Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That's definitely an interesting one. I think it's pretty cool how kids can learn to be mature and have responsibility at that young age in NYC. You see them with their little siblings doing grocery runs and going to the deli and whatnot. And it doesn't seem to be a huge saftey issue oddly enough.
In NYC I was shocked to see how well kids my son's age could navigate the city's subways- ALONE.
It scared & impressed me all at the same time. My 11 year old son can't even find his socks in the morning
Oh I know! When I was there I saw a girl that was probably 7 or 8 and her and her YOUNGER sister were by themselves! Crazy!
I had never been much west of the Mississippi (Hot Springs Arkansaws on a vacation from Chicago, which was shocking in its own way).
But moving to Calfornia was quite a shock. I got a job offer there, took it, and travelled cross country to get there. So the wide open spaces of the West was already pretty forboding...taking hours and hours to drive across Wyoming during a very very long sunset.
California was shocking becuase you had to go through customs to get there...in other words, that fruit control station. Oh dear...taking "California Republic" really seriously.
Then down through the Sierras into the Big Valley on the way to the Bay Area. I guess what suprised me was how dead the grass was....hills and hills of rolling yellow grass. And those oak trees that didnt look like oak trees back in KY. And the use of palm trees. I had though California (the part I was going to live in) was more Redwood Forests and pine trees...wetter. Not a semi-desert.
And the weather. The perfect wealther without humidity and that blue blue sky. For day after day after day after day after day....until the fog and clouds finally made it in over the coast ranges and it got cooler and that tule fog set in.
Not just a different country, but a different planet almost. So, so different from Kentucky and Southern Indiana.
I could go on and on about what a special or unique place Califas was.
Same for me, living there for 2 years from central IN. Loved all the sun but the air is so bad almost anywhere and day after day the SAME (or hotter) weather, then it's depressing to not get a formal 'spring' and it's June gloom from March to July while IN is full bloom, and COLD then, think 40-60 with the occassional hot day. Everything is DRY and BROWN. Everyone drives like Type AAA. And NO RAIN
Same for me, living there for 2 years from central IN. Loved all the sun but the air is so bad almost anywhere and day after day the SAME (or hotter) weather, then it's depressing to not get a formal 'spring' and it's June gloom from March to July while IN is full bloom, and COLD then, think 40-60 with the occasional hot day. Everything is DRY and BROWN. Everyone drives like Type AAA. And NO RAIN
You must have been there during the drought years.
Having grown up in NW Ohio and now having spent the last 15 years in the Upstate of South Carolina a few things immediately stood out to me (wouldn't say shocked necessarily).
1. Growing up in NW Ohio EVERY home I ever went in to had / has a basement. In SC I guess I am at least shocked when I meet someone or go into a home that does have a basement. Pretty much every home in the upstate is either on a slab of concrete or has a crawl space under the home.
2. Yards - again, having grown up in NW Ohio it seemed that every home be it poor or well to do had a nice full green front lawn that was well kept, etc... Down here even some of the "middle class" homes unless they were recently built / sodded have just the ugliest bare patches of dirt and grass.
3. The casual U Turn. Drivers down here make U-Turns like its part of the divers edu curriculum haha.
4. Lack of salt trucks and or other snow removal equipment. Back in the 80s and 90s you could always tell a car was from Ohio or Michigan because they all that nasty looking salt / rust appearance on the underside of the car. You don't see any of that down here because when it does snow or ice, there is only a VERY small regiment of salt trucks that the counties us to salt the ice.
5. Stray animals. Mostly cats. Never seen so many stray animals just casually running around neighborhoods.
6. Mega churches. NW Ohio, there are a TON of churches, be they catholic or protestant with small to medium sized congregations. Down here I had no idea you could have a sunday service with THOUSANDS of people. haha
7. See #6. In NW Ohio, heck OHIO in general every small town has at least ONE catholic church. Many even have a catholic k-8 school and about half or a 1/3rd of those have a small catholic high school. In the entire state of SC there are only 5 catholic high schools. I knew the south was Baptist heavy but my goodness. I LOVE my baptist friends but chill already haha. You won. Although they probably would say the same thing about Ohio, Michigan, NY and NJ.
Having grown up in NW Ohio and now having spent the last 15 years in the Upstate of South Carolina a few things immediately stood out to me (wouldn't say shocked necessarily).
1. Growing up in NW Ohio EVERY home I ever went in to had / has a basement. In SC I guess I am at least shocked when I meet someone or go into a home that does have a basement. Pretty much every home in the upstate is either on a slab of concrete or has a crawl space under the home.
2. Yards - again, having grown up in NW Ohio it seemed that every home be it poor or well to do had a nice full green front lawn that was well kept, etc... Down here even some of the "middle class" homes unless they were recently built / sodded have just the ugliest bare patches of dirt and grass.
3. The casual U Turn. Drivers down here make U-Turns like its part of the divers edu curriculum haha.
4. Lack of salt trucks and or other snow removal equipment. Back in the 80s and 90s you could always tell a car was from Ohio or Michigan because they all that nasty looking salt / rust appearance on the underside of the car. You don't see any of that down here because when it does snow or ice, there is only a VERY small regiment of salt trucks that the counties us to salt the ice.
5. Stray animals. Mostly cats. Never seen so many stray animals just casually running around neighborhoods.
6. Mega churches. NW Ohio, there are a TON of churches, be they catholic or protestant with small to medium sized congregations. Down here I had no idea you could have a sunday service with THOUSANDS of people. haha
7. See #6. In NW Ohio, heck OHIO in general every small town has at least ONE catholic church. Many even have a catholic k-8 school and about half or a 1/3rd of those have a small catholic high school. In the entire state of SC there are only 5 catholic high schools. I knew the south was Baptist heavy but my goodness. I LOVE my baptist friends but chill already haha. You won. Although they probably would say the same thing about Ohio, Michigan, NY and NJ.
Speaking of Catholics, it's funny that people associate the Midwest so strongly with WASPs even though Catholics have a large presence there.
We go between GA and Ohio frequently, and I’m always depressed by West Virginia. While the topography is beautiful, the general ambiance is poor and ugly.
One time, we looked at hunting land there, and so drove over suspension bridges and back roads. We saw incredible poverty and things like **** fighting birds in cages. The place just makes me cringe.
I was shocked at the amount of litter lining the sides of highways in Lousiana. I’d seen a similar situation near the Salton Sea long ago, but not for so many continuous miles.
Then I remembered someone telling me he had gone on a fishing boat trip off the coast of LA. He said when he finished drinking a can of soda, he asked to put it in a container for recycling. The guy running the trip grabbed the can, tossed it into the Gulf, and said, “THAT’S our recycling.”
I wouldn't say I was shocked by any of this, but when I first moved to Reno, I'd only been to the West a handful of times on family trips, and here's what surprised me:
- How cold it gets at night out in the Mountain West. In the spring, 25 at night and 65 in the daytime is totally normal.
- How familiar people are with other Western states and cities. It seems like most people here have been to Seattle, LA, Denver, Portland, Boise, Phoenix, and even the Dakotas. Back in the Midwest, many people had seldom left their state.
- That all of Northern Nevada is mountainous, or at least close to mountains; it's not just the Sierras. I was imagining most of it would be flat desert like South/West Texas.
- How close and accessible the Bay Area is. I imagined it being another world, but I go on weekend trips there sometimes and it's no big deal. I can see why so many people and companies here come from there.
- The large number of unincorporated towns. Back in Illinois, even the towns with like 300 people are incorporated cities with their own governments. The only incorporated cities here in Washoe County are Reno and Sparks, full stop. Many people don't even live in a named unincorporated community like Spanish Springs, Verdi, or Sun Valley, but just at the fringes of suburban development and say they live in "Reno". In Chicagoland, the city has very clear boundaries and people will let you know if you're not really from "Chicago"; that would be a foreign concept here.
- The amount of art and decorations people have on their properties - mostly either Old West stuff (wagon wheels, mine carts, rusted vehicles) or New Age-y/spiritual stuff (mandalas, Mesoamerican sun god designs). It's really widespread here and not just limited to "artsy" people.
- The expanses of wilderness actually don't feel as isolating as I was expecting. Even on the famed "Loneliest Road in America", you pass a group of trailers or some old shack every so often, and even in the dead of night you pass another vehicle every 10-20 minutes. The only place in this state that I've truly felt like I was in the middle of nowhere was the stretch of road south of Baker on the way to Great Basin National Park, because then you're really on a very local road and far from any national or Interstate highways. My prevailing emotion driving across the state is not "wow, this is eerie" but "wow, this is boring".
- How "hipster" the culture is in Reno. I imagined it being all souped-up cars, tattoo parlors, biker gangs, drag racing, and petty crime. There's still some of that, but the main commercial roads these days are lined with brewpubs, cafes, açaà restaurants, nightclubs, and cutesy antique shops. For better or for worse, the city has lost much of its masculine, rugged edge.
New Jersey: How not disgusting it was, and how the suburbs were actually almost as nice as MetroBoston's. Hoboken also was like a whao wtf, because my best party night to date was in Hoboken. NJ was an awesome surprise. The whole negate I have is the Jersey Shore was run down a lot, I was shocked to see that for a NE beachy area (albeit Cape May and Lavalette, however). But I was shocked to have such an awesome time in NJ!
Upstate NY: I pictured Upstate NY (Syracuse-Oswego-Utica-Finger Lakes Area) to be rolling hills with cute little farms and very progressive people. I just assumed since it was New York. My first day in Upstate taught me that its heroin central and lacks quality healthcare and it was largely rundown and very conservative. I remember driving to Ithaca one day and on the way down there were atleast 20 confederate flags. I was shocked to see how depressing that area of New York was and I was severely let down. After three years in Upstate, glad to have left.
Los Angeles: How Crazy the drivers were. I thought NY, Boston and Miami had crazy drivers. I was shocked to see cars going 100mph+ on the highways, tailgating and riding a ss like we were trynna merge on i-95. LA showed me, people are in a rush... on the roads. haha. But it was definetly a cool experience.
Raleigh: Being in the South, I really had a mindset to not expect much similarities to up North. But going to Raleigh, reminded me a lot of the Merrimack River area in New Hampsire-Mass. The road designs mimicked that of the Merrimack Valley and just the landscape in general. Its not exact but it gave me those vibes... I really like Raleigh because of that.
Chicago: How underrated this massive, awesome city is. The food, people, atmosphere and vibes were all great. I love the architecture and everything in the city. Going there for the first time shocked me because I was expecting a bigger version of Philly... but instead Chicago blew me away. Seriously one of the best cities out there. Im not saying I didnt think Chicago was great before I went, I just didnt expect really any US City to be that awesome! I wish Chicago was closer to my family because Id call that awesome place home anyday!
Pittsburgh: Probably the biggest shock Ive had. I didnt know much about Pittsburgh. I thought it was a dying rustbelt ity that was depressed economically and socially. Was I wrong? 110%.Pittsburgh was a vibrant, gorgeous, hilly and attractive city for literally any age group to enjoy. I love the Dormont area too, with light rail and proximity to downtown. Pittsburgh blew me away at every corner. Nicest people in the country, no seriously... Some of the Best food. Dont @ me! Pittsburgh has a really good thing going on and I want to apply for jobs there pretty soon when my contract is up in Mass. Too bad the Steelers and Penguins play there.. >_>
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
find his socks in the morning
