Text 7000, 70 rader
Skriven 2007-10-04 09:05:29 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
     Kommentar till en text av Carol Shenkenberger
Ärende: Re: St. Bernardus Abt 12
================================
Carol,
 
CS>WD>That's not really an issue. My daughter and I were on a
CS>WD>really tight schedule anyway ... more tight than I expected
CS>WD>because I _again_ misjudged the driving distances.
 
CS> Chuckle!  I can see that one.  No matter how often you drive in the USA,
CS> your mind doubtless thinks 'KM' in the background then you try to adjust
CS> too far the other way.
 
The KM to mile conversion is not really an issue. Most states have a
speed-limit of around 60 so I always think in terms of "1hr driving = 60
miles". It's just the notion of "size".
 
This past summer my daughter and I ended up in Wilmington NC because I wanted
to see the battleship USS North Carolina. I figured that would take me an hour
... but it took me over 3 hours and I had visited only the main deck and 2 gun
turrets.
 
Then we continued on to Myrtle Beach because my daughter is on a self-imposed
mission to visit all the "David & Goliath" clothing stores world-wide. I
figured maybe 10-15 minutes ... she was in there for 2 hours. And Myrtle Beach
is a tourist trap, but an enjoyable tourist trap.
 
The plan was to arrive in Orlando that evening, dine somewhere, take a dip in
the hotel-pool before retiring. Well, these 2 activities mentioned above took a
5hr chunk out of my time-planning; so we arrived in Orlando after 1am instead
of ... well much earlier.
 
The same happened when driving to Key West, too many interesting sights
en-route, too many stops, late arrival ... but we dined and swam. Still need to
write about all that as Roy asked me to.
 
CS> Oh, an expected but humorous culture shock item here.  The folks at the
CS> hotel cant believe we *walked* to the market and then *walked* to the
CS> car dealer to get a car.  The car dealer place was amazed to see us
CS> *carrying* backpacks with some essentials (almost lost the loan over it
CS> til they did the credit check and I'm A1+ levels). The supermarket was
CS> only 2 miles away and the car place, a mere 1/2 mile back in the other
CS> direction but we dint bother to unload the groceries at the motel on the
CS> way back to the car place.
 
We do most of our local shopping and errands walking or biking. Usually a bike
is faster and easier to handle in the traffic here. It takes up to 15 minutes
to drive through the main street here with all the traffic lights, on a bike
you can handle that in 4 minutes.
 
CS> We found a bicycle repair place and explained the Cultech that's
CS> enroute.  The guy said for a chance to get his hands on one, he'll do
CS> the maintenance for free if he can park it in the window for a week.
 
And you got heavy-duty locks for it as well I hope? Remember, you're in the US
now. Theft-rate of such bikes here is enormous.
 
CS> The guy is a little nutty in the same way we became.  Use of cars should
CS> be for when the distance is too far for other means.
 
Absolutely. The mam of my girlfriend (ex-girlfriend of course) in the US in the
70-ies worked in an office about 300 meter from their house ... 330 yards? You
guessed it: she took the car. When I mentioned how much we walked and did on
foot, she stared in disbelief. When that girl came to visit in Belgium and saw
all the walking and biking it may have been a reason why our thing went nowhere
... ;-)
 
Take care,
 
 \%/@rd

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