Sept 7, 2009

Never got back to the blog. Summary of some of the things I learned in Europe:
- they must not have all the lawyers that we have in the States (good thing) because they have all kinds of things that we wouldn't have because we'd get sued (steps with no handrails, windows with no screens to allow people to fall out, etc.); I can only conclude that they are ok if people who do something stupid like lean out an open window and fall are removed from the gene pool - lol
- I actually do miss the ADA laws because it is much harder for disabled people to get around in Europe ( or it seemed so to me); I saw so few disabled people - 2 in 6 weeks of time; they had lots of walkways, but the walkways could be very uneven
- I loved how the neighborhoods were set up to allow you to walk to everything - things were very close to each other
- beautiful little landscaping - lots of people to maintain it; don't know how that works, but I loved the vines growing over everything concrete along the sides of the roads
- lots of recycling centers setup to allow dropoffs of small amounts
- lots of ugly yellow used in buildings in Geneva - otherwise a beautiful little town
- lots of cities we hear about in the USA, like Geneva and Montreux, are actually fairly small; Geneva only had about 70000 people living there
- lots of use of trains and buses - which run on time and on electricity (gotta love that)
- scooters and motorcycles rule the road - running right by cars that could KILL them
- Montreux has a world famous jazz festival, but only has about 20000 people who live there; apparently the Alps, and Lake Geneva are a bigger draw than a small town in the USA would have :)

These are my notes for so far.