Since I'm a person who can hardly be shocked, in this blog I want to share my observations of the places that I've visited. I like to travel and explore new cultures…For the past five years I visited a few cities in the USA, Eastern and Western Europe. London was the most recent destination. What I found interesting about the city, is that people do dress up every day. They don't just put clothes on, it seems like they do their best to look good no matter where they are: in a fancy Mayfair neighborhood or a more modest Wembley Stadium area. Here, in NYC it's not as common and it seems that generally people do not really care that much about clothing. They walk around in sweat pants or sleepers, or even with some bottom pieces missing (from my 2-year experience of living in the West Village)…And that is what I like about NYC.
What i like about London is it's variety of small cafeterias with very healthy food options. These cafeterias look so different from each other and as a tourist, you want to visit every single one. Yes, they do have Starbucks and Pret -a-Manger (they have two on Trafalgar Square!) on almost every single corner, but after you see them everywhere, you just stop noticing them after a while and let yourself get lost in the variety of the food-stops that the city offers…But surprisingly after you get out of the center, it becomes harder to find a decent place to grab lunch or just find a decent restaurant. All that you see around is supermarkets, Subway and of course, McDonald's. And in this way London is not different from NYC.
Similar expression I got when I was in Moscow. Starbucks is pretty popular in this city as well. The coffee shop is more expensive and is more upscale. They even sell in the store mugs with traditional Russian doll pictures (matreshka), which I got as a souvenir for my friend in NYC who is a big fan of Starbucks. Finally, historical center of Prague also has Starbucks. The crowd in there is mostly English speaking but there locals there too.
All these observations demonstrate that cultural differences between different countries become less and less visible due to the global exposure of the civilizations to the media, loss of traditions, interrelation of economies and cultures, and domination of global corporations. The world is becoming a global village and cities (especially big ones) do start looking the same as well (except for the countries where democracy either doesn't exist or is in it's lowest level of development). But overall, the existing trend of the uniformity of cultures multiplied by the absence of preservation of traditions makes it harder to experience a cultural shock.
I think that it's a little sad that being globalized means that cultural differences begin to be less visible in the big cities, as these places are usually the ones that attract the most tourists. It's good to hear that you were able to tune the starbucks and other chains out so that you could see the native restaurants. I think that just knowing you're in a different country is enough to have a great experience, and traveling everywhere sure does sound fun!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the differences that exist between Europe and America. I haven't been in London, but i have been in France and also in Germany. They have different restaurants with healthy food. I think when we look at the best restaurant in NY, we can find out that they are european restaurant or using european cuisine. What really surprised me is that "european eat a lot of bread".
ReplyDeleteI find it funny what you wrote about how people dress all over the world. Personally, I think New York has the best of both worlds. Here we can fins some of the most fashionable people who need to have a $3000 bathing suit and at the same time oyu can see people wearing basketball shorts with a white beater to Baruch. So in my opinion, in NY you can find it all
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