David Emmett from MotoMatters and Jensen Beeler from Asphalt & Rubber have arrived and at the moment (3:13AM) we are all sitting at our computers, a sort of motorbike-related nerd fest. Jensen tried to sleep but couldn’t, so he got up to report on the Daytona 200, and David is updating MotoMatters, and I just got back from a late night stroll.
A few blocks away from the hotel are an Applebee’s, Burger King, McDonald’s, Hardees, Chili’s and Dairy Queen, a mini-monument to the American strip mall. In the Applebee’s outdoor patio several couples were dining to the dulcet strains of some genuine country and western music, and the drive-thrus of all fast food places had customers. Some night owls took advantage of the nearly deserted streets to rev their sports cars to the red line, and as ever the construction sites hammered and welded into the night.
As I walked I passed the Women Serves Center (sic) which is pretty serious about keeping men out of the building, as you can see above. Next door was the Center for Minors Affairs, though I saw nothing to indicate that adults were not allowed. I got to wondering, however, if there are any places in the United States where men are officially not allowed. Maybe there, are, I just don’t know.
It is not at all surprising to find such a place here, however, given the strict lines drawn between what is appropriate behavior for each sex. I think that is the defining element of strangeness here for a westerner, or at least for me. When a woman appears in a short shirt and sleeveless blouse, as one did at the airport earlier, she really, really stands out. But then again, so did the woman whose child pulled at her burqa so stubbornly that it came open to reveal a Burberry skirt underneath. That pretty much crashed my I’ve Got Nothing To Wear theory. If they dress in fancy clothes underneath the burqas, that idea goes right out the window. But I felt I understood the desire to feel nicely dressed even if one cannot show it.
At the corner there is a Pediatric Emergency Room, and as I passed by three adults got out, a man in white and two burqa-wearing women. The dad helped a small boy from the back seat and carried him into the facility as the women followed. Last month I had my 1-year-old at Children’s Hospital at 3am, so this sight hit me from that recent experience. And somehow it really drove home the fact that, in spite of all the observable differences between my own culture and the ones I’m so lucky to be able to visit, there are of course more similarities of our experiences than differences. Kids around the world feel poorly in the middle of the night and parents gather them up to do what they can to ease their suffering. I realize this isn’t a major news flash for anyone who has traveled even a little bit. But it was notable for me because I seem to see more easily the differences than the similarities. I have to work on that I guess. Heck, it even seems that no dirty car is immune to having WASH ME written on it.
I don’t actually know what this says, but… It kinda has to say something like Wash Me, doesn’t it?