After my flight connection was changed and I had to stay one night in Stockholm before continuing to Chicago (which caused me to arrive one day later than planned) I have now finally arrived in Appleton and have slept a bit. Now that my impressions are still fresh, I want to share them.
The first impression I got was the arrival. Flying into Chicago gave me the first look onto an american city, and it looked just as I expected it: Straight lines whereever you look. That is something quite uncommon for me who is only used to the european city style which is very different and not as organized most of the time.
After arrival I had to pass the border patrol, which I was kind of afraid of. I had heard stories of them being extremely strict and serious, and so I did not want to do anything wrong. I had to wait around 30 minutes without any progress until the officer came to the cabin and started giving out the important stamps. The whole border patrol check seemed to be quite unorganized and also not really efficient but probably thats only the german mentality that I cannot get rid of. After all, the border patrol was a lot less frightening than expected, I did not have my luggage checked and everything worked out smoothly.
Donna picked me up at the airport, which was really cool not be forced to take public transport or a greyhound bus to Appleton.
The highways we took really reassured me of the image I already had before when thinking about the United States:
HUGE HIGHWAYS – HUGE CARS
In Germany everything is about saving gas and being efficient, here it seems like these issues do not matter that much. Also, by passing through Milwaukee I got the impression that the whole city is build around the highway. I dont know whether that is true for other american cities as well, but the highways seem to be the heart of the city.
Appleton is pretty much exactly what I expected, a small town with around 100.000 inhabitants, the typical 2 storey houses everywhere and a small city centre with bars and fun stuff to do. For me, coming here from the big city is an adventure to get an impression how the life in a smaller town or village is different from what I know. I will keep you posted on that. I am positively surprised by the fact that there seem to be sidewalks almost everywhere, so I will try to get a bike and explore the city with that. I had imagined that I would have to cycle on the street, which would not have been the best idea probably.
Other than that I am only a bit shocked by how cold it really is here (-17°C at the moment). Even though we have temperatures like this in germany too every few years, it usually is something that you call “russian cold” and which is extremely uncommon. Here it seems to be relatively normal, even though this temperature is even for Wisconsin standards a bit lower than usually.
Now I will try to get myself ready for the first full day in the states, lets see what kind of insights this brings.
Yours