You can spend an entire day walking around in New York, whereas in LA, it always ends at some point because you have to find a way to get home.
~ Carey Mulligan
I don't think Angelenos know how to walk. It's more than time on the eliptical or walking dreamily along the beach at sunset, spray from the Pacific Ocean misting your hair.
Walking as a personal means of transportation, not as a way to get around a shopping mall, is unknown to me. No matter how much I work out at the gym, like an hour 3 times a week on the bike or a half hour every day on the treadmill, when I hit a REAL city and we spend 5-6 hours walking and standing at museums, I'm in shock about how out of shape I remain.
Berlin is a big city. It's like a version of Manhattan and Los Angeles. Spread out. You need to take buses and light rail. And walk.
I'm definitely enjoying myself but I have got to up the ante on this fitness thing. Coming back at the end of the day, and they have been long, pleasant days, I can't decide which hurts more, the hips, the thighs, the ankles or the feet. And then there's the endurance. Actually it's a little bit of everything. And I actually have walking shoes from German, for goodness sake!
When you make it to the top of the stairs - what, no elevator?!? - and every part of your body is complaining, it's time to go beyond planning to move to a more walkable city in a few years and rethink what it will mean to live without a car.
I can't take driving in LA anymore. I really can't. But we'll need to take a practice visit that lasts more than a few weeks before we pull up stakes and leave LaLa Land.
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