heywood on 14/11/2022 at 20:59
Calling Pittsburgh hilly is an understatement.
SD on 14/11/2022 at 22:15
The last two posts you could almost have been talking about Sheffield in England, where my brother lives. Another hilly city, famed for its industry, particularly steel, in oddly rural surroundings.
demagogue on 15/11/2022 at 03:40
I'd say that video reminded me of driving around upstate New York, but it's basically the same region; it hardly makes sense to suggest they're even really different places.
I may be moving back to the US soon. US geography is weird. It's northeast Oklahoma. To me, with my family connected to south Oklahoma, in my mind it's a state with famously flat countryside. All those states in the middle are part of tornado alley where big storms just roll through flat plains, the kind that carry people's houses off to Oz. But by the time you get to NE Oklahoma you're already starting to get into the foothills of the Appalachians, more or less the same foothills you're seeing in that video. So it looks probably not so surprisingly similar, but still to my surprise when I first traveled around there.
I started noticing this also when driving around in American Truck Simulator, which everyone always says is pretty dead on in terms of the look of a place. People think of Navada as dry, deserty, and rocky, but by the time you get near the north border suddenly you're in rolling hills, and mountains if you went west.
This is all part of my greater awareness as I get older that basically everything we think we know is more complicated and unfamiliar when you get down to the details. In Texas they had this hate-fueled movement to "ban Sharia law" in the state. (The argument was over religious-based marriage councilors wanting to get exactly the same kind of certification status that Christian marriage councilors get, which IMO they absolutely should get, of course.) But the critics were evidently completely oblivious to the fact that Texas culture is drenched in Andalusian culture everywhere you look -- the architecture, the language, guitars and horses, come on -- including embedded within their own norms and culture in other terms, and it looks like a people completely blind to their own history and their own soul raging against themselves.
Well, let's see how well I fit in going back there with a perspective like that... =L
Jason Moyer on 15/11/2022 at 03:56
Upstate New York reminds me a bit more of Northeastern PA, a little more Appalachian than the Alleghenys. I have an uncle who lives near...Canton? Trenton? Somewhere up by the border, and I always loved going up there because there was absolutely nothing anywhere.
demagogue on 15/11/2022 at 04:40
This is reminding me of GeoGuesser, that game where it drops you in the middle of someplace in Google maps street view and you have to guess where you are by putting a pin in the world map then you're scored by how many km you are away from the actual place. It's sometimes surprising how little clues can localize you to very specific places.
But if you were dropped around this region, you'd no doubt get the pin a lot closer to the actual place than I would. Allegheny country doesn't really have a place in my imagination yet. It'll be forever before ATS gets up there too.
Qooper on 15/11/2022 at 07:36
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
I really want to visit Finland at some point, but I'm getting to that age where it may not happen. It seems like an amazing place to live.
It totally is. We've got our very own bear next door that likes to (try to) devour smaller countries. He's an embarrassed little bear, yes he is!
Finland is pretty nice. We've got high taxes, but in return we get services like healthcare. If you're entrepreneurial, Finland has its ways to tone that down a little bit, but not enough to snuff it out completely. Our architecture veers towards Soviet-style cubes of concrete, and in some suburbs there are entire walls of these. To balance this out, we've got absolutely breathtakingly beautiful old villages full of old wooden houses, some of them Swedish-style. In 2017 I biked from Helsinki to Turku (193km if you take the route I did) and I saw things you people wouldn't believe. We also have our own archipelago, which truly is one of a kind. Nowhere else in the world will you see such a beautiful cluster of thousands of (vastly) different sized islands, some of them populated. We are also the land of thousands of lakes. We are constantly told we're the happiest nation in the world, but we are very skeptical of this ourselves. The funniest man in the world comes from our beloved Finland. He's a chill fellow.
Anyways, we'd be happy to have you over! :) We'll offer you some delicious salmiakki and mämmi. I hope our quietness and awkwardness won't traumatize you for life.
Jason Moyer on 15/11/2022 at 08:18
I just want to watch some Pesäpallo.
Qooper on 15/11/2022 at 08:26
We got you covered. Sotkamon Jymy will knock your socks off. And incase your feet get cold due to that, we'll give you Villasukat and talk rally-English at you.
rachel on 15/11/2022 at 09:14
Quote Posted by demagogue
I'd say that video reminded me of driving around upstate New York, but it's basically the same region; it hardly makes sense to suggest they're even really different places.
I may be moving back to the US soon. US geography is weird. It's northeast Oklahoma. To me, with my family connected to south Oklahoma, in my mind it's a state with famously flat countryside. All those states in the middle are part of tornado alley where big storms just roll through flat plains, the kind that carry people's houses off to Oz. But by the time you get to NE Oklahoma you're already starting to get into the foothills of the Appalachians, more or less the same foothills you're seeing in that video. So it looks probably not so surprisingly similar, but still to my surprise when I first traveled around there.
I started noticing this also when driving around in American Truck Simulator, which everyone always says is pretty dead on in terms of the look of a place. People think of Navada as dry, deserty, and rocky, but by the time you get near the north border suddenly you're in rolling hills, and mountains if you went west.
(
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113119) When I did my TTLG Trail roadtrip (Woo, that takes me back!), the changing landscapes was some of the most interesting aspect of the long drive. I did West to East, and seeing the Rockies give way to the desert, the desert in turn to canyons and hills and plains and woods... It was a wonderful experience and I don't discard doing it again some day.
heywood on 16/11/2022 at 14:18
Quote Posted by demagogue
I'd say that video reminded me of driving around upstate New York, but it's basically the same region; it hardly makes sense to suggest they're even really different places.
What part of NY do you refer to? New York state has a surprising diversity of places given its size, as I rediscovered on a road trip this summer. There's regions of glacially formed hills, lakes and plains, two distinct mountain ranges, part of the Allegheny plateau, three major river valleys, Long island, Niagara falls.
The flip side of having a lot of geographic and demographic diversity over a small area is that it's easy to find similarities between places on totally different continents. I've traveled to a few parts of Europe for work and always noticed similarities to familiar places. I suppose that wherever climate and geological features are similar, the look and feel of the place will be somewhat familiar, because you'll see much of the same flora and fauna, enjoy similar weather, find similar patterns of settlement dictated by the available natural resources. The big difference I saw is in the age of things.
Quote:
I may be moving back to the US soon. US geography is weird. It's northeast Oklahoma. To me, with my family connected to south Oklahoma, in my mind it's a state with famously flat countryside. All those states in the middle are part of tornado alley where big storms just roll through flat plains, the kind that carry people's houses off to Oz. But by the time you get to NE Oklahoma you're already starting to get into the foothills of the Appalachians, more or less the same foothills you're seeing in that video. So it looks probably not so surprisingly similar, but still to my surprise when I first traveled around there.
I started noticing this also when driving around in American Truck Simulator, which everyone always says is pretty dead on in terms of the look of a place. People think of Navada as dry, deserty, and rocky, but by the time you get near the north border suddenly you're in rolling hills, and mountains if you went west.
This is all part of my greater awareness as I get older that basically everything we think we know is more complicated and unfamiliar when you get down to the details. In Texas they had this hate-fueled movement to "ban Sharia law" in the state. (The argument was over religious-based marriage councilors wanting to get exactly the same kind of certification status that Christian marriage councilors get, which IMO they absolutely should get, of course.) But the critics were evidently completely oblivious to the fact that Texas culture is drenched in Andalusian culture everywhere you look -- the architecture, the language, guitars and horses, come on -- including embedded within their own norms and culture in other terms, and it looks like a people completely blind to their own history and their own soul raging against themselves.
Well, let's see how well I fit in going back there with a perspective like that... =L
I spent a month at Tinker AFB in OK City back when I was 20 and it's one of the last places in the US I'd want to return to. I hear Tulsa is better. But for some reason, NE Oklahoma just doesn't seem like your kind of place. Do you have family there?
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
Upstate New York reminds me a bit more of Northeastern PA, a little more Appalachian than the Alleghenys. I have an uncle who lives near...Canton? Trenton? Somewhere up by the border, and I always loved going up there because there was absolutely nothing anywhere.
Canton is WAY upstate, on the St. Lawrence plain and only about a half hour from the Adirondacks. I almost went to school in the nearby town of Potsdam. I'm not sure where Trenton is.
