. If I were to sum it all, I would like to name it – Land of Abundance. Everything is seen or available in huge quantities. The sheer size of some of the malls not to talk of the size of the accompanying parking lots brings you to compare it with India and our crowded shopping malls, the great traffic chaos around them and the lack of even basic parking space. No valets for parking, just do it yourself, in America.
Another feature new for our eyes is the fact that you do not see many people on the streets. And wherever you see a lot of people, say at a cash counter or maybe a snack stand or at the hotel reception, Americans always queue up. It is one of the most polite and decent thing that one can do in society and somehow we in India have never got to doing this. Certainly one of the positive things we can learn from their culture.
‘How are you doing today’ is a common salute you would hear from any American pass by you – with a huge smile. Certainly, makes a big difference to your spirits when addressed this way. American’s are very liberal with their Thank you’s and Take Care, all with a natural smile to go along with. Something again we need to learn and practice back home.
America is a melting pot of various cultures and nationalities they say. While it belongs to the original inhabitants the Red Indians, the early settlers were the British followed by almost every nationality from Europe. The next settlers would be the blacks from the West Indies and from Africa. The Hispanics came next and the Chinese followed them and the Asians made a beeline a couple of years after the Second World War.
Every kind of cuisine is available here and in the American proportions I mentioned earlier. Once you order a drink or a meal here, once again you realise the size of the drink and the meal they serve here is much larger than you get served anywhere else in the world. Most restaurants have a concept of a bottomless cup – that is you pay for the first beverage, be it a coffee or a cola, the waitress keeps on refilling it till you can drink it all. They also must be the one of the largest consumers of ice, all drinks are served and consumed with lots of ice cubes. The most popular hot beverage is coffee and our Indian staple beverage of hot tea with milk is rare to find. Americans seem to love their coffee either in large mugs and nowadays in those disposable Styrofoam glasses which have a removable lid with a pout for drinking. To me it somehow symbolises their urgency in doing things as well as their need for mobility.
American are passionate about their sports – baseball, football, basketball or golf. I am yet to understand the typical American games of baseball and football but you keep on hearing of related terms – home run, touch down etc. At first sight baseball reminds you of an India Pakistan one day match as if in the final over. More on these sports when I learn about them. Cricket is foreign to Americans and so is Football.They have their own version of it called American Football.
More Later.
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