It was all so overwhelming, my first visit to Ohio. Not only was this the first time I was going over to be with My Love in his world, but I was also going to meet his Loved ones; Daves two beautiful sons, have dinner with his Mom on Mothers Day and meet his brothers and their families. I was very excited and nervous at the same time. Packed way too many clothes and kept my camera handy at all time, in case I would be able to see the countries from way up high and could take some pictures. And pictures I did take, not only from the plane but I kept on shooting at every sight Dave took me to. His old grade school, his high school, the house and the neighborhood he grew up in. His grandmothers house and with each turn of the road I kept on saying ah and oh. What a beautiful part of the USA I had come to. Those beautiful wooden houses everywhere, old churches and buildings and a nature and wildlife I had never seen before.
Never in my life have I seen so many and such big shopping malls, so many restaurants and fast food places. Even the bookstores with the coffee corner were there, just like the ones I had seen in TV-series. I was surprised to see how cheap everything was, how many different brands of one product there were in just one section of a huge grocery store. How I loved the atmosphere of Joes Crab Shack and I could not believe my eyes to see how normal it was for everyone just to wait in a long line to be seated at a table; to go to any restaurant without a reservation is almost out of the question over here.
The people are kind and friendly and it was no problem at all to get back into the apartment the day I locked myself out when I was doing the laundry while Dave was at work. The janitor who was working on the door of the other building let me back in. What I saw as funny were the washing machines and dryers in one of the basements, where every tenant goes to do his or her laundry. Dave also told me that the apartments all come with a fridge, a stove a dishwasher and a hood. Even the lights in the entire apartment and the carpets came with it. Those are all things that you have to buy here yourself when you rent a place and probably none of us Dutchies would even consider sharing a washer and dryer with their neighbors.
Renting a place is so much easier too than over here. Just call the company that lets the apartments, go over and see it and decide whether you want it or not. The rent is so much lower as well than here. Besides that it is pretty hard to rent a place over here as the greater part of the rental places are owned by the local government. I hardly saw any pets and heard that there are a lot of buildings where no pets are allowed. The wildlife on the other hand was so overwhelming. I have never seen so many deer in my life. So many squirrels and all kinds of beautiful bright colored birds, groundhogs and even had the pleasure to smell a skunk when we went out for a walk one night. What I have not seen yet are the lightning bugs that are around for a number of weeks during Ohio summer. Dave had promised me to show them but when I got back for his birthday, they were not there any more.
Another awesome experience was the tornado that came so close to North Canton while I was there. The warnings coming in over the TV long before it looked like anything was going to happen, before the skies got threatening dark. The wind picking up and tearing at the building, the lightning striking and finally the rain that came pouring down. There are hardly ever any tornadoes in The Netherlands and if they come here once every blue moon, they are never as severe as the ones that hit the US every year.
After that first time I have already been back a few times and I love everything I have seen. From the so called reality shows on TV over here I had seen how tough the US Police Officers can be. While driving back home from a wonderful long weekend at the beautiful Niagara Falls, our car broke down right in front of traffic lights. It did not take long before a police car pulled up behind us and an officer came over to the car. He was absolutely nothing like I had expected. He was kind and friendly, called a garage to have our car towed away and drove us to a nearby shopping center where Daves kids came to the rescue an took us back home.
How I love the houses Dave his brothers live in. They are totally different from each other but both houses are beautiful with such a big piece of land around it. Last year we came back for my first American family Christmas. We stopped in New York to do some Christmas shopping and spent a few days there before going on to Ohio. Saw all the malls and the stores decorated, saw Santa in the malls and all the little kiddies standing in line to go and see Santa and how I would have loved to join them and once in my life sit in Santas lap. And of course I had to buy some of the beautiful Christmas ornaments. They are spectacular and how I loved to get them on the after Christmas sales. I had my first Christmas dinner with all our loved ones and we went to midnight mass with Daves Mom on Christmas Eve.
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To make it the perfect Christmas it was snowing when we came out of the church. Christmas morning all Akron was covered with a beautiful snowy white Christmas blanket. We shoveled the snow off the walk path and had our first snowball fight. I have beautiful special memories and so many pictures of your beautiful country that I think I could fill an entire website with so many pages about all the people and places I have already seen and would keep on adding pages after every time we will go back. I just love your beautiful country and can not wait to see more of it, to see all of it.
