Around Chicago

I grew up in Chicago, moving to the North Shore suburbs when I was 11 and my father tool a job with First National Bank.  I attended Deerfield High, graduating in 1972, and returned to the area in 1976 for graduate school at Northwestern, living in Evanston and Roger’s Park.   As big cities go I always liked Chicago better than New York, LA, Minneapolis, or San Francisco.  Only Boston rivaled it for character, quality of life, and cultural / educational opportunities (and for severity of winters). 

So it’s always nice to be able to take a trip back, usually business, sometimes visiting friends or colleagues.  It’s always striking how much the landscape has changed: in contrast to Europe where  everything seems older than my home country, the town squares and farm fields are unrecognizable across the decades since I left.

 

I am impressed that there is an effort to teach Dutch…

And also that the mass transit has made great strides.  Aided by Google Maps, which is invaluable since adding transit information, I made my way by train and bus from the airport to the meeting hotel as easily as getting in and out of London.  Fares were low, the rail cars were clean, real-time information was posted at the stops: the whole system worked wonderfully.

  

The Four Seasons Hotel, where we had lunch, is a premium venue, with prices to match the chef’s pretensions.  The cheapest thing on the menu was a $16 hot dog (Everything made on premises: sausage to garnish, the waitress assured us).  You be the judge.

Finally, a word about the food stores.   I’ve gotten a bit spoiled by having easy access to exotic meats (duck, rabbit) and spices (Ras El Hanout) at the corner Waitrose.  When I wanted to cook a recipe for my parents, I couldn’t find half what I needed, and it was easy t get a bit sniffy about how provincial grocers could be.

 

But, surveying a number of stores around the ‘burbs, the array of vegetables, baking supplies, and bulk foods really blows away anything you might find in the Netherlands. ‘And at lower prices.

  

As with all things expat, every region has it’s strengths, and it’s a matter of adapting to the local terrain when foraging for food…

Traditional Florida

My first airplane trip was on a family vacation to St. Augustine, Florida, probably in 1960 or so. We flew down on a Carvaelle jet, two engine pods at the back rather than under the wings, a very cool step up from the prop planes of the time.  We stayed right on the beach in a two-story hotel embracing a freshwater swimming pool: I remember a lot of pink and coral colors.

Treasure Island beaches, outside of Tampa, haven’t changed much since those days.

 

The Thunderbird Resort is a funky throwback, 50-ish room deor, a smell of warm molds and cold air conditioning, a kitchenette with hotplate burners and a stainless steel sink.  The two story hotel wraps around a deep blue pool, open at the ends to the ocean.  Miami-Vice pastel colors dominate.  Patrons are a blend of young families and older retirees. (‘Funny that I think of them as ‘older’ now, rather than just ‘old’.)

But it all works in a comfortable / nostalgic sort of way.

Beyond the resort, Treasure Island is lined with low-rise hotels and beach houses on the ocean side of highway A1A, local restaurants and beach shops on the leeward side of the street.  The whole thing is lined with palm trees, ornamented with gardens, and very much on a human scale. It invites walking, exploring, discovering.

 

South, towards Clearwater (Spring Home Of The Phillies), contemporary high-rises crowd the shore, a high wall blocking off the ocean and the sunshine.  Gates and guards are the norm to protect the residents from visitors.  Across A1A, strip malls line the road with chain restaurants and national housewares stores.  Nobody walks the streets: there’s only the comfortably familiar and safe.

 

Deceptively safe.

Artificial intelligence researchers  reduce product selection and purchasing transactions to template scripts that we execute unconsciously from years of practice.  Years of expatriate life have replaced my New World scripts with Old World ones, and this trip I felt wholly out of sync.

The McDonalds breakfast menu was a maze: McMuffin, McBiscuit, McGriddle.  In trying to ask about the differences, I accidently ordered all three.  Two of them were horrible.

I bought a bottle of wine in Target, the clerk asked to see my driver’s license.  I played it straight an handed over the US version.  She inspected the birthdate, then scanned the 2D bar code on the back. All of my personal information into their databases.  “What if I didn’t let you scan the code?”  Then you wouldn’t be allowed to buy alcohol.  ‘Frightening both ways.

So it went: Ruby’s restaurant, a bank deposit, a booking change with Delta.  Each had new steps, unfamiliar checks, a different script.

Some things change in a few years; other’s don’t change for decades.  Americans still fly to Florida in jets.

And they still drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road…

On the road back

Travel at the holidays Often feels as exiting as the NS train fire on New Year’s Eve.  (Caused by a short circuit,  this one has disrupted service north of Utrecht).

There are always cheap airfare deals available around New Years, so, more often than not, I end up flying back to Europe while everyone else is drinking or recovering.  This year, I visited my parents in Boulder, spending New Year’s Eve at dinner and a party where we successively rang in 2013 in Maastricht, Cambridge, and New York.  Champagne flowed from lunch until late evening – lots of fun.

Tuesday morning, though, I was back on the road and headed to Maastricht.

I’ve been driving a rental Fiat 500 over the holidays: a retro little thing with metal dashboard and Lilliputian seats that tootles nicely into small parking crevices.   My advice to Europeans is always to rent a big car in the US so that you can cold your own among trucks and SUVs, but this was pretty nimble (if not particularly fuel efficient).  The airports were crowded with families returning from holidays, and both the Atlanta and Amsterdam flights were crowded.  Snow in Denver, heavy rain in Atlanta, cased flight delays and my luggage missed the transfer, but the trip was otherwise uneventful.

There weren’t many new movies, so I did some reading and caught up with some interviews embedded in the television feeds.  Brad Pitt doesn’t seem to think too deeply about his craft; George Clooney certainly does.  I’ve felt like he’s been a shadow presence over my expat life, rushing through airports as Ryan Bingham in Up in the Air, smiling down from Nespresso posters. troubled in Michael Clayton. 

It’s interesting to hear his perspective on striking a work/life balance (although he can buy a home at Lake Como to bring him closer to his happy place) and his thoughts on the importance of understand what job you’ve been hired to do.  So often I think of a job in my own terms, revenue, career, personal development, that it’s easy to lose the simpler expectations of the people hiring me.

He laughed that if selling coffee to Europeans allows him to live well, work on projects for scale, and spend time on socially worthwhile causes, then he was fine with the trade-off.  He’s part of an interesting brand strategy with Nespresso: basically its no different from Senseo but positions itself better through his presence, the coffee bars in Bijenkorf, the product framed behind glass like jewelry.  It probably buys them a price premium and customer loyalty (see Wharton and the New York Times).

I arrived in Amsterdam early in the morning and heade into town to pick up the revised and final documents for my UK visa renewal.  Ironically, the Brits re refusing to recognize the legitimacy of my Dutch accountant, requiring me to spend an extra 350 gbp to have them transcribed and stamped by a London auditor (“Is this money laundering?” was his first question to me).  The morning was quiet and misty over the canals, ankle-deep in New Year’s debris.  25 hours on the road: I stopped at a coffee shop and asked for a latte, wearily, and set up my computer on an empty table to look for wifi and update email.

The coffee arrived, I passed 5 euros to the waitress without really looking.  She shifted, a flash of leg, bright red sequined hotpants, startling at 10 am.  I looked around.  Teasers: Beer and Babes.  She flashed a broad smile, I told her to keep the change.  I sighed and went back to work, definitely back in the Netherlands.

US shopping: Booze and bulbs

Trips back to the US always include home repairs and travel provisioning, trips to the Home Depot and the Safeway.  It still feels odd to find the stores so large, the opening hours so late, the parking so vast as compared with the Netherlands.  Nor an I used to hopping into the car and tootling off to the store at all hours for no reason, rather than walking to the Jumbo for a few things for dinner.

The stores generally seem quieter this year, people making less eye contact, everyone a lot ruder in the parking lots.  I think that folks are pulling into themselves a bit, sullen after the election and worried about the likely tax raise on Jan 1.

Washington State transitioned from selling liquor in state-owned stores to allowing full retail sales several months ago.  I voted against the ballot measure (People wanting 24/7 access to  liquor stores probably need to think about why), and I’m underwhelmed with the result.  There re now liquor aisles in the food stores, heavily taxed and with prices higher than the state stores were.  But worse is that they only stock what sells.  I needed cranberry liquor for a recipe, wanted a nice single-malt for a friend.  None is now available.

When stores market to the masses, they stick to the familiar, the cheap, and the bulk brands.  Choice is vanishing. 

Social problems are multiplying. Theft of bottles and distribution to minors is way up. 

Fees and taxes have closed businesses rather than stimulating them. Sales have increased in Idaho and Oregon.  More drinking drivers are on the roads.

I also had several light bulbs burn out: getting replacements is getting harder.  The federal government passed laws promoting energy efficiency,  requiring incandescent bulbs to be phased out in 2013.  The alternatives are limited.

Coiled florescent fill the aisles, but are more fragile and expensive than the older bulbs.  They cost $5-7 for a single bulb; incandescents used to sell for a couple of bucks.

Long-life bulbs claim up to 9 years operating life, offsetting the costs, but mine seem to blow out within six months.

The quality of light is much harsher in the new bulbs, a white “daylight” that cools and sharpens rooms to an industrial ambience.

I’m sure I sound like a grumpy old man,  but I’m really not.  These are two examples of  policies with beneficial intent that, in practice, have raised economic and social costs while lowering product quality and choice.  It’s a good lesson in unintended consequences, with business, consumers, and government all bearing some responsibility for making things worse. 

A partial solution might be to appoint review panels that evaluate the effect of laws a year after they are implemented.  The goal would be to see if policies have had the desired effect and what secondary changes have taken place.  Then laws could be intelligently tweaked lessons taken forward to future legislation.

I’m not hopeful about how this foreshadows legalization of marijuana in Washington State in 2013.

Through Dutch eyes

I had our lead engineer / project manager along from Maastricht throughout the visits to Detroit and Chicago last week, and it was an opportunity (for us both) to see how our preconceived notions of the US and our cross-language experiences compare.  It was really interesting, we had long talks over meals and car transfers to talk about perceptions and, as always, overseas travel is broadening for everyone involved.

On the Trivial But Expected side, the low price of gasoline (and of  purchasing a car), the over-size of meals (Chicago-style deep dish pizza), the length of the baking aisle in a grocery, the crumbling infrastructure in Detroit, the baffling question “soup or salad?”, the tendency of US drivers to choose any lane (and stay there) on the highway, and the weakness of US koffie, all matched expectations.

Among the Trivial but Unexpected aspects, the harmless (but lethal-looking) road claws that protect rental car exits are still a gut-clench for the Dutch as I sail over them.   The general lack of road signage, the prowling radar traps, and the separated houses, each on their own lot rather than joined in a row, all provoked comment (and all the drawn curtains).

Significant but Expected:  Language is the big one.  My colleague is fluent in English, studied in Britain, but Americans talk fast and monotone to her ear.  The words tend to run together, and when multiple conversations start around a table or someone starts interrupting someone else, it get’s impossible to follow.

I have the same complaint about trying to follow the Dutch: I think that when conversational patterns devolve into multiple interacting streams, it’s very hard for non-native’s to parse.  And trying to keep up can be really tiring.

Finally, Significant and Unexpected, Americans seem rude.  To the Dutch!

We always claim that the simple directness widespread in the Netherlands has no counterpart in the US.  But the issue seemed to have two sides for her.  One was that the tendency of Americans to interrupt, complete one another’s thoughts, veer into sidebar conversations, and turn attention rapidly away from one person and towards another mid-discussion borders on disrespect.

Good friends also tease one another when they disagree, probably to lighten the mood and indicate that the topic  isn’t jeopardizing their friendship.  But to Dutch ears, “You know where you can put that!” is pretty adversarial (Our Dutch colleague asked one of the group if they were still genuinely friends with the other after a couple of exchanges).  I’m used to the British requiring a lot of social grease in order to fit in, but was surprised that the Dutch had some of the same concerns.

The other issue was politics.  I want to touch on how the US politicians are using Europe as a scapegoat tomorrow, but the Conservative / Liberal divide is the focus today.

In our group of four, we have two people very right wing and two very left.  We generally avoid political discussions because we recognize that no two will ever change the minds of the others.  But, inevitably, there would be an insult about Obama, a nod to liberals being soft-headed, a disagreement about the banks and taxes.

Over breakfast, we ended up talking about health insurance, and they advocated the Rynd-ian opinion that people should only have access to the health insurance that they were willing to pay for.  What about disabled, elderly, children?  It’s the responsibility of the disabled, the children, the parents to take care of family and friends, not the rest of society.  If a few people without insurance died because they didn’t buy insurance, the rest would buy soon enough.

Needless to say, this doesn’t fit the Dutch social model (and I thought it was embarrassing; she commented that politics is not something discussed with acquaintances), but it’s a mirror of the debates that polarize American society today.  The extreme positions and heated rhetoric, the personal and visceral way that opinions are expressed, has gotten more and more prevalent.  Now, I think it’s  also coming to define American attitudes and characteristics for others.

Regretfully.

Into the Palouse

I’m back in the US this week, looking forward t0 a combination of graduation, medical, and business that should be lively.  My plane dropped into Seattle last night and we set out for Eastern Washington this morning, a five hour drive into the rolling Palouse farmlands.

I’ve been limping along with an old Sony camera for over a year now, and have been looking for an upgrade for the past six months.  It takes time to sort features and wait for a good price – fortunately it all came together just ahead of this trip.  I bought a Sony HX-9V on the basis of it’s mega-zoom, low-light performance, and color balance and gave it a workout during the drive.  I really like the way it handles contrasts, twilight, colors, and detail: it’s a little slow to start and between shots, but I can live with that if I get good pictures in difficult light.

 

I’ve put the sampling up on my Flickr site in the 2012 Palouse album

It was also a good chance to compare US rural villages and farmhouses with their Dutch counterparts.  The Dutch really do tend towards low and long farm buildings as compared to the square peaked US style.  Fields are plowed in arcing contours around the swells of the Palouse, while the griddle-flat Netherlands follow geometric grids.  The Dutch irrigate from canals cut through the fields; the dryland farmers irrigate from above with huge rotary sprinklers.

   The Netherlands                                    The Palouse

 

  Dutch Villages                                   Palouse Villages

  

 

And it was nice to find Random Road Art scattered around – this a giant wave made from canoes along the river in Clarkston and a “Codger Pole” in Colfax to mark an ancient football game.

  

And there were some things that will never come to the Netherlands…