I was thinking about something while driving home from work the other day. This post is a little overdue, but better late than never I guess. First, let's back up to the end of June...
For my friend Jenny's birthday last month, four of my friends and I went to eat at Malone's in Maple Grove. Next to the restaurant is a parking lot. On the other side of the parking lot is another parking lot. And on the other side of that parking lot is a movie theater. We decided we would go see a movie after dinner. We started discussing how w would get to and from our cars and the theater, since the movie would be out late when it was already dark. To me, it was obvious. We'd leave our cars parked where they already were, in the restaurant's lot, walk to the theater, and then walk back to our cars after the movie. One of my friends responded with something to the effect of, "Yeah but then we'll have to walk all the way back to our cars after the movie." Now, I'm not making fun whatsoever. I'm just making a point that Americans tend to be pretty lazy. Again, I repeat, I'm not calling my friend lazy. It's just the mindset of a lot of us here that because we have cars, we need to use them. Of course we'd have to walk to the car from the theater, but is walking across a [not even than huge] parking lot and a tad into another really big of a deal? Absolutley not. The distance from the theater to our cars was less than the distance from my apartment in Lure to the movie theater, which was really close, and I walked there (even in the dark) all the time. In the end, we left our cars where they were. A little walking never hurt anyone.
So, this is what I was thinking about yesterday. Last week was my niece and nephew's birthday. We went to my brother's house for cake and ice cream, and I decided, for some weird reason, that I would walk. I've missed walking places, since I did it ALL the time in France. Now, saying I'd walk to my bro's house might not seem like that big of a deal, and really, it's not. But if you know where I live and know where he lives, it's not like walking to the town center in Lure. (For those of you who know the area, I live sort of by Fernbrook/MGSH, but on the other side of 30, and he lives over behind Walmart.) I was meant to arrive there at 7:00pm. I intended to leave around 6:15, but instead I left at 6:50. I know, dumb idea, but I knew I didn't HAVE to be on time. So anyway, I arrived at 7:40. That's a 50-minute walk. Now, in a car, I'd say my brother lives really close. It's about a 2-3 minute car ride, max. But 50 minutes walking? That's a long walk! In Lure, the farthest thing away was 30 minutes, and I thought THAT was a hike, even though I did it all the time without questioning it. I had the city divided into minutes from my apartment in my head. The first-choice grocery store was a 16-minute walk, and the next was 12 more minutes, equaling 28, which I rounded up to 30. So whenever I think of how long it takes to walk somewhere, I compare the distance to wherever I would be in Lure after that amount of time. So in Lure distance, my brother's house is actually all the way out of town, a place I never walked to. And I never would have tried.
The thing is, that grocery store 28 minutes from my apartment seems like it was really far away, like it was on the other side of town. And my brother's house, even being further away, seems super close. So what's my point? My point is that Europe is really dense. Everything is so small and close together. The sidewalks are tiny. You can barely fit two people comfortably side-by-side, but here you can fit 5 or 6 sometimes. You can get from one end of a street to the other in no time, even though you'll pass by 20 different shops. Here, to pass by 20 shops... that's a loooong distance because our shops are so huge. On the way to the 28-minutes-away store in Lure, I passed by EVERYTHING there was to pass by in town. Tons of houses, the theater, lots of bakeries, a church, pharmacies, shops, the post office, restaurants, etc. (Okay, focus on the church. It took five second to walk past the church in Lure. Here it would take at least a minute to walk the distance from one end of a church to the other, since most churches around here have big yards.) Here, I passed by some houses, of course since it took 10 minutes alone to get out of my own neighborhood, three major stores which were off in the distance, a few shops and restaurants on the other side of the street... You just can't compare the two places. It's so different! Oh, and I wouldn't dare cross the street here without using a walk signal at a stoplight. Crossing four to six lanes of traffic? No thanks. In Lure, no problem. I'd see one car every 5 minutes it seemed, although that's a bit of an exaggeration.
So now I see why we have cars. But I'm trying to look for opportunities to walk places. No way could I walk to work. It takes 15-20 minutes to DRIVE there. Even walking a close distance somehow manages to last forever around here. We have totally different perspectives of space than they do in Europe (or at least than I did).
Okay wow, that was a lot of rambling. But it was crossing my mind a lot and I wanted to share. Thanks.
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