I don’t know if I have the answer to your phenomenological question but having travelled a lot across the US in the last year or so I have come to appreciate the remarkable sameness of places. You pull into one town and you accomodate your surroundings in a way that affirms their familiarity even though you haven’t been there before. You notice the same shops, the same patterns, same traffic lights. Occasionally difference punctures the illusion. A street sign, house style, some piece of architecture. Strange weather. But for the most part sameness prevails. I think this is the force of history and past experience compelling a specific perception of the present. Of course the real trick is being in a place that is all too familiar and recognizing it for its newness. Very occasionally I will have that experience here in Seattle where a rush of everything comes over you as fresh and new. It seems like it is only in these moments that I am actually able to perceive Seattle as it really is. The rest of the time experiential blinders are on.

Oh yeah, Seattle is nice but be careful romanticizing it too much. It is raining and miserable right now. 🙂