"Toto, I have a feeling we ain't in Burton no more..."

I'm not sure what I was expecting from my first visit to the USA. If the films and TV shows were to be believed, it was a place filled with colourful characters from sitcoms, where everyone lived in towns with names like Springcreek and Greenville, greeted visitors with a cheery "how y'all doin' today?" and went home each evening to eat meatloaf and apple pie. But I told myself not to be so stupid. That was only the stereotype, right?

Actually it seems to be mostly accurate... For a start, the town in which we were staying is called Waynesville. It's apparently famous for its antique shops and consists of a rows of white, clapboard covered houses and shops, with an American flag proudly dangling from each lamppost: in short, your archetypal American small town. It's hardly a big town, yet it manages to boast about five or six antique shops (the American translation of antiques seems to be 'rather tatty junk which is probably no more than about ten years old') and of course the ubiquitous selection of fast food outlets.The people lived up to their image too. When we got to the house, not only did the next door neighbours specifically come round to introduce themselves, the day after we'd arrived, they also offered to lend us one of their cars (fortunately we were already borrowing one). I tried to imagine someone in Britain lending a complete stranger their ludicrously expensive Dodge pickup, having met them just a few hours earlier. My imagination is fairly active, but I just couldn't manage it... 

Another major difference I noticed about America is  how BIG everything is: the cars, the roads, the food, the people. For example, everyone drives either an SUV or a sedan and in the middle of an interstate, where, in Britain, there would be a narrow central reservation, in the USA there is a veritable field separating the two sides, often containing trees or bushes. I haven't yet seen a whole house in the middle of the road, but it wouldn't surprise me. The thing is, they just have so much more space. On our drive from the airport, George (the father of the person with whom we were swapping our home, and a typical retired Ohioan) asked  us about planning laws in the UK. We explained about the green belt, greenfield sites and so on. "We're needin' summat similar here," he replied, "If we keep on buildin' the way we are, we're gonna run of space real quick." I looked around me, out of the window of the car. The highway read surrounded by miles of fields and grassland, the emptiness only occasionally punctuated by a few roadside diners or malls. Space is one thing America is certainly not short of...

Actually, the landscape in Ohio was not quite what I'd imagined. In my mind's eye, it had been composed of seas of gently swaying maize as far as the eye could see, with no hills or undulations anywhere to be found. The kind of place where you could stand on a chair and get a good view. As it turned out, Ohio's landscape seems to be not unlike our own: gently rolling hills and fields (slightly crisped by a summer drought) with a network of roads, both large and small. However, unlike Britain, the landscape is dotted with those fantastic red barns with white roofs. It was a sunny day when we arrived and they stood out, contrasted against the bright blue sky and the verdant green fields of soya. It was a beautiful sight. However, every few miles, this bucolic idyll was shattered by the ugliness of a roadside fast-food joint or a gargantuan outlet mall. Convenience clearly comes before beauty in America... I began to notice more and more little things which caught my eye: a row of shops which included a "Daddy's Gun Store"; a massive super-church with parking for thousands; a billboard by the side of the highway with the words "HELL IS REAL" (I was half expecting to see a sign further on reading "...HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO COALVILLE?"). I began  to realise how different a culture it really was. It's a great place, but it certainly ain't nothin' like Burton...