Deutsch 102 am Aquinas College

Transportation is a vital part of everyone's life. I have had to walk most everywhere throughout my life, this included school for 13 years, walking around AQ, and going to visit friends. Of course with my family we would travel by car. My mom and dad work together and drive about 40 minutes to work. Compared to where I just walk over to Wege to do dishes. Americans in general have a love affair with the automobile. A lot of this is due to Henry Ford making early cars affordable for common people. Another factor that I contribute to this is manifest destiny, the ultimate american dream. The freedom of being able to drive hundreds of miles on our seemingly never endless highways makes the automobile the perfect transportation device for Americans.
Germans on the other hand are quite different. In Germany and throughout the rest of Europe, public transportation is the way to go. Buses, street cars, trolleys, subways, taxis, bikes, walking, all of these are different methods to get around Germany. Their love affair with the car is actually not really a love affair. Don't be a fooled though, lots of people do drive cars in Europe. The success of Volkswagen is a sign of this. Germany also has the Autobahn where speed limits are not even a suggestion. One reason many people use other forms of transportation than walking is how crowded German cities can be. The streets are narrower and the buildings are closer together than here in the U.S.A. Germans may not have wide streets and giant loads of traffic, but they manage just fine with public transportation.