Headless Chicken

Since emerging from my friend Ashley's car in Tampa, I think I've spent perhaps twelve hours recovering from a hangover. The vast majority of my time that has not been devoted to that one hangover has involved doing things. Much of the time doing things has involved getting there. Going from any one point in Tampa Bay to any other point takes no fewer than 20 minutes if you have to start your car to get there and it quite often requires a full hour. WITH a car. Without a car? Well, let's just say you need to have a good plan.

I have until now been blissfully unaware of just how much time is spent--wasted--getting around in this city. It's not even a city, really. The Tampa Bay area is a sprawling, sparsely populated metropolis of 2.5 million people that devours more than 2500 square miles of Gulf coast landscape. And nothing is close to anything else. I had devoted precious little thought to this when I lived in Tampa; after spending the last six months in a city where I could literally walk everywhere, I realize just how much of my life drained away getting from home to work to the grocer to wherever. It's really a somber revelation.

Living in a city as crowded as Barcelona isn't for everyone, I imagine, but I absolutely love it. Being able to walk, take the metro or a bus anytime I want to anywhere I need to go is a fantastic way to live. I had long suspected that that was the lifestyle I had sought; moving to Barcelona has proven it. Driving is fun, don't get me wrong, and I've had a good time in some respects at being able to spin my sister's car around the area. But it is also mentally taxing in a way I only recently began to realize. And when I'm hemmed in by thousands of my closest friends clogging the arterial highways of the Tampa Bay area, the pleasure of driving evaporates completely.

Wherever I find myself in the hazy future that lies just over the horizon, I probably will not turn down a chance at navigating the open road myself, preferably in a sporty diesel hatchback whose tank I don't have to fill. But when I say open, I mean O P E N; no city lights, no suburban housing developments, no rush hour. To get around whatever city I eventually call home, I'll take my mp3 player and the metro. Or the bus, if I must.