This past spring, I had the good fortune to embark on my first overseas trip since the covid-19 pandemic. I spent a month each in two different European cities, Barcelona and Paris. Their time zone is quite different from where I live in southern California. After my return, it took me a week to adjust my sleep and waking schedules to my home time zone—jet lag. It’s taking me even longer to readapt to the culture of my home city. I’m still suffering from a touch of “culture lag.”
Getting readjusted to a car-dependent city like San Diego is taking some time. The volume of automotive traffic, both in my neighborhood and on area freeways, continues to amaze me—Barcelona and Paris, at least at their cores where I stayed, had proportionally much less vehicular traffic. Paris has been installing dedicated bicycle lanes at a great rate as part of an aggressive strategy to reduce air pollution and make the city more livable. There’s now even a bicycle rush hour; per a recent (2024) survey, in central Paris more people bicycle than drive. In the run-up to its hosting of the 1992 Olympic Games, Barcelona, the largest city of the Spanish region known as Catalonia, totally revamped its formerly shabby waterfront to create a 2-plus-mile-long stretch of walkable, easily accessible public beach.
Both Barcelona and Paris have robust, easy to use, inexpensive public transportation systems that serve most of their metropolitan areas. Paris is upgrading its metro (subway) in anticipation of increased ridership during the Olympic Games it will host next month. I wish our city could become less dependent on “car culture,” especially as I continue to age and my driving skills continue to diminish.
On the other hand, I’m relieved to experience my lower exposure to tobacco smoke here in San Diego. Outside our Barcelona rental apartment, the sidewalk was always full of cigarette butts. At all hours of the day or night, people sitting on some of the local public benches periodically lit up. Staying upwind of the secondhand smoke was an ongoing challenge. Paris has banned indoor smoking in public places, but nearly every restaurant or cafe has alluring sidewalk tables where non-smokers may try to “dodge the smoke.”
Both European cities have ongoing recycling efforts, with large, labeled bins for different recyclables at every block or apartment building. The neighborhood market near our Barcelona apartment even had a staffed drop-off location for food waste. Recycling volumes were lower because less plastic or other packaging was used to begin with. In Barcelona, people wheeled small fabric-covered carts to carry their groceries from shop to home. In Paris, cloth shopping bags were more common.
Living spaces were smaller than ours here, with each of our rental apartments measuring less than 500 square feet. Partly because of limited space, partly because of different cultural norms, appliances were more compact and less extensive than ours—“half size” refrigerators, no automatic dishwashers, limited clothes driers. Drying racks and sunny windows served nearly as well. People shopped several times each week, if not daily. Specialty shops could provide cheeses, meats, fruits and vegetables, or baked goods. There were no “big box” stores. Across the street from our Barcelona apartment was a recently renovated 19th century market with over a hundred stalls selling all sorts of food and clothing. American-style grocery stores were generally smallish, had no parking, and coexisted with living spaces. In both cities we could easily walk to groceries, bakeries, restaurants, book shops, and newsstands. Delivery services were more often by bicycle or covered tricycle than by motorized vehicle.
My “culture lag” after this most recent trip has been less severe than on earlier occasions. During my work life, I’d spent longer periods of work and/or travel in areas more “exotic” than western Europe. Still, San Diego is different from what I’d become used to in Barcelona and Paris. I’m not yet sure how long this episode of “culture lag” will last.
I’m very glad to have a San Diego home to return to. Perhaps some of the better parts of Catalan and Parisian cultures will outlast culture lag to work their way pemanently into my life here.
Jinny's Occasional Poems 