By Jacob Gerbman, NFTY in Israel Participant, Bus 8
Since leaving Europe and arriving in the Holy Land of Israel, I’ve had some time to reflect on my experience. In my time there I not only learned about my roots as a Jew, but I also about the ways European culture and society is different from ours in the U.S, especially with transportation. So, in this blog I’m going to list the top 3 differences from U.S transportation I noticed in Europe.
1. No speed limit: Yes, this is real, and came as a HUGE shock to me. Originally, the first thing I saw was how fast some drivers were going on even smaller side streets. Once I realized there were no speed limit signs, it made sense as to why some European drivers were going as fast as they were.
2. Tram: Otherwise known as a trolley to people from the U.S.; the Tram is Europe’s more modernized version of what was once a common mode of transportation in most U.S cities. When I say modernized, I mean that instead, of the self running trolleys we know from the U.S., they’re more like buses that run on train tracks. The tracks I saw were mainly on the street, but there were certain areas where the track was separate from the road.
3. Cobble stone streets: In the U.S. you may have seen small areas of cobble street in some historical areas of certain cities like Boston, or Philly maybe. However, in Europe, its a much different story. Most local streets are cobble stone, especially side streets. Also, on top of the fact that there’s more cobble stone streets in general, some of the streets are basically alleys which would never be classified as streets in the U.S.
