My dad and I drove some 1.5 hours to Hamburg today (for most of you this is the next neighbour over, I guess, but for us in Germany it’s not considered close) to buy hardwood (early Christmas/birthday present). The shop, Cropp Timber (https://www.cropp-timber.com/), is amazing, they have everything. I bought some C-rated Wenge, a little more Pear and quite a bit of Amaranth and Black Walnut, which was even more expensive than the Amaranth. The US is further than Africa… 
It was brilliant.
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Christmas came early this year!
1.5 hours is only half way to the next major town/city here on the outer rim.
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in 1.5 hr i’m almost at every corner of our country…
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True, us northern Germans only go to Winschoten or Groningen (1:26h) mostly. 
Wow nice! I dont have anything like that! Just bigbox stores!!!
To reach a city with at least 100 000 people, I’d only have to drive 16 hours!
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It’s really the only store in Northern Germany that sells to private customers. We have some in Oldenburg and Bremen, but they only sell to companies and at least 1m³. -_-
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I can reach any of the top 10 universities in Colorado in 1.5hrs. on the east coast, you can probably drive through any one of 5-10 states in 2. (Not mesa, that is more like 5).
My mom lives about 1.5hrs away. That is far enough that, with the kids, we usually spend the night. Just to make it more worth while.
But I also have 3-4 lumber stores within 30mins.
You got quite a haul there. Can’t wait to see what you make with it.
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That store looks amazing! I would make a few test cuts before I dug into anything that fancy.
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I just wanted some Amaranth (purple heart for you and) for inlays, but it was either a small piece for 4x the base price or a whole board. I will stick to what I can first and do pencil cases and stuff. 
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Yeah, I had a car like that once. 
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How much for these boards?
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I paid 160€ for 200x51x3600 purple heart, roughly 3100€ per cubic meter, for the Black Walnut a little more. I asked him why the walnut was more expensive and he told me a shipping container from the US costs them 12k € now, compared to 1.5k a few years back. Pear was a little less expensive, because it is from Germany, but not by much. All in all I paid 450€.
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When I was in L.A., 1.5 hours was still in town… OK, technically, it was through a couple of incorporated “cities”, but the urbanization never stopped. Just different tax zones and governing bodies… Maybe once the kids are on their own, I’ll sell all my stuff and move to Europe, where everything is a little more compact (and maybe saner?)… I wonder how that would impact my impending retirement? Hmmm…
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You could move to Norway, they all speak English. I was on holidays there once, stunning landscape, nice people, but everything is really, really expensive. 
Or come down to Oldenburg. You are close to Denmark, Netherlands and the North Sea. Plus, lots of grass and cows.
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Continental Europe is denser, easy to get around. Norway, on the other hand is… barren? Desolate? The people are friendly because they have plenty of space and are not that bothered by each other honestly, Norway is quite remote in terms of getting around and having access to, for example, exotic wood. But if you prefer having more space around you, and accept the fact that you live next to the north-pole, sure its great!
(And the politics are not as polarized as in other countries, but please let’s not speak more of that…)
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And your school coverage (% of schooled children) is better than in any other European country, at least used to be, even though people have to like, row a boat and climb two mountains to get to school.
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When I went to school, I had to fight polar bears to make them take me to school if we were snowed in. And in summertime, we rowed with our hands!
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I will stop complaining about walking up hill both ways in the snow barefooted. No one believed me in San Diego, but when I to Colorado…