by Eddy Jansen
I AM AN America lover. When I first visited the US during my active life – in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996 – I was mostly overwhelmed by big. Everything big, everything much. I was quite impressed by it: big cars, big highways, big skyscrapers, king-size beds, big bills. Everything big. But I don’t need that much coffee in the morning. I like to drink it out of a mug, not a bowl.
I have visited ten of the fifty US states in recent years. Hawaii (in 2018) impressed me the most in terms of natural beauty and history. I visited the islands of Maui and Oahu and of course went to see Pearl Harbor: after all, what happened there in 1941 subsequently determined much of the world’s future. In Hawaii, moreover, I became addicted to the poké-bowl, a dish that I still eat at specialized establishments in the Netherlands.
The hospitality of Americans also grabbed me. In 2014 in Miami, I had barely been in the Clay Hotel bar for half an hour when the guy on the next bar stool – a man from Chicago – offered to let me spend the night at his place if I ever were “in the neighborhood”. I always take things like that with a grain of salt. When I said I was from Eindhoven, the Netherlands, he asked me, “is that near Stockholm?” I just sighed and agreed. It is, isn’t it?
In 2019 in Venice Beach, LA, I met two girls, Jennifer and Leslie from Cleveland, Ohio. It clicked right away, a great night out at Hinano’s Bar, but yet that grain of salt again. Americans, right? Nevertheless, now, five years later, I am still very much in touch with those two. If plane tickets to Cleveland weren’t so expensive, I’d know exactly what to do.
AMERICANS often react as if on an autopilot, in my experience while visiting the States. In 1996, during the Olympics, I reviewed American sports pages every day for Dutch radio, which I bought from the same news stand every morning on my way to the IBC (International Broadcast Center). ‘Morning sir, how are you today?’ Me: ‘Fine, I’m okay!’ He: ‘Oh, great!’ After five days of the same ritual, I decided to play it differently on the sixth day. He: ‘Morning sir, how are you today?’ Me: ‘Terrible. I had too much wine yesterday and now I have a headache!’
He: ‘Oh, great!’
* Eddy Jansen is a freelance journalist. He worked for the daily newspaper De Gelderlander, NCRV and NOS radio, PSV TV, Ziggo Sport, Eindhovens Dagblad and ViaplayTV.
