I first visited the USA 3 years ago, with & 1 colleague & 15 students....

1/ I expected people to be very friendly, & they were!!! I �ve been organizing trips abroad for years, but this one has been the best one for our kids : They were so warmly welcomed that they were crying when we left the USA!!!! I couldn �t believe it!!! Most of the kids I took over there have had a regular  exchange ( e-mails, letters, visits...) that keeps going on...

2/ We expected to see many police officers - but not that many!!! I/we were amazed to see so many police cars/officers everywhere....Getting into the country was really diifficult : One of my students had a heart surgery & would have made all these machines �ring � when he went  through.... He was really stopped ( he was 16 ) & asked as if he were a terrorist. I spent a lot of time explaining, & re-assuring he was OK. Still, entering the USA can be ....frightening. When you �re 16.

3/ I came with 15 kids - aged 14 to 16 on a school exchange - everything paid by Veterans of WWII. We live by the D-Day beaches in Normandy, & every year, we have a celebration for American , British & Canadian veterans here.

4/ What surprised us most was the amount of police officers - I guess.

5/ We �re a group from France : Two teachers & 15 kids.

6/ We visited WDC, & Virginia, mainly.

7/ I �m a female teacher, teaching in a Junior high school in Northern Normandy. this trip has been one of the most fantastic ones ( I �ve made quite a few to the UK & Ireland ) : My kids were so warmly welcomed in their American families!!! They were crying when we left... Most of them have been keeping contact with their US families, & even if quite poor, plan to go back one day.

To my country standards, we were all very lucky!!! I �ll always remember this �special � trip for two reasons :

- How kind & nice the American families were!!

- How difficult it was for me to organize, have my kids feel relaxed, & enter the USA - with a handicaped child.

All I keep in mind is positive ; I keep getting mails from my �kids � who went to the USA, & were soooooooooo happy : Because of the warm welcome there. American families are soooooooo nice & kind, & helpful!!! I �ll never forget them - & will - as a teacher - will always be so grateful!

PS : I work in a �special � school : where kids come from poor families here. They were my happiness, my Love, my pride.

I took me a whole year to prepare them for the speeches they �d make - in English - before the French ambassador & alike in WDC. They were not very good ;o))) But they did it.

I �ll love them forever - just for what they did!!!

Sylvie

 PS : Please, sorry about  my English tonight!!! I�m back from a very looong meeting, I�m tired & not very good at English tonight, I�m afraid! It�s just I loved your post & wanted to answer... & Tell you how much love my kids got when they went to the USA.  Hope everyone here will forgive my (�pidgin� English - ...

Just back from a �French Educational meeting - 8 hours long ..........

 

 

Melahel, I �ll tell you one thing, most of us in this part of America would agree with you !

We don �t use the term "America" for the USA, as we are part of it too . We always say United States or the States, but we call its people Americans.

 

Now Arlissa, I was invited by two Americans to visit PA, VA and DC. I really didn �t have many expectations , I was just curious about speaking with natives and make myself understood, which was a great experience (although an African American bus driver in DC gave me a hard time !! I couldn �t understand much of what he said, I missed a lot of what he explained ! )

 

I found surprising how people say "Excuse me" all the time ! And how much food they waste! I couldn �t believe when my friend threw away a piece of pie because I refused to eat more ... I hadn �t even touched the plate ! Maybe that �s the thing that surprised me the most, kitchens are always clean because the microwave is the only thing they use !

Another thing I was surprised about was that I, as a tourist, was taken to places my friends decided would be interesting ... I was shocked to see most of them were war memorials ... and a cemetery ...

 

I loved to see how punctual and organised people are ! We could use some of that punctuality and organisation here, I can assure you !!  And Alexandria is one of the most beautiful cities I�ve ever been to ...

That �s all Arlissa, hope you can use this, too !

Have a good night, everyone !

 

 

               I will try to help you with your quiz

I went to the Us more than 10 years ago, I was invited to work as an interpreter. Some people from Argentina were visiting Chicago because there was a machinary show at a big center and they needed somebody who could translate Spanish into English. 

I was really exited because it was the first time I �d go to an English speaking country. You see, I learned my English from American English and Australian teachers who came to Argentina. They talked about their countries with such a passion that everybody wanted to go a see what they were like, but it was really expensive back then to do that.

 Then, when I decided to become a teacher I had to learned a lot about English and American history, Literature, geography and many other things. I know more about these things than of my own country. To sum up the expectations for someone that had heard during all her life about the greatness of a country, were really high. 

My teachers used to tell me how free people lived in the States and that if you worked there, no matter how importatnt you job was, you could earn enough money to live a life of luxury. In those days, in Agentina,we were living under military ruling and our parents had to work 10 hour to get a decent salary, so when we heard about freedon and living a great life without much effort, we thought the US was "Wonderland" 

Ten years ago I had the opportunity of visiting the Us for th first time. I spent 17 days in Chicago, 5 days in New York and 5 more in Miami. Chicago was amazing! I just loved the buildings, the clean parks and its people. I was even lucky to witness the shooting of a moving in the streets. People were sometimes nice. I remember that the first days there, whenever somebody asked me why I was vising the States I said that I was working and I received nasty faces to that answer. LAter my boss told me to say that I was a tourist and the faces changed to friendly ones. I also discovered that nobody except one person knew something about other country that was not their own. Most people confused my country "Argentina" with "Brazil" or didn �t know that I was American too. Some even thought that we lived in tents dressed as "Gauchos". I was really amazed at how little American people knew about other countries. They could speak for hours about the US but they didn �t know who their neighbours were. Another thing that also caught my attention was how lonely people live. Family is not as important as it is for latin people mainly. I saw many young people living alone and not visiting their parents for a long time. I also noticed there were very few bars with tables were you can go a sit with a friend and have a nice chat. People worked a lot. They would finish working and would go home or to a bar to have a beer sometimes alone. I remember I thought it would be very difficult for a me to live like that because I like visiting my friends after work or having a warm hug from my mum, but I must admit that I love the architecture and how clean everything looked.

I hope my experience would help you somehow.

Love from Argentina.

Thanks again

Natalia