Seeing the US through Dutch eyes: Dallas, Kennedy, Miss Ellie and Longhorns

Summer again, free time from work and school, and a great vacation ahead of me! This year we have a trip planned to visit South of the U.S., Texas, the Grand Canyon and a part of Colorado. You are used to my blogs about gaming thoughts, would you mind if I take you along for the ride? Lets say it’s the U.S. through the eyes of a Dutch lady.

First stop: Dallas. For us, Dallas is best known for the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the television series Dallas. Two very different events but both put the city on the map. The death of JFK was felt throughout the world in 1963, it’s one of those events where people still remember what they were doing when they heard the news.The former president has had our interest ever since we visited his summer house in Hyannis/ Massachusetts last year. Our interest as non Americans it’s not from a political viewpoint though. He interests us because of the changes this enigmatic man made, his glamorous First Lady, a life that was cut short and on top of that, who can forget his young son saluting at his funeral? Anyway, we saw the 6th floor museum, debated whether or not it was a conspiracy. We saw the X on the road at the Grassy Knoll, and took a trip back in time.

The other trip we took was to a very different Dallas, the Dallas of the Ewings. Back in the day when Dallas first aired in the Netherlands it was an exceptionally luxurious look into the American way of life. Of course we had other American television shows, but the rich lifestyle, the cowboys, oil barons, the intrigues and the beautiful people, every since it aired in 1979 millions of Dutch people where glued to the television screen. I watched the first two seasons too, and when we decided to visit Dallas, we had to go see Southfork too. Our teenage daughter was prepared, she watched the first five shows to see what it was about. And by the way was hooked after that, I think she is way into the second season now. Even though we are not really fans, it was fun to see the house, Miss Ellie’s porch deli and to hear the story behind the ranch and the series. And even though they’ve stopped making the show, during the course of the day a good many visitors found Southfork. It was special to see how much enthusiasm it still inspired in people, all the woes and problems of a virtual family. One guy in the audience even had the theme-song of Dallas as his ringtone!

Dallas, and even more so, Texas conjures up images of Cowboys and cattle, so to find that we visited the Stockyards Station in Fort Worth. Not a real working stockyard anymore, as all the buying and selling of animals now takes place through the Internet, but still, we got a good sense of what it had been all about. Twice a day expert Cowboys perform a herd cattle drive. Now we are city born and bred, and I can tell you our cows look nothing like the cattle we saw there. The cattle drive looked exactly as we had anticipated though, the huge horns, the horses, the heat and dust and the Cowboys. And of course, big hats! The Cowboys looked a bit bored having done this hundreds of times already. But upon looking at the video a couple of times, prompted by my American friend who is very much an outdoors person and an expert at horse riding, I could see the way they were ready for any eventuality and handled the animals and their horses expertly. A good thing too, I wouldn’t have wanted to see one of the animals venturing out of line!

We left Dallas with the feeling we had seen all important sides to the town, on to our next destination, San Antonio Texas.