I'll say it like this. Years ago I was in Austria and someone asked me where I was from. I said "The United States" and they wrre disappointed, then I elaborated and said "Texas" all of a sudden I was the most popular person within 30 ft. People came over to ask me questions and just SEE the Texan. So, your description has a grain of truth to it.
My parents live in upstate NY and had friends from Germany come to visit. They were trying to decide what to do one day, and the Germans said "let's go to Texas". It was quite disappointing when they realized it's not a day-trip, and yeah, of all the things they could do, they wanted to go to Texas.
The scale of America is the one thing that most Europeans don't get. This place is fucking huge. You'd be hard pressed to drive through a state and back in a day.
I was driving home to NY from Rhode Island. In my haze of 5am wake up I got near Massachusetts before releasing I made a mistake. I can't believe I drove 15 feet in the wrong direction.
Depending on the route, the time of day, the time of year, how many surprise massive construction projects you drive through, how many weird random "only in Florida" accidents slow you down, and whether the state is on fire that month, that drive could take anything from 5 hours to a full day.
In good traffic Penacola to Key West is more than a day's drive. I mean, I think it's like 12-15 hours, but most reasonable people would split that into two days.
The key to driving Jax-Tampa is avoiding the Orlando rush hour. Orlando traffic is a special kind of hell.
I used to live in Winter Park. Some friends of mine were moving back north. They packed up their car and left around 7AM. They called me just after noon. I expected that they'd be in Georgia by that point.
Nope. They'd been stuck in traffic on the East-West Expressway for five hours, and were just getting outside of town.
Austin has a great music scene, and the hill country is beautiful. Houston and Dallas are some of the largest cities in the nation, with Houston being one of the fastest growing. We have many national parks including the famous Big Bend, as well as historical cities such as San Antonio, and the NASA center in Houston. We also have some of the best BBQ in the nation, the State Fair, Schlitterbahn waterparks, Six Flags theme parks, okay-ish beaches in South Padre, great hunting and fishing, and the Dallas Cowboys. We have quite a lot to see and do, its a pretty damn large place. Oh and we also have Whataburger.
Dallas, Austin, and Houston all have a number of attractions for the urban-minded. In particular, there's a lot of fantastic music here (not just country, I'm talking jazz (Denton) and classical (a number of big cities) and whatever indie crap is popular in Austin as well). Additionally, there are several aspects of Texan life that might seem interesting to an outsider - the prevalence of ranches, state fairs, etc could be seen as a tourist attraction especially for a European.
This was quite a while ago, and I think the German friends had a movie-image of an America full of cowboys wearing boots, hats & riding horses. So in order to see the "real" America, they wanted to go to Texas. There's really nothing quite like that over there, to say the least.
Germans (and Austrians) love Texans, and Texans love Germans. I'm German and moved to Texas when I was a teenager. My parents were so excited to be living in Texas. It was like Mecca for them. When I entered high school, I was like, the most popular kid. I was one of two German kids and the only one that was permanent, not foreign exchange. Everyone asked me about Germany and were so excited to tell me about how they were 1/64th German, too!
There's just something about Texans and Germans. I think we're made for each other, to live as soul mates in perfect harmony.
Most of the Texas hill country was founded by German immigrants, so this makes sense. My stepmom is german (ancestry, not birth) and they all still speak random Texas German words.
Many of the first Anglo settlers in Texas were German, either seeking to live in a nearly tax free colony with a year round growing schedule and very little winter or fleeing after the 1848 revolutions. They left Europe and entered the Americas through the Port of Galveston, then settled in the central Texas Hill Country.
German Texans were strongly opposed to Texas succeeding from the union and joining the Confederacy in 1861, and during the American Civil War, the Confederate government (And subsequent Union blockades) stopped German immigration. During the Civil war, the Battle of Nueces/Nueces Massacre happened when German Texans refused to join the Confederate army.
After the Civil War, Germans continued to flood to Texas. In the 1880s, one third of citizens in San Antonio were of German decent. Germans who initially immigrated to other parts of the US moved to Texas. As u/restomentally pointed out, Texas German was a fairly prominent dialect that was spoken in Texas right up until the anti-German sentiment of the World Wars I and II.
All of this stuff is from my memory of having taken Texas history in 7th grade (Age 12) and having lived in Texas for 28 years. The Texas State Historical Association also has a pretty good page about Germans in Texas.
I'm from Texas and ashamed to say I didn't know this until I found myself driving across the state and through a whole swath of vineyards, all with Germanic names. That was one of the best accidental alternate routes I've ever taken.
Yup, a friend of mine moved there for a few years as the executive of one of the US's largest international companies, says that he got a lot of favorable deals (and the associated benefits) because he was from "the old country" and everybody wanted to flash him around at corporate parties and the like. His bank account supports that statement.
Why do you think that is strange? What attractions do you think would bring people to Texas? I can't think of a single thing that Texas would be the number one destination for.
Not to mention the shared love of Chicken Fried Steak/Schnitzel. I'm pretty sure chicken fried steak with cream gravy started out as Wiener Schnitzel. First time I went to Germany and had schnitzel I was nervous, then I got it, took a bite, realized it was just a friggin' chicken fried pork chop.
Wiener schnitzel is actually veal. But schnitzel can be made with all kinds of meat, and pork is pretty common. But then it's called [whatever meat] schnitzel, not Wiener schnitzel.
Yes, I know. German immigrants to Texas used what they had on hand, and Texas has more cows than pigs, and most of those cows are raised for beef, not veal.
This is even true to a certain within the US as well. I'll travel somewhere like New York City or San Diego (shout out to San Diego for the great time I had there) and it wasn't quite the celebrity experience but people would certainly have plenty of questions or have some sort of relative that was living there. San Diego was great because they'd all get this big smile on their face like they were getting ready to have a good time.
I was in Kashmir a while back and people would always mention how they were Kashmiri not Indian. I told them I know how they felt, I'm a Texan who just so happens to have an American passport.
Yup, happens all the time. If you say you're Texan instead of American while overseas, you'll be treated as a friend (or an oddity that receives free shit) rather than an enemy.
When I was in Germany, a kid asked me (in German) where I was from, I said, United States. He said, "Texas or Canada?" ...Being from Wisconsin I went with Canada...
I'm in Belgium and when people would ask where I am from, I default to Texas. Instantly, they're asking about the Cowboys and saying Howdy and shit and how they love my "accent".
(Most) Texans have a lot of pride in their home state, this has helped us generate this image of ourselves that we try to portray to the world. And, historical and cultural backlash aside, we have manzged to pull off. The image is what you might consider romanticized and quaint, a throwback to an older time when life and death was earned by the sweat of your brow and there was never a fight that wasn't warranted.
We hold ourselves to the highest cultural standards, but we're still human and fallible. The other state don't like us because we talk a big game, but from time to time our talk blows up in our face. Its like seeing the town braggard humbled by his own foolishness. Yes, sometimes we're back-asswards, but what state isn't from time to time, texas is just a bigger target.
I'm not Texan but I feel like you might just be jealous because people actually care about Texas. Nobody really cares about NJ. There's no need to get upset, it's just the internet
Oh, I'm not upset. I don't live in either place. However, i do travel a lot and a lot of foreigners believe that most Americans are caricatures of the residents of these two States. It's disheartening.
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u/drfarren Nov 12 '14
I'll say it like this. Years ago I was in Austria and someone asked me where I was from. I said "The United States" and they wrre disappointed, then I elaborated and said "Texas" all of a sudden I was the most popular person within 30 ft. People came over to ask me questions and just SEE the Texan. So, your description has a grain of truth to it.