The short answer is: hell no they do not. And it is probably the most irritating thing in the entire world. Even in busy cities in America, people are usually surprisingly good about walking on the right side of the street or hall. Not in England. I thought for a while that this was because London is so heavily populated with people who come from countries where they drive on the right — with Londoners trying to walk on the left and everyone else trying to walk on the right, it would cause trouble, but that's not the case. For some reason, pretty much no one in Europe has learned this trick. I know this, because I have now been a lot of places in Europe (you like that segue? huh? huh?). For instance, in
THE NETHERLANDS
there is definitely no discernable walking pattern. I don't really blame the Dutch, however, because their streets have like 57 separate lanes for all different forms of transportation. Here is a quote from Tara, after remarking how weird the traffic signals for busses are: "I guess they have to make them different from the lights for cars. Aaaand for pedestrians. And for bikes." Because all of those things have different signals, lanes and rules. If I hadn't been with Tara I probably would have died, not least because now I'm used to watching for cars coming from the right instead of the left. It is going to be a nightmare re-learning to drive when I come back.
The great thing about the Netherlands is that everyone rides a bike. I am pretty sure it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that 90% of citizens own bikes. That is just the way you get around, especially in cities. I loved it, and I really wish more places in the States were like that, so I could move there. As it is, I would be perfectly pleased to live in a place like Utrecht, which is lovely and one of my favorite places I've visited. Amsterdam was also surprising as well, given its stigma, but it is actually a beautiful city with a lot of cool things to do (other than drugs). We went to the museum where they keep Rembrandt's Night Watch (those of you who were on academic team in high school will really appreciate that), which actually isn't a night scene at all, and just looks dark because of how it's changed over time. It was awesome though; it's like the size of a wall — not disappointing and tiny like the Mona Lisa.
A dirtier and not-so-bicycle-friendly place is
THE CZECH REPUBLIC
but that is okay because it is officially my favorite place in continental Europe. It's dirtier and not as many people speak English. The tourist shops are garish. I have all this Czech money left over that I can do nothing with. But Prague feels real. I don't know how to explain it other than that. I loved it so much. Maybe because they don't have quite as much tourism as some places in Europe, it is super-friendly to travelers; our hostel was like a palace. And everyone that we talked to (except who worked at the train station, but everyone who works at a train station automatically hates their lives I'm pretty sure) was totally nice and helpful, even if they didn't have any English. I just felt really welcome there.
And it wasn't just Prague. We went out for a day to a town called Kutna Hora that we randomly found in Carolyn's guidebook whose claim to fame, other than one of the best example of Gothic cathedral architecture at St. Barbara's (patron saint of miners; Kutna Hora used to be a silver mining town), is the bone church. There's a tiny church on the edge of Kutna Hora whose graveyard was used as a place to put bodies of plague victims. A few hundred years ago, a half-blind monk who lived around there started using the bones in the graveyard to make sculptures and decorations for the church. The chandelier is constructed using every bone in the human body.
They estimate the church is decorated with remains from about 40,000 people. It is one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen. It may just top the list.
We also went to St. Barabara's and a museum full of Czech art from the 70s and 80s, and it turns out that Czech modern art is some of my favorite. A pleasant surprise, and fitting with my whole fantastic experience in that place. It's tough to realize that one can't live everywhere, but Prague is a place I am making a priority.
A place I would also like to live, but only in certain places, and one that is not necessarily a priority is
AUSTRIA.
Vienna is quite possibly the most beautiful city I have ever seen, but I am glad we weren't there for very long, because it is also entirely overwhelming. Everything important is squeezed into a tiny radius of space, and pretty much every building in that radius is a masterwork of architecture. It is a lot like being in a huge art museum... you soon grow exhausted of masterpieces.
The main attraction we did was the Belvedere museum: again, completely overwhelming. It has a ton of Kilmt, including The Kiss, and it also had a traveling exhibition on Rodin that we were lucky to catch. The guy at our hostel when we first went out was giving us recommendations, and when he heard we were going to the Belvedere he just said, "Oh, that's very nice too." Understatement of the century.
We lunched at an Ottakringer brewery. Delicious food and delicious beer.
We did get to see the Vienna ballet, which was excellent. Actually, I was only impressed by half the performance, and I did not feel that they were any better than the Tulsa Ballet. But, it was really great to see, and I was especially excited because I'd seen one of the pieces before: The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude. It's one of my favorites.
Of our time in Austria, just one day was in Vienna. The second day we took a train to Salzburg and took the Sound of Music tour. It was nice to get to see Salzburg and the mountains around it, which is were the tour ended, but we did not unfortunately get to actually see much about the Sound of Music. We saw the gazebo, which was great, and the church where Captain von Trapp and Maria get married. Our guide was a huge freak. But Salzburg is almost unbearable cute, though it felt more livable than Vienna. I'd really like to go back and spend some time there some day.
All in all, we had a hugely successful trip, but by the end of the tenth day of travel I was exhausted, and really happy to be home (such as it is) in the Berrylands. I'm in the home stretch (literally) of this whole experience, and it's a bittersweet kind of feeling.
*Note: I actually started writing this post a week ago but never finished. I did not mean to slack on my blog, but it just happened. I'll soon be writing more about my continually changing view of Enland, probably within the next couple of days. Check out my facebook page for pictures from all these places.
