Coming to America: My Journey and First Impressions

As a teenager growing-up in Holland, I used to watch numerous American TV shows. The one that I really liked was Miami Vice starring Don Johnson. At this time in Holland there were only two television channels, and they didn’t commence until 3pm in the afternoon and ended slightly passed 11pm. Another one I really liked was Magnum, P.I. starring Tom Selleck. And though Magnum, P.I. was featured only once a week, it provided me with enough inspiration to enter the world of palm trees, white beaches, beautiful women and a red Ferrari. But if not a red Ferrari, I would have gladly settled for the convertible Rolls-Royce Corniche as occasionally featured in my other favorite TV show, Hart to Hart, starring Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers. For me, Don Johnson, Tom Selleck, and Robert Wagner as portrayed on television were the ideal men living in the ideal world.

So in 1983, after graduating from high school in Holland, I stepped aboard a KLM Boeing 747 to the USA. It was a one-way ticket to paradise, at least so I thought at the age of eighteen. It was to be my long awaited escape from the Dutch rain to a land of sunshine and opportunity, from grey skies to blue skies.

Coming to America

A couple of hours after checking-in, I was high up in the sky and realized what an achievement it was for mankind to have the ability to fly above the clouds, next to the sun, in such comfort and ease. 

I was reminded of seeing the black-and-white pictures of the well-dressed men and women flying the first transatlantic passenger planes, the ones with the propellers. And only a couple of decades later, the jet engines replaced the propellers and the planes became even more comfortable and much faster. And I realized that the earlier generation had it right: the best way to honor the ability for mankind to fly was to dress-up for the occasion.

When I arrived in the US and walked outside the airport doors, I saw an attractive woman in a convertible Mercedes parked at the curbside. I smiled and gently waved at her. To my delight, she smiled back. And though I wasn’t the one she was picking up, her smile was confirmation that my American dream was on its way to becoming reality. After all, I was in Los Angeles, and she could have been a movie star.