How My First Visit To The US Made Me Feel At Home
When you`re young and alone and have nothing to lose you can soon find yourself in trouble but when you find good people before long they’ll help you get back on track
The first time I arrived in the US I thought I was in a movie.
Like many Europeans, I had watched US movies all my life and now I thought I was part of one or some strange social experiment. Although I can’t speak for all my fellow Europeans because any American perception of Europe that it’s as tightly knit as the US as a people would be wrong.
But instead, I can say that as an Irish man I thought my first US visit was surreal.
I arrived alone late on a Monday evening. It was the first time I was in an airport of such a size. And I was tired from the weekend back home.
By the time I got to the airport, I thought I was in a maze.
Not only was the airport big and difficult to navigate but the people were so different to me. I was 20 years of age at the time and being in the US was huge although unlike home I realized pretty suddenly I was too young to have a drink and socialize as normal. I had gone over to play some sport for the summer so being alone for the arrival wasn’t too bad as I knew I’d meet up with teammates at some stage soon after.
As I lugged my bags around the airport and tried to understand what older and wiser members of my family had said about big international airports I couldn’t help but take all the different sights and sounds of the people around me in.
It was weird but strangely familiar.
Considering I had only ever seen one person of a different color skin in my life up until that moment the crowds of people and their colors were as exotic as a rainbow to me.
Then there was the noise.
People were so loud.
Unlike at home at the time where people were far more reserved as I hung around the airport and checked out my little unfolded map here and there as I rambled around I noticed how all types of Americans expressed themselves with such confidence. So much so that I could hear conversations without purposefully eavesdropping.
It was fun.
There was a self-belief in the air that wasn’t at home.
I could see females stride across big open areas independently with their heads up and their chest out. They knowingly had a place they wanted to go and no one was going to stop them. It struck me how they carried themselves and it impressed me too as many were wearing professional clothing but I had traveled to their country without even a job to go to.
As I had a slip of paper with an address on it of where I was going to stay that night I decided to get out of the airport rather than dwell there and study it in any richer detail.
That’s when the doors of the airport showed me a line of yellow taxis.
“Wow, I`m defiantly in a movie!”
is what I thought.
Although if I’m being honest back then we called them ‘films’. Still, ‘movie’ was the American term so I knew I had to acclimatize to fit in. after all I must have stuck out as I still wore my Irish clothes without any fancy clothing label as others around me passed me with such stylish gear on them.
Once I got into the taxi the driver asked me where I wanted to go.
I remember looking ahead and noticing the plastic glass partition between him and me and how he never turned around but just looked in the rearview mirror.
It felt so distant and unlike being at home.
Because there the driver would have insisted I`d sit beside him in the front seat. He’d be full of chat about the weather and would help me with the bags I was struggling to carry into the car. But this was different.
Now I was in someone else’s country and I knew I had to act as if I was confident enough to tell him where I was going.
In truth though, I hadn’t a clue where I was going.
There wasn’t even GPS technology at the time and I didn’t have a mobile phone.
The driver drove me around for 45 minutes before eventually he was forced to drop me off in some neighborhood. He couldn’t pinpoint the street I was searching for so I had to figure it all out myself when I got out on to the sidewalk- another term I had to chance from the ‘footpath’ I had been used to before I arrived.
I walked around for another half hour or so.
And I passed a few interesting people on the street. They looked at me but never smiled. I found that awkward because at home things would be more personal.
Darkness was about to come and I was stuck with lots of bags and no home to go to. It was my first night in the US and I was about to be homeless.
I stumbled across an Irish bar and decided to go in to ask for directions.
In I went and now I felt I was back in the twilight zone. The whole day seemed as if it was a dream. Inside the bar was hopping with Irish tunes and everyone smiled and patted one another on the back.
It was wild for a Monday night and got me giddy to chat with new friends.
Before long I`d met a few and they were intrigued by my travels and assured me they`d direct me to where I needed to stay.
But first I had to tell them about the news back home and then they said they`d hook me up with a job that summer so long as they could finish their drink as I spoke.
It made me realize that although they were far from home they too felt as if they were in that US movie.
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