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200 replies

lemmy.world

Do you know that European countries have "states", too? And that this person crossed several of them (how many depends on the route taken) on the tour through Germany should be clear, too.

4

i constantly hear stories of Europeans who won't visit family because the drive is too long. i ask how long and they're like "20-30 minutes" lmao. it has taken me that long to get to the store in some places I have lived in the US lol

144
piefed.zip

Europeans were so insistant on getting freedom of movement in the EU just to not fucking use it.

81

On the other hand, they would need to learn 5 languages in case they need to ask for directions on that travel.

15

On a recent work trip to Atlanta we had an over an hour long Uber ride to go 8 miles...in the suburbs!

4

Like, I've driven 7 hours to kick it with the homie for the weekend.

And I hate that for me, why the fuck don't we have a nationwide high-speed rail?

1
lemmy.world

Idk I'd rather be in Chicago than certain parts of Germany. Like Berlin or Munich of course are better than anywhere in the US, but small town east Germany? Yeah, I'll take the good pizza (Chicago bar style) and freshwater sea even if it comes with the drunkest drivers you ever did see

7

And eat a good Chicago Dog, on your way back though WI you can get some Spotted Cow and hit up the meat raffle and maybe win some meat and a gun

2

I love how everybody responding recognized my south park joke and got plenty of upvotes, yet I am downvoted for starting the joke.

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kkjreply
lemmy.dbzer0.com

I'd rather eat Detroit pizza than anything served in Germany.

-17

I love a good schnitzel, and had to defend German food here. But sometimes I choose pizza.

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lemmy.world

It's also possible to drive through about ten countries in 8 hours in Central Europe.

56

This is a shitpost because it’s an inversion of that common observation.

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feddit.org

I think any definition of Central Europe that includes 10 countries is really stretching it. Anyway, Poland-Slovakia-Czechia-Austria-Hungary-Slovenia-Croatia-B&H (8) should be barely possible to visit in an 8-hour trip over much of one former big country.

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nightlilyreply
leminal.space

Surely you can do better than that. NZ almost has you beat.

12

You're comparing a state to an entire country. Perth in western Australia to Cairns in Queensland is 49 hours of driving.

It's also nowhere near as beautiful as the drive from Cape Reinga to Bluff

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lemmy.world

At least you have a road that reaches diagonally across WA. If Alaska did it would take a lot longer than that

4

Many of the roads across the interior are probably gravel. At least they were when I last journeyed there. The ones along the West Australian coast are paved though. They form what's called Highway 1 (or at least it used to be).

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It's a really long drive from Utqiagvik to Ketchikan or even Proudhoe Bay to Juneau because you have to wait for climate change to make building the roads feasible

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lemmy.world

Alaska w/ an area of 1.7m sq/km or 663k sq/Freedom Units compared to Western Australia 2.5m sq/km or 975k sq/Freedom Units I'm not sure about that... But I suppose it's possible.

1

It's not about the overall area, it's about the shape. Alaska has long legs. WA is very compact for its size.

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boonhetreply
sopuli.xyz

I suspect they might have meant the other end

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feddit.uk

The question is, how many states will you visit during that drive through Germany?

40
Rothereply
piefed.social

Yeah, the creators of the meme kind of bungled the punchline by choosing another federation as the European example. Because you literally will drive through several German states as well.

They should have chosen France or Poland, or Sweden, I think most people underestimates how big Sweden is in an European perspective.

18

I mean, it is a shitpost in the shitposting community

Bungling the meme, if anything, is right on brand lol

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neidu4reply
piefed.social

I only count one. Mostly because I only know of one and its location with certainty.

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macnielreply
feddit.org

Germany is subdivided into Bundesländer = states.

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neidu4reply
piefed.social

I know. I just never bothered to learn them, on the account of being scandinavian.

But I picked up somewhere somehow at some point that Munchen is in Bayern.

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piefed.social

That's fine, it's the most important one anyway.

Signed, a totally not biased Bavarian

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feddit.org

Right, it's the one place you'll want to avoid at any cost. The only sign that allows you to do a U-turn on the highway is "Willkommen in Bayern".

Signed, a definitely biased Swabian

6

Certainly not a Bavarian Swabian.

But tbh Bavaria should be split up anyway. Bavarian Swabia should go to BW, Franconia should be its own state and Old Bavaria should be split into occupation zones.

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macnielreply
feddit.org

we should have pushed Bavaria to Austria... :)

-- greetings from Hamburg

3

Looking at the map, I think I've actually been to all of them except Brandenburg and Saarland.

EDIT: Unsure about Thüringen. And upon checking the autobahn map, I may have briefly been to Saarland.

1

The highlighted route is only four states compared to the six states, therefore Deutschland is bigger than USAland.

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nexguyreply
lemmy.world

I think 4 people live in that part of Australia outlined by Texas.

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fireweedreply
lemmy.world

It's not America's fault that Australia has no frickin idea how to properly size its states

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Nah, these are the right sizes. The middle of the country is mostly unpopulated desert (and then Alice Springs). If you mark deserts off as their own states, the snakes and dingos refuse to pay for road maintenance and that's how you get Mad Max.

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omega_x3reply
lemmy.world

Getting in your car and being bitten by a spider that puts you in a coma for 3 years doesn't count as driving.

3

Mate, you have moose and bears and shit. Don't squawk about spiders.

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lemmy.zip

Finally! I was going to comment that this thread was just a dick-swinging competition. Glad you brought the pics to prove it!

4

It's the mythical Double Dick of Norway and Sweden with the mighty Finland Ballsack at the ready. Double Dick is more than twice as good as just sad Single Dick.

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Yeah but we've still got a quarter of Sweden to go from the route I mapped bro. This isn't even my final form!!

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Damagereply
slrpnk.net

Well we're talking about real countries here, not empty wilderness!

0

You mean like Dubuque, pop. 60k?

The path I drew for Sweden takes you via about 7 million people, with 100k+ littered cities along the way. If I were to guess the route likely has a similar population density along it as the Germany route, while being longer.

1

It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it!

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Almaccareply
aussie.zone

You should check out Western Australia. Texas is tiny in comparison.

Edit to add:

18
lemmy.zip

There's a joke that if you wanna piss off a Texan tell them we should cut Alaska in half and make TX the 3rd biggest state. Western Australia is still bigger though.

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Alaska also doesn't have a fully connected road system, so you'd have to walk for a lot of it.

2

California is pretty similar if you’re going north to South… if you avoid commute hours. Then you’re looking at. 16 hour drive.

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lemmy.world

I think you can also drive in California in a straight line for 16 hours. I mapped it once during a slow work day lol

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lemmy.world

Yeah, I5 will take you from Mexico to Canada. And that drive across CA is long as shit when you’re going north to South.

And CA has some world-famous high-traffic spots around places like LA, which makes it even worse during commute hours.

San Diego to Oregon is, IMHO, better done as a 2 day drive. And both of those days are still going to suck.

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Yeah,we did Vancouver BC to Tijuana and I think about half the drive time was going into and out of LA.

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lemmy.zip

If you're on the road, it's wise to hit peak outside of urban centers.

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It’s kind of hard to avoid getting screwed around places like LA, the Bay Area, or Sacramento. You kind of have to go through them, and unfortunately, most of the side road shortcuts are no longer secrets. GPS has been offering up those shortcuts to drivers for a while now, and even the workarounds are slow.

Your best weapon is to avoid those areas during commute hours and to plan ahead.

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sh.itjust.works

What’s with the dip down to Marfa? I mean, it would be dark by the time you go there, so I guess watch for the lights?

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Idk tbh. Not sure why this route detoured instead of staying on the highway, but it only shaves off like 45 minutes

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lemmy.ca

That's the joke. Americans say Europeans can travel 8 hours and touch x number of states but in America you don't leave any.

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lemmy.ca

Uh, you can drive for longer than that and still be in the same province here in Canada.

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If you're willing to drive N/S, the Prairies are like 775 miles tall. Quebec is like 1250 miles tall and is the size of like, France, Germany and the UK combined.

Canada is basically the same size as Europe with like 5% of the population.

5

Yup. Just checked in Ontario, and if you want to drive from Windsor to Kenora, that's a 24 hour drive. If you shortcut through the US, it's only 19 hours

5

I mean, just using this general location, if you started in Chicago and went south on 57 out of Chicago, you might still be in Illinois at the end of the trip.

3

I recently visited Saskatchewan for a friend's wedding in a town nearish Saskatoon. Crossing the boarder in North Dakota it was another 8 hours of driving in SK before we reached our destination...which was still in the lowest 1/3 of the province!

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lemmus.org

Oh yeah? Well where I live I can drive for a solid 24 hours and never leave my county.

Because I live on O’ahu and I’d be driving in circles (or sitting in rush hour traffic coming from Westside into town, yeah)

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lemmy.dbzer0.com

Takes 2 days to drive from Thunder Bay to Toronto. Still in Ontario.

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deltapireply
lemmy.world

I did it once in 15 hours. I only nearly died 3 times.

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ddplfreply
szmer.info

Were you speeding all the time?

1
notabotreply
piefed.social

Google maps says that journey would currently take 14:45, presumably at a legal speed, and while that's long enough to split over two days, you probably can do it in one go. It's not speeding that'll get you, but tiredness.

4

I was in my mid twenties and had a supply of caffeine. Was well rested before starting. What nearly got me each of those 3 times was moose, once during sunset/twilight and twice in the night. Especially at night there is not enough time to react to moose that run out onto the road; I'll be the first to admit I got very lucky on my run.
On my return I scheduled my trip such that I could do all my driving in daylight hours and stopped at a (iirc) provincial park for the night and slept in my car. The following morning just an hour or so after sunrise I saw the result of an Escalade hitting a moose, and it reinforced just how lucky I was on my trip south.
Further to the timing, I was occasionally speeding a bit, (during daylight) but for the most part stuck to my vehicle's optimal fuel efficiency speed of 87km/h. I stopped once for petrol (and coffee) in Sault Ste Marie.

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Quilotoareply
lemmy.ca

Another four hours to Cornwall and you are still in Ontario.

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lemmy.zip

Shoulda started on the southern Maine border. You can touch 10 states in about 8 hours.
(ME NH MA RI CT NY NJ PA DE MD)

11

Yeah, the east coast is great for just collecting states. Come out west, and some states can take 12 hours to cross -- a mostly straight corridor.

6

There's another layer of joke to the meme that Midwesterners would rather drive 20 hours than go through all of the trouble of flying or taking a train.

Granted I've mostly encountered that sentiment outside of the large cities where to fly or take the train would also involve driving for 2-4 hours then figuring out long term parking and then transfer all of your stuff for the train/flight, endure all of the delays of taking a plane/train and then there's a solid chance the destination is also car centric as heck so then you have to borrow/rent a car at the destination, and rapidly the cost both monetarily and in time starts making a lot of sense to road trip

3

Germany has the Autobahn system and thus relatively short travel times. I'm pretty sure even smaller countries like Latvia have two points separated by an 8+ hour drive!

🇱🇻 stronk!

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lemmy.world

Now I’m curious what speed these mapping sites assume for the autobahn when predicting travel time.

3

Idk about Google Maps but Mapy.cz allows buses to go hella fast

::: spoiler How?
You can see the real time, which means the 1 min is pulled from a timetable, from 2 stations actually very close together (and named similar, too). They imported OSM data wrong, one of the stops is at the nearest road segment to 50°N 10°E. It has been fixed since.

Edit: actually not quite!
https://mapy.com/en/turisticka?l=1&source=pubt&id=28582585&ds=1&x=10.0007124&y=50.0001362&z=17

This time though, it's the Z-M Gewerbegebiet stop and it has no timetables associated with it, unlike the real Z-M Gewerbegebiet in the shopping district of Zella-Mehlis. Planning a trip by public transport therefore falls back to an hour-long walk from the nearest stop in Arnstein, for a total travel time of about 5 hours (as opposed to 1 hour by car) from the real Zella-Mehlis.
:::

19

130 km/h as that is the "recommended" or "default" speed (Richtgeschwindigkeit in german)

7

Warst du schon mal z. B. in Tschechien? An der Grenze sollte "↑ Straßenschaden 300+ km ↑" und "Staugefahr; hier gilt auch Rettungsgasse" stehen.

1

You can fly a passenger plane at full speed in a straight line for 10 hours and still be in France.

10

I assume this is referring to French Guiana. You can say you start in France and end in France. But I would say it's unreasonable to say you're still in France, you left France and stayed out of it for the majority of the trip

10

Not my fault France has shitty planes /s

Now seriously, airspace above international waters does not count

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lemmy.ca

A state is part of a country and comparing a state to a country in this context didn't make sense. "Hey this subregion is smaller than your region". In the same area you drive through at least 4 Germany states.

If you really want to play look at this.

22h without leaving a single Canadian province https://maps.app.goo.gl/2vWuVHRCt4F8ckSL8?g_st=ac

9

If Germany was a US state, it would be the fifth largest by land area, but its population of 83mil is more than the two most populous US-states combined (CA 39mil + TX 32mil ≈ 71mil). Its top three states, population-wise (NW 18mil, BY 13mil, BW 11mil) would individually make it into the top ten (with BW being #10, so it'd get pushed out if we also add the other two).

So, yeah, the comparison isn't really fair.

3
lemmy.world

If you appear to be "alternative" in any way, do not drive through Texas.

I have driven through Texas three times, and I have gotten pulled over and searched every time. The cops would love to have any excuse to seize your car and cash, they hate you.

If you absolutely must drive through Texas, at least remove your Darwin fish and any political stickers, get a hair cut, remove your face piercings, and wear a cowboy hat or baseball cap or something.

I'm not exaggerating and this is not a joke.

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lemmy.world

I have lived there for 3 years before and can confidently say u have had exceptionally bad luck, or have a BOLO out on ur car.

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lemmy.world

lived there for 3 years

So you're saying the shitty Texas cops would treat out of state drivers differently?

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lemmy.world

Yes, actually that's really common practice in all states. Out of staters are always tagged more for infractions because their far less likely to try to fight it in court and more likely to just pay the fine. This is what happens when police departments have quotas to meet :(

4

Yes, actually that's really common practice in all states. Out of staters are always tagged more for infractions because their far less likely to try to fight it in court and more likely to just pay the fine.

2

With most states in the south it also depends on when you are there, where you're going, and how you are getting there.
Around holidays they are out in force to deal with drunk drivers and make their yearly quota off speeding tickets and people traveling for the holidays. They know that people from out of state are the least likely to come back and fight the ticket. They are more likely to just mail the fine in and be done with it.
Certain towns are also so small that they know the locals on site, so they will stop just about anything they don't recognize if you give them the slightest excuse. These are usually the towns off the beaten path that don't get much traffic, so if they think they can get some ticket money from you, you are getting stopped.
Driving through some shit town that annexed a portion of a busy road just so they can lower the speed limit by 15mph for 1000ft and stop people for speeding while you have a cracked taillight, or one held together with red tape, is begging to be stopped.

4
lemmy.world

First panels point is kind of weak, that's driving through the narrow part of Michigan, slivers of the narrow parts of 2 states, a sliver of Illinois, and the narrow part of Wisconsin... which is only five states. Texas is an obvious example of a long drive, but also try going through Georgia, lengthwise. That's at least a 7 hour drive.

Edit: nvm I see Iowa now. Still is something that only works when you start at a specific location and is probably one of the very very few examples of getting through more than a few states in 8 hours in the Midwest.

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brianreply
lemmy.ca

but um akctshually you probably didn't actually walk the borders because the landmark isn't really at the geographical 4 corners

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lemmy.world

It is legally and officially at the 4 corners. The earlier surveying mistake doesn't matter because official state boundaries were changed to match the marker.

5

In 1925, some 57 years after Congress had first attempted to specify the spot, the problems surrounding the originally misplaced marker were brought up before the US Supreme Court. In order to amicably remedy this original surveying error, the US Supreme Court then redefined the point of the Four Corners, officially moving the Four Corners point roughly 1,800 feet (550 m) east, to where the original survey had first held it to be all along, and where it remains to this day, duly marked.[6] This initial survey error has resulted in some longstanding misunderstandings about the correct location of the Four Corners marker, some of which remain to this day.

well shoot. I guess I gobbled up this longstanding misunderstanding, even though it has been corrected for longer than it was ever wrong.

2
lemmy.world

That route goes through Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio.

7

Oh is that Iowa? I can barely see the border.

Alright, it's technically correct at 6 states. Probably the only spot on the Midwest where you could pull this off.

3

Well... as there is no speed limit on german highways, you could theoretically visit every part of germany within ten minutes including one stop at a donerman, to get a doner.

6

Looks like Hamburg to Munich, the highlighted route goes through HH, NI, HE and BY, four states.

5

When you drive though Montana lengthwise, it just never seems to end. And sometime youre driving for hours and the only part of the scenery that changes is the position of the sun.

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lemmy.world

It takes 14 hours to drive all they way through Florida, north to south

4

And how many German “Länder” did that trip drive through? Drive for 8 hours, still in US; drive for 8 hours, still in Germany would be more correct.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled shitposts…

4

4 to 8.
Depending on the exact starting point and route.

2

This reminds me that I really want to take a road trip through New England sometime.

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lemmy.world

Or how about Sweden, more than 20h from top to bottom.

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Victorreply
lemmy.world

I don't get it. It's this a "gay joke"?

1
Victorreply
lemmy.world

Are you saying a lot of people in Sweden are gay? Is that the joke here?

0
feddit.org

No, as I said, it’s a play on words and a reference to how you like to have sex.

The terms top, bottom, and switch are used to describe an individual's role during a BDSM activity. They may more broadly denote a psychological, social, or sexual identity, or indicate one's usual preference.[1] Terms topand bottom refer to giving and receiving roles, not to who is physically on top in a particular sexual act.[1][2][3] A switch is someone who can act as both a top and bottom.

1
Victorreply
lemmy.world

I understand that part of the joke. It's also common in the male homosexual community to talk about top or bottom. But what about the "the Swedes..." part of the joke? Please explain that to me as thoroughly as you've done with the obvious part, please and thank you. Because it sounds to me like you're saying it's typical of Swedes to be bottoms, or gay bottoms, as if that's true and/or a problem. I hope you'll prove me wrong without any backpedaling. 👍

1

I have no idea if swedes tend to be bottoms more often than other nationalities, neither do I care to be honest.

The words „Sweden“ „top“ & „bottom“ triggered a brainfart, which I formed into this joke. If the line had been „drive through Sweden from bottom to top, I’d have probably made the same joke the other way around.

Why is this so important to you? Do you think I‘m dissing Sweden? Do you suspect that there’s a layer to the joke you didn’t get? Is the joke simply not funny to you an you try to find out if you missed something?

1

Laughs in 1 full day on the road and still in Bahia leaving from the Salvador(Capital) to Itabatã (In the south of the state)

By the way same distance from Germany

2

Never mind, I just check from north to south of Bahia and it almost doubles the distance (0_o)

1

Not enough roads up north for it to be possible, but its technically further for me to cross my province than it would be to get to, and cross Texas (the wide way)

0