Small Spaces

As I was visiting with a host family about the differences between the UK and America I came to realize why I like it over here so much. It is small. And I prefer small places. Everything here is compact, the streets are narrower, the buildings close together, you can walk many of the places you want to go and if you have to drive it is not far. You can get most anywhere on public transportation. The houses are smaller, there is still plenty of space but each room has a door closing it off, compared to the open floor plan of most houses in the US.

When I think of the US I think of large shopping strips so large that you have to drive from one parking lot to the next. Walking places is not possible in most cases; unless you are in the downtown area of a city. The roads just keep getting bigger and bigger as do the cars. Everything is big.

And I have learned that I like small. I like being in a room that is not open to the rest of the house. I like walking from one store to the next instead of driving. I like the smaller cars and streets. I don’t mind that the one place that kind of belongs to me on tour is the small space of my bus seat.

Small is good.

Paris

Another new country. France! We are here for only a short bit, a couple days to be exact, but I am loving every moment of it. We are putting on workshops at the American School of Paris (Yes indeed, African children going to France to do concerts for Americans), and tomorrow evening we have a concert. Today after our workshops we headed out to see the city. I have to say, it is different than I thought. For some reason I thought it would be smaller, meaning smaller streets and buildings and such, more like what is found in the UK. So it was quite educational to learn it was so different than what I had in my mind, it is big. We were able to drive by most of the major sites in the middle of the city. I do have to admit though, the chaperones seemed to enjoy it more than the children I think, considering that the game the boys who sit behind me on the bus were playing was how many motorcycles they could count. Once they got up to a hundred they gave up.

As the children were told Paris is known as the City of Love. Brian pipes up "The City of Brian!...Yes everyone loves Brian, it is the city of Brian"

I bet you did not know that France and England have eyes. There is a fair going on, and so there is a large ferris wheel that we drove by. (The children had all just seen the London Eye a few weeks ago)
Collins "Ah look! It is London's eye!"
Primo "Yes look there, Paris has London's eye"
Collins "Maybe this is France's eye"
Primo "Yes, this is France's eye"