3.31 - Amsterdam (some first observations):
Already, in descent, there's a pronounced visual difference. An order. Un-American; not in any condescending sense of patriotic one-upsmanship, like that term's now often used, but something else, something organizational that I just haven't ever seen at home, or maybe I just haven't noticed. Channels pass concentrically from the city's center to its outskirts. There are lanes and traffic signals for the bicyclists, who outnumber the drivers (and the bicycles outnumber the people!). Ducks swim in the channels, and trolleys channel down the roads.
Forget what you might have heard with puritanically-rooted American ears: not just the red light district here is orgasmic. Ohh, what public transportation! Philadelphia, America, you could be so much more with just a bit of love for your Septa, or your Amtrak, or a little bit more thoughtful, efficient, domestic planning. Perhaps a little less war.
The people in this city bustle around, looking driven. But they bike too. And they don't always seem to be driving towards anywhere in particular. Or to be too worried about getting thrown off track. The men sit with their legs crossed at uncovered cafe tables smoking cigarettes.
Places tend to have a feel, a general tone with which they approach their internal tensions, a manner in which people wear their differences: the way they sit on a train amongst dissimilar appearance, or negotiate a conversation swollen with linguistic gaps of understanding. Once you have to work just to communicate, it can change what you mean, even when you no longer have to work for it. There are so many different languages here, so many ethnicities, so many cultural histories. They've certainly had their fair share of tensions in the past, and with the EU there are bound to be so many more, but...
I dont know, maybe it's just me. I've never really traveled much before. It's funny how strong the onrushing drive to interpret can be upon arriving in such a place. You try your best to digest, I imagine, to judge it.
And hell, this is only Europe...
3 comments:
Brian.... Amsterdam sounds amazing. What you say about the rush to translate/interpret is so true! I've felt that in Italy and France... makes you almost into a different person because there is no one else there to do it for you, you NEED to figure it out on your own. Especially if you're late for a train and you lost your ticket...
I'm going to be in Berlin on May 11th-15th visiting Nick. He said you were stopping by there, too... around the same time? That'd be pretty good.
Hope the travels continue to go well. I'll keep reading (I loooooove blogspot).
-Liana
Brian -- you posts remind me of my adventures abroad so long ago. Memories of heavy backpacks, language disasters, and all the spaghetti I could eat in Florence. Keep the posts coming! Your writing is so descriptive, I'm enjoying being an armchair voyager.
parman - i hear you about the bike lanes, and the bikers over here can get a little crazy at times, but for all the capitalist discourse on efficiency, ours isn't so hot back there in the us of a. i mean cars aren't really very 'efficient', and for all that billy penn did for our fine city of philadelphia, subways, light rails, trams and trolleys still pretty much provide the most efficient environmental system of mass public transit and, well, philly's just sorta lacking there, grid or no grid. i'll see you out there in denver before too long.
liana - i'm not sure if i'll still be here that late, but i'll certainly be somewhere in europe. hopefully i'll get to see you.
dave - hitler is dead. don't worry. i walked over the bunker where he died, which is now just an annonymous spot within an apartment complex near the holocaust memorial. alas, hitler style xenophobia certainly seems to be alive and well in the world, both here and in the states.
thanks everyone for commenting. i wish that the comments were better integrated into the site, and it could be more discursive, but ah well...
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