What do you like best/ least about where you live?

^Austin is definitely the best place in Texas.

 

NE NC.
Pro: Close to the ocean beaches and only 4 or 5 hrs from the mountains. A small town but only 45 minutes from a large metropolitan area. People are kind and helpful for the most part. Lots of interest in the arts.

Con: Nepotism is rampant in local businesses. Gangs drop bodies in the surrounding swamps. This is a small town among other small towns but we have sky-high electric rates.

 

I'm guessing not Mayberry....

 

I was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. (Actually I was born in Ralston but my family moved to Omaha - which completely surrounds Ralston - when I was 4.) I love my city (and my home) dearly, I have absolutely no plans to ever move away, and I have no major problems with this city...except one:

We have (as my British brother-in-law might say) absolutely sod-all as far as mass transit goes. There's some lameass bus service, but nothing more than that. I freely admit I've become spoiled by all the time I've spent out East where there is a thriving rail culture...but back here, we ain't got SHIT. Not even a fucking streetcar. How pathetic is that? Mass transit is the birthright of everyone who lives in any major city, but do we have it? Fuck no. That would make too much sense.

Oh, I'm sorry. Rant over. Like I said, I love Omaha and I don't want to move. (If nothing else, there's the fact that I just paid off my mortgage, and ain't no WAY I'm throwing that away.) But I'm such a train geek...and I can't shake that.

Anyhoo, the things I like about Omaha? Let's see:

- TV dinners
- Reuben sandwiches
- The College World Series
- Wade Boggs
- Bob Gibson
- Steakhouses, steakhouses, and more steakhouses

 

Best: Friendly neighbors, park views, amenities.

Worst: cold winter 7 months of the year. trying to get out of my neighborhood and around with seemingly every road closed or down one lane for water line repair. I mean don't get me wrong, it's an investment but they didn't think convenience for motorists at all!

 

Los Angeles?

best in my town:

• people have a sense of humour
• small town with short ways, lots of small shops, flowers and public greens at every nook and cranny (we even have a public beach in the marketplace =) )
  
• lots of bicycle lanes
• farmers' market 6 days a week
• townhall has its own bees -> town's own honey =)
• public orchard and herb garden where everyone may harvest

worst:

• loud traffic
• lots of discos, pubs, bars and consequently lots of clamouring drunks all night
  
• far too much salt on the roads in winter
• big building companies getting permissions for all sorts of barely legal stuff (e.g. building in protected landscapes)
• lots of ultra right-wing nazi-morons

 

Same state, but definitely not Mayberry. I don't think the people are as dumb/naive here and unlike Mayberry, half of the people living here are black.

 

I like that it’s so close to downtown Philly, I hate that it’s a busy street.

 

Oddly enough I live in that area as well.

 

^you two could meet IRL
I've never been north of Taff's Well yet but Morecambe Bay looks very nice. Definitely a place to go to on a vacation. (I'll most certainly not collect cockles there, though. I'm not used to waters that have tides, let alone so fast ones)

 

The weather's shite. It's either too bloody hot or too bloody cold.

 

We probably work in the same office, or at least pass each other on the way to work.

It is lovely here, if you like rain and traffic problems. That Bay is lethal though, and I got the inevitable lecture from the parents about how dangerous it was for the children. They of course forget about the treacherous slag heaps, carbon monoxide tunnels, abandoned industrial buildings and the stained orange streams I used to play around.

 

Ah the days before Health and Safety.

You must be more to the North side of the bay then as traffic going through places like Lancaster can be a nightmare.

 

(Cute user name ).

 

I remember when I was at University there was this girl who would get on the bus and I hate to admit it, irritated me. She was loud and a bit showy. It was like the rest of us were her audience. Just one of those people you don't know but comes onto your radar purely situational. Sooo time passes and I get a note from an old school friend. Our dads were in the Army and she left a message to my Dad for us to meet up. Like we hadn't seen each other since we were six or seven. I remember opening the door and it was that girl from the bus. She was still my friend from childhood in there... (Weird thing was she had gone out with this Navy guy and just broken up with him. He was the brother of my Glenn - hubby).

 

it's a small world, isn't it? 2 years ago my dad was in IC for months and almost died. No doc could find out what he had. On christmas eve his room mate's doc came to visit his patient, saw my dad's name and asked if he had a daughter named S... Yep, dad said - my youngest. Turned out this doc's big sister was a classmate of my little sister. And the coolest thing is that he read dad's file and said "that looks quite like my area - I'm a rheumatologist. I'll have a word with your docs" and he was right! Dad has a very rare form of rheumatism where his immune system attacks his own blood vessels. Now he gets immune suppressors and is rather fit again =)

That's soo typical for parents: the selective memory. They may keep forgetting your name but they will always remember that you peed on the vicar when you got christened. (And they'll tell all the embarassing anecdotes to your friends or your SO)


More stuff I like about my town:
tomorrow starts the 3 day Africa festival =) Not bad for a tiny country town. We'll try to get an Guiness Book entry for most drummers (we'll need 1000 - highly unlikely that we make it but it'll be a lot of fun anyway!) Now the question is: do I bring my Bongos, Darbuka or Djembe?