TurquoiseB wrote: > "Takin' it to the streets." > > In my experience, having done a fair share of traveling > in my life, there are two things one notices most when > visiting a different country. The first is obvious -- > the things that are glaringly *different* from what you > see around out "at home." Everybody notices this. The > architecture, the way people dress, that sorta thang. > > The second, however, only "sinks in" after you've been > in the new environment for a while. It's what's *missing*. > > In the United States, what was missing was people walking. > > On the streets. On the sidewalks. At any time of day or > night. > > After almost seven years in Europe, I had grown so used > to this as a "given" that I had begun to take it for > granted. Thus it was fascinating to find myself in > supposedly cosmopolitan Houston, Texas and find myself > the only person on the sidewalks, day or night. > > It's a car place. One takes one's car to the market > around the corner. If one is going out for the evening, > one takes one's car to the first nightclub, and then > gets into it to drive to the second and third, even if > they are in the same block. > > Back in Sitges, I ran into more people out on the streets, > enjoying the day, enjoying the evening, enjoying *walking* > in my first five minutes back in town than I did in my > entire two weeks in the United States. > > Call me Eurotrash, but I really prefer the Euro approach. > > In Europe, one *goes out* to be with friends. One doesn't > necessarily invite them over to your box for dinner or > drinks or drive to their box in a movable box on wheels. > When one goes out, one goes out. Out of the box. > > And, more often than not, one goes out *on foot*. One > could assume, given that I am writing from Spain, that > this might have something to do with the weather. I beg > to disagree. I have been on the streets of Amsterdam at > 2:00 a.m. in the midst of its coldest winter in twenty > years and been surrounded by more people on the streets > than I would have been back in the US on a balmy summer > night at 9 p.m. > > Part of it might be the safety thang. In seven years in > Europe I have never found a single neighborhood in which > I was *not* comfortable walking at any time day or night. > Even on my short visit back to the US, I can see that > this is not a universal thang. > > But another part of it may be the essence of sociability > itself, which IMO has to do with *getting into other > people's faces*. Not over the Internet, not only in one's > own home, but out on the streets -- in bars, in cafes, in > restaurants, at the theater, just on the streets themselves. > > There is a *magic* about this that I found I missed terribly > when I realized it was no longer present.
Of course when people bring up Europe and the fact that the US is a "car place" then it is mentioned that Europe is that way because it is really a much smaller heavily populated place. Although when I was there for TTC I got the impression that business people did not get write-offs on their equipment that allowed them to replace it every few years as they do in the US. I think that has an impact on the culture. I would love to live in a European "vibe" place and I think a lot of us "boomers" are going to be thinking about this as we age. Right now if I had to walk to the store I would have to go up a steep high that has no sidewalks most of the way and I think is fairly dangerous because of that. So I would like to move somewhere that I could easily walk to a shopping center. Again California is so "car based" that little effort has been done in this regard. I would definitely get more of a "European vibe" living in San Francisco but who wants to live in earthquakeville where the cost of housing is high. Since I grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere I always feel I am somewhat flexible for living locations but prefer having a lot of amenities like an electronics super-store nearby. People think you're odd if you offer to let them sit at your table at Starbucks when all the other ones are taken up. And people rarely if ever ask if they may join you. I ask. Of course I used to hang out with a particularly more "social" bunch at Starbucks: the smokers. For some reason they were more outgoing and willing to get into a chat. Now they been banned due to overly draconian smoking laws (the old one was fine). America is sometimes its own worst enemy.
