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I’ll never get how people can get used to living in America, let alone like it.

I asked my wife’s aunt how to get to the nearest supermarket, and got an “oh, it’s just 3 miles away, you’ll be there in a blink of an eye”.

Only 3 miles to get to the nearest grocery shop?? You know that I could be on the other side of Amsterdam if I drove 3 miles from my home - and on the way I’d bump into at least 30 different grocery stores?

And I’ve heard folks say “my office is actually quite near, just a 30 miles drive”. If I drove 30 miles I’d be nearly in Belgium or Germany! I guess I’ll make sure not to complain anymore about my 5 minutes cycling commute to my office…

And the state of public transport is something indecent even for a developing country. I’ve seriously seen better train and bus connectivity in Bangalore and Kyiv than between San Jose and San Francisco.

And let’s not even get started with the cycling infrastructure. Sometimes you see these barely 1 meter wide bike lanes pop out of nowhere, and disappear a few meters later, and on the way they may be dangerously crossed by turning lanes for vehicles. No wonder that I haven’t seen a single cyclist so far.

And how can you ever get used to having your neighbourhood’s mall as the only place to go and meet people, with no parks, bars or public spaces within a walking distance? I’ve asked some friends where they usually like to hangout with their mates, and got answers like “we like to go to this place 15 miles from here”. That’s approximately the distance between Amsterdam and The Hague! I can’t even imagine having to pick up a car and drive so long just to have a beer with friends.

Sure, there are exceptions too. Namely, downtown Manhattan, San Francisco, Washington and Boston. But those are all cities built before 1900 and the car tyranny. Everything else is just so badly designed, so badly isolated, so dull and so alike, and every place requires to replace your legs with wheels and tires, that I really struggle to see anything that even remotely looks like an American dream.

I’ve never paid much attention to these things before, but my 3-year-old kid on his second trip to America has been quite an eye-opener. When asked by my mother what he saw in America, he candidly said “lots of cars and roads”.