Middle class neighborhoods

How do the Middle Class live?  Could you distinguish a middle-class family home from those belonging to working- or rich- classes?  How would you judge?  And would your criteria be transferrable to other countries?

I think that I could pick them out, but not based only on the type of house.  The home’s upkeep and trim, the type of car in the driveway, the owner’s possessions and interests on display in the back yard, would tell me more than the scale of house or the way it fills the lot.

I thought about this a lot as I drove through the Chicago suburbs, the enormous contrasts between US and European homes.  The suburb, build after the second world war, benefitted from abundant land and cheap construction materials.  The streets are wide, the homes set well-back, every house detached from its neighbor by a generous border.  The back yards are enormous and open, bordered by flowers and dotted with islands of garden.

  

I took a similar drive around Poole when I got home, taking pictures that I thought captured the economic variations in households.

First, some cultural orientation, Britain went through a similar burst of home-building sixty years ago.  They built more brick dwellings, and more semi-detached homes.  People generally build smaller in Europe than in the US, and an similar size and style of house will cost at least double the price of it’s US equivalent.

And the back yards tend to have sheds in place of garages.

  Okay, with that said, can you assign class to neighborhood?

    

British locals tell me that these are all examples of middle-class homes.  ‘Perhaps by Poole / Parkstone standards, but these would be very distinguishable neighborhoods in the US. 

As an aside, these homes are all distinctly ‘British’ styles of architecture to me, very distinct from US-style dwellings.

Still, the market is not immune from the occasional lot-filling mega-home rising in Sandpoint.

 

Finally, a worthwhile survey is Peter Menzel’s Material World: A Global Family Portrait.  It documents 30 statistically average families, with all of their worldly possessions displayed outside their homes.

Going Greek for Friday

I thought we were making hummus.

I’d bought a batch of chickpeas and tahini, lemon juice and garlic, and  picked a couple of authentic recipes.  The package suggested at least 12 hours soaking for the lentils, so I put them in a pot on Wednesday morning.

Greek-mom was waiting, hands on hips, by Wednesday-noon. 

First, the water is wrong, the size of the bowl is too little, it needs to soak longer.

I thought she might be missing the point, and went back to the computer for the recipe.  I pasted the instructions into Google Translate and printed the serving objective in Greek.

Greek-mom shook her head.

Tahini?  Never!       ‘Out it went. 

Olive oil, salt, pepper, tomato juice, onion, a carrot…, she counted off.  I scurried to the store.

 

This afternoon, everything goes on the boil.  First the peas, two hours.  The Olive Oil, Passata, a chopped onion, lots of salt.  It all started to cook down and thicken.  Good, but definitely not hummus.

 

Revithia, she proclaimed.  I wad dubious about putting it through a blender.  On the salad, olives, anchovies… more slicing and dicing ensued.  The cardiologist arrived, and we all decided a family dinner was in order after a hard week.

I’m finally seeing daylight on my fundraising and legal questions; Laura has her dissertation defense on Wednesday, and the Greeks have been hard at their English practice (we read out loud from Dorset Magazine every morning over coffee).

Everyone is getting tired.

So we made a party out of it.  Dinner was simple and superb; the conversation flowed in three languages.  We congratulated one another on how the plants were growing, compared plans for the weekend, and teased one another’s work styles.  We pooled our berries for dessert.

All good fun and a nice evening.  And, secretly I’ve brought back the tahini and still have plans to try a hummus recipe when nobody’s looking.

For the house, I think we were celebrating humans, ‘better than making hummus.

Midday relaxation

I think I’m getting a bit Mediterranean in my fondness for a break in the day, something to allow some reflection and recharge between a busy morning and a busy afternoon.  With summer finally here, the café’s are becoming a favored spot.

Maastricht offered city-wide blues and jazz this week, musicians and singers in the squares and in front of the bars.   They attracted small crowds of swaying onlookers, filled the sidewalk tables with smiling groups of friends, evoked smiles from the wait staff and the passers-by.

 

For me, a biertje and some bitterballen with the music.

In Cambridge, the draw is the history and the scholarship.  I enjoy listening the the conversations at nearby tables, debating a point of science, a position on literature, a plan for a business.  The scholars are distinguishable from the tourist by their head-down, headlong rush through the streets, lost in thought. 

 

For me, English breakfast and white coffee on King’s Parade.

Kerstmis along South Bank

London has established a European-style Christmas Market along the south bank of the Thames.  If you’ve been to it’s German cousins, it’s familiar and cute, ‘not too crowded yet attracting a younger crowd than Koln or Aachen.  There are all of the usual suspects: craft huts and sausage vendors, gluhwein and Jager shots (at 5.50 gbp!).  The carousel is colorful and the huge skillets of potatoes and onions are a nice variation on the theme.   But no sign of ice skating or lebkuchen, and I miss the commemorative mugs and eierpunsch.

  

The evening’s most spectacular scenes were in the restaurant, though (Bistro Bruno Loubet),

 

and across the river, skyline and light against the churning skies.

  

Pre-Olympic calm

“How about a meeting on Friday?”, suggested the physician I was recruiting for our advisory group.  Absolutely: I’ll be there at 3, I affirmed, ignoring the small ‘o’ I’d put in the margin of my datebook.

Olympic Day: Do Not Enter London For Any Reason.  That was what I’d meant it to signify.  Unfortunately, now it meant leaving early and taking my chances at London Bridge a few hours ahead of the Opening Ceremonies.

I was very pleasantly surprised.

The trains ran on time, and at the usual times.  There were seats.

The Tube stations were only moderately filled, and even then with mostly families with small children and suitcases.  The floors of the stations and rail cars were immaculate, the walls had been scrubbed.  There were pink-trimmed signs and pink-cheeked guides everywhere.

 

There were a few signs of final trim still being put into place, but the Jubilee Walkway along the Thames was only modestly full.  A few lost bicyclists scattered a few pedestrians; children posed with the mascots.  Reporters posed with the Bridge.

  

There was even a bit of sunshine.

I think it all bodes well for the Games. 

It was embarrassing to have to explain Mitt Romney’s disquiet: why should he parachute in to assess London’s readiness?  At best, it was a distraction from fretting about how well things might go, and gave politicians a sound bite (Cameron’s putdown was particularly delightful).

I don’t know what demon seized Mitt: I think he’s been in negative mode against the government at home for so long, he forgotten how to be a gracious guest here.

It’s Basic Expat 101, you’d think: Don’t boast how much better things are back home. 

Now he’s being called the American Borat.