One student's opinions regarding her views of America as a native of Holland

When I came to Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach in 2002, I was surprised at how much it actually drew parallels with the stereotype image of an American high school; there was the football team, the cheerleaders, the prom, the big hallways lined with lockers. It just somehow all seemed to correspond with the image that you see in those high-school movies and TV shows.

That was until I was told that there was schoolwork over summer break. My jaw dropped. We had to get a pass signed if we needed to go to the bathroom, and on top of that, school started at 7:15 a.m. My jaw dropped again.

That is something else I have noticed. Americans tend to get up really early. I don’t. This problem resulted in me literally running late almost every morning. How could they expect students to be alive at a time like that? The only positive thing about it was that school ended at 2:15 p.m., while in Holland it was usually around 4 p.m. Being at college now, of course, those strict rules don’t apply much.

Those rules did show me, however, that Americans definitely enforce discipline more than in my country. I also noticed that the United States is much more conservative in a lot of things too, and that came as a little bit of a surprise to me. For instance, in Holland the legal drinking age is 16 and in America it is 21. In Holland you can’t drive a car until you’re 18, so there’s less danger of drunk driving.

One of the common misconceptions that Dutch people, and Europeans in general, have of Americans is that all they eat is hamburgers and fries. Of course I didn’t believe that but I wasn’t surprised by the many, many fast-food places here. There’s one on almost every corner. I was surprised, however, by how large the food stores are here. I’ve found new favorite foods. However, I still can’t bring myself to eat steak for breakfast. Americans eat more meat than Europeans do, which is probably why I can hardly ever finish the portions they give me at the restaurant.

Having lived here for two and a half years now, I feel like I belong and I’ve noticed that I have become Americanized quite a bit. I have added new words to my vocabulary while discarding others. For example, unlike before I came here, I now feel weird saying that I want to buy a pair of “trousers.” What I mean is that I want to buy “pants.” Having lived in England as well makes my English a mix of American-British English. So when asked about my accent (which no one can really place because it is like a mixture of American, Dutch, and British), I tell people I am from the Netherlands.

I realize that a lot of people actually don’t know where the Netherlands is, and some think I speak Danish or German instead of Dutch. Much to my surprise, though, most people were all very familiar with the Dutch policy on our legal use of marijuana. That was one of the first questions I was asked by my new classmates in my junior year of high school. “Do you smoke pot?”

Another one of my impressions of the United States (but one that I have become practically oblivious to) was that everything is bigger here, whether you’re talking about food, houses or TVs. Coming from a country where everything must be small and space-efficient, because the country itself is so small that it fits into Virginia twice, I have definitely changed my ways. Last year my sister, Leonieke, a sophomore, and I returned to the Netherlands to visit family, and we cringed at the sight of all the small cars. I could count all the SUV’s that I saw during that trip on one hand. If you were to take a Hummer or even just a Ford Explorer to Europe, you seriously would not find a parking spot, unless you want to use about three parking spaces at a time. In fact, I doubt you could even drive it, seeing as we don’t have the four-lane wide roads there.

Being able to drive a car at 16 was another luxury because in Holland you can’t even start learning to drive until you’re 18- and even then lessons costs a couple thousand Euros. At first I was surprised by how many cars and how little public transport there is here. One cool thing about a bike; when you go out at night, you don’t have to take a taxi back, or assign a DD, you just hop on and try to make it home.

Lack of transportation is probably due to the fact that Virginia Beach is one big suburb. There is no real city center. I love my car, and my sister and I had NO problem leaving our bikes in storage for a couple of years. It wasn’t really a difficult choice; pedaling hard against a strong icy wind or pressing your foot down on the accelerator in a warm car. Actually, I would consider it to be a death wish should you attempt to ride a bike here down the boulevard. The cars here aren’t used to bikes much, and the chances that you would survive and not end up as roadkill after a couple of blocks are slim to none.

I have realized that this country is so large and diverse that I still have a lot of places to visit. I love where I am right now, and that’s all that matters.