Priorities

This is our house.

Nothing special, you might think, but actually it is quintessentially American. Why? I'll give you a clue. What's the most prominent feature? Precisely: the garage.

In Europe, you'd have a nice path leading up to your in most cases centrally positioned front door, with the garage tucked away either at the side of or underneath the house. But here, in the land of drive-in movies, restaurants, banks and chemists, to name but a few, the pedestrian entrance to the building is almost an afterthought (because you can always access the house directly from the garage).

The reliance on cars is incredible. I used to think that Americans just didn't like walking. That's wrong. It's often physically impossible to walk somewhere because there simply isn't a pavement. Not that this stops me.

I had a funny experience today. Walking down to my neighbourhood store, I saw a remarkable thing: someone else walking along the road. Even though I couldn't make who it was, I knew this person had to be European. I was right.