Seniorland: Aging in a Retirement Metropolis with Galit Nimrod (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Well, well, let's talk about the activities, so the, it, a little bit.

Uh, what does the abundance of activities offer to someone who has just left the structure of a working life?

So, um, well, it depends if you like using newspapers or, um, or digital means, but let's, let's talk about newspapers.

Uh, every week you get the activity list in the local newspaper.

They have, by the way, their own TV, radio, and newspaper, and in the activity schedule, you can find...

It's a 64 pages, okay, of activities.

Very small print, by the way.

It doesn't fit older people, but never mind that.

You can find there, um, information about all the classes that take place around the place, information about more than 3,000 clubs, um, that are focused on specific topic.

So if there's anything that you're interested in, you can find your club for it, be it butterflies or Red Sox or, um, sewing, art, politics, philosophy, whatnot, okay? Uh, you can find a club for that.

And by the way, if you can't find it, you can form one.

Uh, there are, there's also, um, a local college where you can take classes.

Um, there are country clubs, um, and of course, as I said earlier, the golf, I mean, any type of sports, uh, enrichment activities, recreation, um, um, art, fairs, parties.

Um, it's just unbelievable.

It takes, it took me quite a long time every week to decide which, which activities to, to try and visit because just reviewing the activities is a lot [laughs] of work.

But after a while, I mean, this is for newcomers, after a while you get your own schedule and, and you can...

You know, there are the things that you do normally every week, and there are the special events that you go to.

So, uh, yeah, there's, there's tons, just tons of activities.

Having lots of choices in general seems good, but it can also be overwhelming, I guess.

Yeah, it could be overwhelming at start.

Um, and, and also take into account that in addition to the activities that are offered formally, there are numerous informal activities, like in your neighborhood.

Many neighborhoods organize their own activities.

You know, they have Thank God It's Monday events, okay? That's for retirees.

[laughs] So every Monday they celebrate the fact that they don't have to work, and they have, uh, I don't know, card games in their neighborhood or, you know, they go on day trips.

So everybody is not only involved in leisure activities, but they also are involved in organizing leisure activities.