Rachel Lucas notes that she’s been all over Europe in the last few months, but nowhere over there is very far away from anywhere else compared to the US. Check out this startling (to me) map, you can move it around to see for yourself.
As I say, this is a startling perspective, at least for folks like me who’ve not thought about it in a long time, and is igniting all sorts of European road-trip daydreams in my head…. The wife and I routinely drive 300 miles or so to the California Central Valley from the Bay Area to visit relatives. We drive 1000 miles to go to Boomershoot. These are not really long trips (not at the speeds we drive, anyway).
When we were over there visiting, we drove across Slovenia, the long way, in a few hours.
Yeah, it was wierd.
When I lived in Ireland, my friends thought I was nuts, because I had a girlfriend who lived 60 miles away; and I would visit her every weekend, and sometimes on a Wednesday night.
The whole country is only the size of Indiana.
I told them that I used to drive further than that in a single day for work, sometimes as much as 300 or 400 miles and that I WASN”T a trucker, and they just didn’t get it.
I would often hear from prospective tourists that they were thinking of driving around the U.S. a bit, and they’d ask me something like “how far across is Texas?”. “Oh, it’s a good 16 hours of driving just to cross Texas alone” would blow their minds. They literally didn’t believe me.
England is small and it takes longer to get anywhere because the roads are twisty and narrow. I hitchhiked from Vienna to Amsterdam to Paris and back on a long weekend – it was like going from the Bay are to LA to Vegas – what’s the big deal? There’s NO long-lonely space-highways like then Nevada-to-Idaho run, the longest continuous national distance is the edge of Norway to the arctic circle – and that’s about the same as going from London down to Portugal, or something like that. They’re pipsqueaks.
Reminds me of one of my favorite jokes: Q-What’s the difference between Americans and the British? A-Americans think 100 years is a long time, and the British think 100 miles is a long drive!
In the AF, I went ahead to Germany to set up house, then later the wife joined me. On the day I picked her up at the Frankfurt airport, I told her that we were going out to dinner. She asked where and I said, “France.”
Reading one of the Post Secret books (a Christmas gift) this weekend, one of the secrets was that a guy broke up with his girlfriend for another girl who lived a kilometer closer. A kilometer? WTF?!
….and then they come over here and complain about how big everything is.
I recall as a kid, living in Lyon for 3 years. The parents would drive to Krakow every chance they could get to visit their family. Their friends/family thought that it was the most insane, lengthy drive ever undertaken. And it was insane, but more for the bit through the East German boarder and along the terrifying, twisty village/alpine then for the physical distance.
People try to make fun of Americans for never leaving their state or country. But in Europe, many people never leave their country either. And with the distances involved, they have less of an excuse then Americans that’s for sure.
Back when, mother-in-law told her father that ‘Daughter married a guy and moved to Oklahoma(had been in Texas). Grandfather wrote back from Germany “Where is Oklahoma? I can’t find it on the map.” She’d sent him a Texas map years before so he could see where they were, where they went on short trips, etc. She sent him a US map and “Oklahoma is the state just north of Texas.”
Reply: “This is ALL ONE COUNTRY?!?”
Ha, nice.