how many times can I Europe-brain myself into looking at a bit of Google Maps, thinking "oh there are shops there, guessing it must be a high street, that's where I'll go" and be confronted with this, by foot
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My daughter stole my phone at the weekend, zoomed into Alberta, Canada and started exploring Street View in the middle of nowhere. It took her scout half an hour to find a village and by then, my battery was on about 2%
Who amongst us has not stayed at an airport motel and just thought, oh ill just pop to that restaurant tantalisingly positioned just across the road for tea, what could be simpler
Booked an overnight train to Idaho. Saw the arrival time was 2:45am. Checked Maps. "Hotel looks walkable" I thought, before hopping out and walking for an hour in -7 through the abandoned rail yard.
My shock of first going to Canada, seeing a map 1:200,000 and asking for a more detailed one only to be told this is what they have since there is nothing in between! Then 50-100 miles later we get to the next place and it has one motel, small shop, petrol station and that is it. Total culture shock
I once had a British colleague, young and fresh to America arrive to a very important client meeting that was about 45 minutes drive from NYC, 2.5 hours late bleeding and dehydrated. He'd eyeballed it and got on a train. He'd walked on freeways and through fields.
Something I did not sufficiently consider after walking to a bar for an aperitif ~45 mins away from my US hotel last week - in lots of places there are basically no street lights and only the tiniest of footpaths along a multi-lane road. Good times.
On oft unmentioned consequence of the “car first” planning in most of the US is the ‘transit impoverishment’ of millions without access to a car. Many, especially the elderly, are effectively imprisoned when they can no longer drive.
Having had to walk along roads like the one Thomas mentioned, with no accommodations for actual people, one definitely feels almost subhuman; a lesser being amongst the machine-human hybrids as they speed past you, casting dismissive, sometimes predatory, glances at your weak, perambulating form.
In fairness I made that mistake staying at the Travelodge in Glastonbury (outside of festival time) it's a half hour walk into the town centre along a similar road some years back!
😭 my sis had a US pal & used to stay with him - would walk out of the door to 'pop to the she shops'. WHAT YOU CAN'T WALK THERE!! As she discovered after trying to pick her way along the storm drain 😬😬
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjta4AKnHP0