Wondering why I want to go to Europe?

[pphaneuf]

We don't see that kind of thing around here. And it's not because they're better or anything, it's a question of culture and values.

Playing Pac-Man in a university's library corridors and cubicle alleys is just too funny, if you're like me!

Comments

[phrawzty.livejournal.com]

You don't see that type of thing around here, because Canada didn't need to completely rebuild itself following a devastating world war that more or less levelled the entire country.

That said.. damn, i'd really like to see a nice factory like that here, too. :P

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Are you saying that we didn't to build a single new factory since WWII? Somehow, I doubt it. And then, why isn't a single one of these new factories as cool as that one? Are we just a poor developing country?

Or the USA either? The Volkswagen Phaeton isn't an über-exclusive kind of car either, I'd guess it's comparable to some higher end Cadillacs or whatever. Why aren't Cadillacs built the same way?

Actually, they do have a sort of cool factory: since it was all automated, they an assembly line upside-down on the ceiling of an existing factory, to save space and money. But I'm talking glass-wall, wooden-flooring kind of cool here.

[phrawzty.livejournal.com]

It's not just having to physically rebuild - the collective psyche of the nation was radically altered by the war. From a "german identity" perspective, a lot of people figured that they needed to start fresh. Part of the current-day result of this rebuilding includes awesome-looking buildings, like that factory.

Downtown Berlin is /full/ of buildings like that, for instance.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. I'd also say that I'm thinking of something that is there in most of Europe, but it might have been shaped by the war, since it affected most countries there, of course. Germany might have gotten a particularly strong reality check, but no matter, even in countries like Portugal that weren't affected too much by the war, there's a sense of aesthetics that we just don't have here.

And however that culture came to be, my point is they have it over there, we don't, and I want it. :-)

[phrawzty.livejournal.com]

no argument here, mate. :)

[azrhey.livejournal.com]

there is a general sense of putting a price on aesthetics and art in everyday things in europe thatr i find lacking in north america.

People are willing to pay more for pretty things. People are willing to pay more for rose granit sidealks instead of concrete ones. People are also willing to get paid a few cetns / hour less to have plants in their work environement or better coffee in the office.

When the current admin where I work decided to buy a bunch of plants and play a dude to come and take care of them every week lots of people complained that with that money they coudl have given a 20$ bonus to everybody nt eh next pay check. Well I for one am happy with the plants. and I gotta dmit that all those that complained where from north american / asian descent as opposed to the europeans who wanted the plants to make the office pretty.

And many other examples.


Portugal's case is a bit off because eventhough we didnt get hit a lot during WWII we were under a fascist dictatorship until 1974 where the country was realyl realyl really bakcwards ( the first tv came to the village in 1970! ) but then when democracy was reinstated we did a huge leeap forwards. liek instead of installing coper wires everywhere for the phone lines its almost all fiber optics and in some places cell phones towers, same thing for the rest of almost everything.

Ther eis also being proud what your house, your city your country looks like.

And Ugly is bad! I mean i have never heard in quebec the "most beautifull city int eh province" kind of game where each year a city gets elected and all.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

You mean putting a "value" on aesthetics rather than a "price". People here definitely put a price ("it would cost this amount to have a prettier thingy..."), but they don't put a value to it ("... but it's a waste of money!").

Me, I'm more of that opinion, where I'm okay with not being paid as much as I could be, in exchange for having a nicer work environment, for example. Because it has value to me, and money only goes so far to make me happy if I have to go work in a dull grey building every day. As long as I have "enough" money, I'm all right.

I'm the kind of person who buys a Powerbook over an iBook (or even worse, any other laptop), because I liked the look of the polished aluminium better. It was also a little bit faster, but I'm told it is also less robust, so the increase in price was mostly about me wanting to have a good looking laptop. Where some of my friends were telling me "oh, you could have bought a faster HP laptop for almost a thousand less" or "an iBook has almost all the same specs, is more robust and cheaper, why didn't you get that?", I have a shiny laptop!

[azrhey.livejournal.com]

to go with your shiny... THING!

But yeah, it's what I meant.

[morethanreal.livejournal.com]

This thread reminds me of somebody's blog post from a while ago:

So, Berlin. What to say? I lived there for a few months, during which time I realized how much raw potential there is in Berlin to do what you want to do. Life there, in some ways, reminded me of a year-round Burning Man transposed to a chilly European climate. A one-bedroom apartment in Berlin can be had for four hundred bucks a month or less; it's amazing what becomes possible when that's the case. Suddenly it's a totally viable career option to be a DJ or a freelance writer or an artist. I knew people who made as little as a thousand bucks a month who were living pretty damn well. And that's the sense of vitality that I loved about living in Berlin, this sense that anything was possible. And that's something that's very hard to get in New York, where everything seems to have a price tag attached.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

I might go and live there, someday. While I'm going to Toulouse first, I'm not adverse to learning german (I wanted to anyway!) and move to Berlin in a few years, or something.

One never knows.

[ayria.livejournal.com]

Man. They really trumped our real time train Pac-Man. =(
Now I feel depressed.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Heh, you're around? :-)

Train Pac-Man? The important thing is this: did you post a video to the Internet?! I'm wondering what you did exactly...

[azrhey.livejournal.com]

bah , you talk you talk, but we all knwo you just want to go there for the nude beaches and/or cheap beer.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

And cheap good wine too!