How Old is "Old"?

Old Faithful Inn

I was recently watching the charming movie Fisherman's Friends on Amazon Prime (it's free with limited ads if you have Prime and is worth watching) and in the movie there's a tiny traffic jam when a BMW from London can't get past a local driving a small Citroën. The local says that street designers in "the 17th century" hadn't planned on cars the size of the BMW.

That got me thinking that the town where the movie is set and was filmed, Port Isaac, Cornwall, in the UK must be a very old town. At least the 17th century old.

And that reminded me of something that happened to me as a teenager when I lived in Southeast Idaho in the late 1970s. My father had a business gentlemen come visit for some reason. He was from Ireland and because he was staying over the weekend, we took him to Yellowstone National Park which was about 135 miles away.

Side note: my family went to Yellowstone Park at least once a year because it was so close; a little more than a two-hour drive away. So I was very familiar with the park.

The gentleman and I went into Old Faithful Inn (of course we went to see Old Faithful) and he asked me how old was the building. I didn't know so I suggested asking a park ranger. The ranger said it was built in 1904. And I said "That's old" and the man from Ireland said with a chuckle "That's not old."

But I grew up in Southeast Idaho where "old" buildings were about 50 years old. So to my perspective, 1904 was old. But this man was from Ireland where the local church might be 500 years old. Or the streets designed in the 1600s. 

Those of us living in the Western US, which was only settled in the 1800s, have a totally different outlook on what is old than Europeans do. 

What do you think is old? Does where you live skew your ideas of "old"? Let me know in the comments below.