Randomness (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
randomness) wrote2006-01-27 12:16 am
randomness) wrote2006-01-27 12:16 am
For some reason, driving on the autobahn reminds me of Pennsylvania.
It's a weird thing, and possibly simply because I've been driving in particular parts of Pennsylvania and Germany, but for some reason, the autobahn reminds me of Pennsylvania.
Different bits, too. The long, overnight drive from Karlsruhe to Berlin some years ago was a lot like crossing Pennsylvania on I-80. There was endless construction, with narrow, cattle-chute lanes where traffic going both ways got squeezed onto one pair of lanes. There were the rolling hills. In the dark, some of them looked like they might be covered with trees, others farmland. And, after crossing into the former East Germany, there was the ga-dunge ga-dunge of the car thumping over the joints between concrete blocks on the autobahn, which was what the endless construction was there to fix.
Today, on the drive to Baden-Baden, I felt like I'd somehow ended up in an unfamiliar bit of Pennsylvania between Carlisle and Harrisburg. Clumps of woods broke the gently rolling farmland, now covered with snow. Also covered with a thin film of snow was the roadway, which kept everyone's speeds down to something not unreasonable in Pennsylvania, when the staties aren't visible.
As I said, it may be just me. And if I drive in other bits of Germany, this feeling may well go away. But that's how it seems right now.
Different bits, too. The long, overnight drive from Karlsruhe to Berlin some years ago was a lot like crossing Pennsylvania on I-80. There was endless construction, with narrow, cattle-chute lanes where traffic going both ways got squeezed onto one pair of lanes. There were the rolling hills. In the dark, some of them looked like they might be covered with trees, others farmland. And, after crossing into the former East Germany, there was the ga-dunge ga-dunge of the car thumping over the joints between concrete blocks on the autobahn, which was what the endless construction was there to fix.
Today, on the drive to Baden-Baden, I felt like I'd somehow ended up in an unfamiliar bit of Pennsylvania between Carlisle and Harrisburg. Clumps of woods broke the gently rolling farmland, now covered with snow. Also covered with a thin film of snow was the roadway, which kept everyone's speeds down to something not unreasonable in Pennsylvania, when the staties aren't visible.
As I said, it may be just me. And if I drive in other bits of Germany, this feeling may well go away. But that's how it seems right now.
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The speed limits are much nicer in most of Germany though.
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True enough, although in this bit there aren't as many visible from the autobahn.
One vivid memory--speaking of the occasional castle visible from the motorway--was when
It's particularly striking in the early dark when they spotlight it from below.
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Or, maybe not. I've never been to Germany so I don't have a good idea what its countryside looks like. I have been in Southern England, and it reminds me of Pennsylvania, at a slightly smaller scale.
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