It is also nice to be able to leave when you want, and get off the road to take a break or stop to eat where you want. It is also nice to have the flexibility to move around as you please at your destination.

I really wish that the US had a functional rail system, let along high speed rail. I fell in love with sleeper trains when I was living abroad in college, it was so nice to get dinner somewhere near the centrally located train station, hop on the train, hang out a bit then get rocked to sleep and wake up at your destination.

Fuck using a car to commute, I am more than happy to take the train for that, and generally when transit is convenient I prefer to not have to drive.

I lived in China for a year after college, and that was basically fine since I was already pretty knowledgeable about the country and I went into it expecting to be off balance and that there would be a lot of new things. What was a surprise was the culture shock when I came back to the US. I don’t think that the jet lag helped, but I remember feeling really really out of sorts for about a week and just generally in a bit of shock about how different life was here having largely not been exposed to it for a year.