We arrived in Newark on Saturday, May 13th 2006.
When the driver brought our rental car I had to look twice. First I thought a bus is coming. Olaf started to laugh: “Welcome in the USA! Here is everything big, get used to it”. I did, very fast. After more than three years I am still fascinated to watch the mothers bringing their kids to school, soccer or pool in their big SUV. But I have to admit: I love my Jeep and I do not like to drive in Olafs small VW. It is so “comfortable and convenient”- two words, which describe American way of life very well. As I said, you get used to it faster than you think.
Hard to imagine but we even found our way out from New York without a GPS.
I knew that on Sunday would be “Mothers Day” in Europe, so I left small gifts for our moms at their homes. “I do not think that they have Mothers Day here too, but we take you out for a nice dinner tomorrow”, said my husband. After we drove for a while I knew that the Americans have Mothers Day , I saw the big signs at the flower shops.
On the next morning the waiter in our hotel welcome us for breakfast with “Happy Mothers Day”. I thought that was very kind of him, a special treat for the guest. In Germany nobody says to you “Happy Mothers Day”, except your children, it is not a big deal.
I had to learn three things on this day.
First : Americans say “Happy Mothers Day” in the same way they say “Happy 4th of July ”, “Happy Halloween”, “Happy Thanksgiving”. It just replaces “How are you?” on this special day.
Second: Everything in the USA is a big deal (“think big!”). Especially when it is connected to the kids. Just think about all the kinds of graduations and proms (this will be a special chapter).
Third: Never go out for dinner on Mothers Day (or any weekend) without a reservation.
We came to “Outback”, a restaurant near our hotel and saw a long, long line of people waiting in the front. Imagine, they all were waiting to be called up to their tables, even they had reservations! About something like this the restaurant owner in Germany can only dream…We tried some other restaurants, too. How naive we were… Of course we did not have a dinner that night, at least not in a restaurant. We were so exhausted because of the jet lag anyway, so we just went back to our hotel and ordered pizza. As the pizza arrived we were deeply asleep.
“Happy Mothers Day!”Wednesday, February 17, 2010
What I learned on Mothers Day
We arrived in Newark on Saturday, May 13th 2006.
When the driver brought our rental car I had to look twice. First I thought a bus is coming. Olaf started to laugh: “Welcome in the USA! Here is everything big, get used to it”. I did, very fast. After more than three years I am still fascinated to watch the mothers bringing their kids to school, soccer or pool in their big SUV. But I have to admit: I love my Jeep and I do not like to drive in Olafs small VW. It is so “comfortable and convenient”- two words, which describe American way of life very well. As I said, you get used to it faster than you think.
Hard to imagine but we even found our way out from New York without a GPS.
I knew that on Sunday would be “Mothers Day” in Europe, so I left small gifts for our moms at their homes. “I do not think that they have Mothers Day here too, but we take you out for a nice dinner tomorrow”, said my husband. After we drove for a while I knew that the Americans have Mothers Day , I saw the big signs at the flower shops.
On the next morning the waiter in our hotel welcome us for breakfast with “Happy Mothers Day”. I thought that was very kind of him, a special treat for the guest. In Germany nobody says to you “Happy Mothers Day”, except your children, it is not a big deal.
I had to learn three things on this day.
First : Americans say “Happy Mothers Day” in the same way they say “Happy 4th of July ”, “Happy Halloween”, “Happy Thanksgiving”. It just replaces “How are you?” on this special day.
Second: Everything in the USA is a big deal (“think big!”). Especially when it is connected to the kids. Just think about all the kinds of graduations and proms (this will be a special chapter).
Third: Never go out for dinner on Mothers Day (or any weekend) without a reservation.
We came to “Outback”, a restaurant near our hotel and saw a long, long line of people waiting in the front. Imagine, they all were waiting to be called up to their tables, even they had reservations! About something like this the restaurant owner in Germany can only dream…We tried some other restaurants, too. How naive we were… Of course we did not have a dinner that night, at least not in a restaurant. We were so exhausted because of the jet lag anyway, so we just went back to our hotel and ordered pizza. As the pizza arrived we were deeply asleep.
“Happy Mothers Day!”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment