Why I will miss Washington

[Blackmail!]

Originally Posted by juggernaut

Graduate school, Philosophy.

The American universities weren't good enough?

[juggernaut]

Originally Posted by Blackmail!

The American universities weren't good enough?

LOL! They are plenty good, but there are a couple people in the UK that I wanted to work with.

[Blackmail!]

Anyway, it looks like a temporary assignment in London. Am I correct?

[juggernaut]

Four years or so, but I don't know where I'll go from there. Chances are I won't get back here unfortunately though.

[MetalWounds]

Washington is indeed a kickass state. I love being stationed here.

[juggernaut]

Originally Posted by MetalWounds

Washington is indeed a kickass state. I love being stationed here.

Which side of the mountains are you on? McChord? Ft. Lewis? Bremerton?

[MetalWounds]

Originally Posted by juggernaut

Which side of the mountains are you on? McChord? Ft. Lewis? Bremerton?

Fairchild - Spokane. I've been to McChord, Tacoma, and the vast desert between. I almost shit myself when I drove west of Moses Lake, the desert just comes out of nowhere.

[juggernaut]

Originally Posted by MetalWounds

Fairchild - Spokane. I've been to McChord, Tacoma, and the vast desert between. I almost shit myself when I drove west of Moses Lake, the desert just comes out of nowhere.

Ah Air Force. I lived in Spokane for several years and most of my family is there now. It's really beautiful at this time of year. You must be loving it. That stretch between Moses Lake and the Gorge is especially weird. Did you know Moses Lake used to be a salt water lake before they dammed the hell out of the whole state?

Have you gotten up to the Northwestern part of the state at all? It's amazing.

[bananatrombones]

Originally Posted by Blackmail!

It seems so!



Well, it's not a beautiful city. It is alive because a lot of money is running through its streets, and because it's a metropolis, a "world-city" (if you have heard of Braudel), but in the same time it's very shallow, it can be quite disappointing for some.

It's an aggregate of dull, monotonous, unstructured villages; the neverending sprawl of the 19th century that lacks density, dense places, dense buildings, and contrast. There never was any urban planning to give unity or instill a kind of "spirit" to the places.

---

London cannot be compared, even for a second, with cities like Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Lisboa, Sankt-Petersburg, Istanbul, Amsterdam or Roma.

Its urbanism lacks a clear frame, and as a consequence many smaller British cities share a far more interesting "personality" (Liverpool, Newcastle or Glasgow, for instance).

I'd agree with most of this. London is very much a series of joined up villages.

In many ways Manchester is a more typical English city. London is not English and probably not British either.

In London rich live cheek by jowl with the poor and do their best to avoid each other, except where professional necessity demands.

London, however, is a great place if you get to know real Londoners, which is not as easy as you might imagine. Almost everybody is passing-through and many Londoners have long ago moved to the sticks.

Getting anywhere from London is easy, so Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff, et al are less than an hour away from LHR.

Don't let blackmail! put you off, he's French.

FWIW, Paris is now officially a museum. It has lost it's soul; whereas London never had a soul.

All the best.

[sandwich]

So how was Sasquatch?

Originally Posted by Grayscale

do you know where quincy is? i went to my first 3 years of highschool there

Haha, my high school would compete against Quincy. That's a true wasteland.

If you have more trips to central Washington, I always recommend hikes in the Alpine Wilderness area. If you don't have time to do the Enchantments, at least go to Lake Stuart. Also, some of the places around Lake Chelan. I've always wanted to do the trek from North Cascades to the lake.