is iowa boring? (Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo: hotel, live, shopping mall)

[GraniteStater]

The architecture of Lancaster, PA sort of reminds me of St. Joseph, MO. The eastern cities tend to have a lot of old brick buildings, high density apartment buildings, tall church structures, and more cape cod houses. You can not really compare Lancaster, PA with Des Moines, IA obviously. Most of the smaller towns in PA fall into the rustbelt category, and many towns have lost quite a few jobs and people for the last 25-50 years. Another item of note that idenitifies Lancaster, PA as more of an eastern town is that enormous Norway Spruce tree on the right side of the picture.

[LPerkins33]

Originally Posted by Tek_Freek

Went to see Celtic Women last night. Bon Jovi's coming, so is Red Hot Chili Peppers next spring...

what? RHCP was here LAST spring. They have no 2008 tour dates set, nor are there really any plans for another north american tour.


<----RHCP fanatic.

Oh and Iowa City is 1000000000 times more fun than Des Moines

[zz4guy]

Originally Posted by PhillyPhan

it is a pity that not everyone is like you and likes to sit at home, play with themselves and be entertained by watching paint dry. if that is what you like to do, then good for YOU. but others might not like to do that kind of stuff, so until something amazing happens, stay in iowa and i'll be having fun in the rest of the world.

ROFLMAO!!

Right on! Everybody here points to Des Moines as the "big" city with oogles of stuff to do. The big city is not even 200,000 people last time I checked. And, like you said before there's much much MUCH more to do in your kneck of the woods outside of Lancaster. Philly, Baltimore, Harrisburg...NEW YORK are all really close. Once you leave des moines you have to drive 2+ hours to see any thing besides corn, soybeans and cattle.

If you are into the clubs and big city type stuff why on eartth would you come to this backward state. What is so bad about where you live? Also not sure what people say when IA is so great because there's nature everywhere. "I can hear the birds tweet and the flowers grow" WTF? Is PA devoid of oxygen? There's plenty, if not more natural beauty in a place like eastern Penn.

[Chicago60614]

^ umm...wow.

I love people from NYC, Philly, Chicago or California coming along and saying Iowa is boring cause it's not NYC, Philly, Chicago or California.

OF. COURSE. IT'S. NOT.

No one ever said it was. It's an awesome state though, and there are things to do there. The 3 million people who are there seem pretty happy when I drop by to visit, and they're not living in the dark ages.

Just cause someone's not living someone else's life that's apparently "so much better", doesn't mean they're worthless and wasting their own life.

[pepe1]

Originally Posted by zz4guy

ROFLMAO!!

Right on! Everybody here points to Des Moines as the "big" city with oogles of stuff to do. The big city is not even 200,000 people last time I checked. And, like you said before there's much much MUCH more to do in your kneck of the woods outside of Lancaster. Philly, Baltimore, Harrisburg...NEW YORK are all really close. Once you leave des moines you have to drive 2+ hours to see any thing besides corn, soybeans and cattle.

If you are into the clubs and big city type stuff why on eartth would you come to this backward state. What is so bad about where you live? Also not sure what people say when IA is so great because there's nature everywhere. "I can hear the birds tweet and the flowers grow" WTF? Is PA devoid of oxygen? There's plenty, if not more natural beauty in a place like eastern Penn.

Please do expand on how you perceive Iowa as "backwards". Be as specific as you care to and please do provide examples.

[El Rhino]

Originally Posted by Chicago60614

^ umm...wow.

I love people from NYC, Philly, Chicago or California coming along and saying Iowa is boring cause it's not NYC, Philly, Chicago or California.

The thing that kills me about people saying things like that is that nine times out of nine the people who say things like that aren't even from those cities, they're from somewhere in the sticks in the general area of those cities.

At least I don't have to "rep" a city I don't even live in.

[Tek_Freek]

Originally Posted by zz4guy

ROFLMAO!!

Right on! Everybody here points to Des Moines as the "big" city with oogles of stuff to do. The big city is not even 200,000 people last time I checked. And, like you said before there's much much MUCH more to do in your kneck of the woods outside of Lancaster. Philly, Baltimore, Harrisburg...NEW YORK are all really close. Once you leave des moines you have to drive 2+ hours to see any thing besides corn, soybeans and cattle.

If you are into the clubs and big city type stuff why on eartth would you come to this backward state. What is so bad about where you live? Also not sure what people say when IA is so great because there's nature everywhere. "I can hear the birds tweet and the flowers grow" WTF? Is PA devoid of oxygen? There's plenty, if not more natural beauty in a place like eastern Penn.

Didja' notice this poster is from Marion? Uh, yeah, really knows them big cities, yup! Ronnie in disguise with glasses?

[mfrerkes]

Originally Posted by Chicago60614

^ umm...wow.

I love people from NYC, Philly, Chicago or California coming along and saying Iowa is boring cause it's not NYC, Philly, Chicago or California.

Does anybody not see the irony here?

What the NYC/Chicago/California gang says about Iowa, is the exact same tactic some Des Moines people have taken against smaller cities elsewhere in the state. I've seen threads about how Cedar Rapids is lame and boring because it's not as big as Des Moines, has less shopping malls, no "AAA" baseball, etc.

Bigger does not mean better. Bashing somebody else's hometown does not automatically make yours better.

[Tek_Freek]

Good point. I'm probably as guilty as the next guy. Funny how easy it is to get carried away...

[Nedibes]

Originally Posted by gimme it

Where in Iowa do you live? It sounds great.

We're in Mt. Vernon, which is a great little college town in its own right and also 20-45 minutes from Marion/Cedar Rapida and Iowa City. The two things I've told friends from California and Michigan to describe MV are that it's like Star's Hollow except with a college instead of a Town Square, and that it feels like a beach town but without the beach.

P.S. I've lived in mid-Michigan, L.A. (L.A. proper--Palms district, about 5 miles inland from Venice Beach) and Honolulu, and now Iowa, and I've loved them all. They're all very different, each has different things going for it and different drawbacks, so different people are going to prefer different places. But probably the two biggest factors for me in how much I enjoy a place is my attitude toward the place (it took me a while to come around to L.A.), and the attitude of the people around me. Obviously Iowa has a lot of boosters , so I think that most people who come here who want to like Iowa, will like Iowa.