By the time my natural rhythms were saying it was time for bed we were back in the light and flying over Europe. Now the window seat was coming in handy.

The day dawned gray, but at least it wasn’t raining as it had been when we left. Our route took us over Ireland, England, the Netherlands and on to Frankfurt, Germany where  we were to change planes. That part of Europe is pretty flat, with lots of fields and many towns and cities. Another of the plane’s handy charts showed the names of the towns we were flying over and the distances to other cities in the area. This is when I first realized that being from North America had warped my perceptions of distance.

North America’s current urban landscape has, for the most part, always had the internal combustion engine to provide the transportation. Modern cities aren’t designed with walking, biking or riding a horse as the main form of transportation. North Americans use their cars to go everywhere and cities reflect this. We think nothing of driving thirty klicks to get to work or the grocery store.

As I looked at the handy distance chart on the in-house TV, I discovered that if I lived in Europe I’d be sleeping in one city and working in the next. Cities that I think of as being quite separate, are that close. For instance, Cologne is only 29 kilometers from Germany’s capital city, Bonn. Twenty-nine klicks equals about 18 miles. That’s the distance from the suburbs to the center of a small city in North America. Cologne to Frankfurt airport is further at 179 kilometers (or 111 miles), the kind of distance people regularly go for a weekend away at the cottage.

Okay, so I’m not saying anything exciting or new here. We all know that North America sprawls, greedily sacrificing arable land to low houses with big footprints and a garden to match, while European cities are compact and close together. But actually seeing this is a big difference from knowing on an intellectual level.

Flying over the urban landscape of one city, then five minutes being over another played havoc with my perceptions. To me Cologne, a large, well-known city, is to Bonn as Montreal is to Toronto. Widely separated. Each with its own sphere of influence. But Montreal is a day’s drive along the 401 highway at 100 klicks an hour. The distance from Montreal to Toronto is 543 kilometers. It takes an effort to get from one to the other. I couldn’t live in Montreal and go to work in Toronto every day (unless I was cyber commuting, but that’s another story). I could live in Cologne and work in Bonn.

So what does this matter? Nothing at all. It’s just interesting. I like having my perceptions challenged. It helps me think about other people’s mindsets.

And it’s fun.