Traffic, transit

I spend far too long driving through the greater GTA, urban sprawl and I just want to say that the GTA has got to be the biggest god-awful blot on the landscape.  Soul-sucking disaster. What the heck are we (not) thinking.

I also spent quite a bit of time thinking about the difference between driving and being driven.  It is a weird difference.  I do hate driving, simply and profoundly hate it.  It is boring and uninteresting.  It requires enough thought that you cannot really consider anything else deeply, but not enough to really engage your mind, especially on the highway.  Bleh.

Yet a lot of people feel powerful and capable and independent and a sense of freedom when they drive.  

I have to confess I have not been generally overwhelmed by this, though the first few times I drive after coming back from Spain I do feel like a grown-up again in some weirdly angled way.  You see we don't have a licenses in Spain as they do not recognise Canadian licenses and we would have to do all the exams like a kid of 18, costs about a thousand Euros by the time you're finished, and it isn't worth it, but after a year of riding in other peoples cars (not a lot, but still, sometimes) when I get behind the wheel I do feel a certain sense that yes, indeed, I am an adult.  

Odd that, isn't it.

Then it just devolves into a general hatred of cars, driving, highways, trucks, pollution, stop signs, red lights and dorks in cars.

Ask me right this second if I prefer Toronto or Catalunya, hands down, it ain't here. Dawns on you when you haven't had a lunch break even one day you've been at work, not even once.