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Wilmington is such a great town. I was there for part of my vacation the other week. So many great little stores and restaurants...and of course the beach! Plus you're 4 hrs from Charleston, S.C., which is a must-see city.
My husband and I have made numerous trips back and are relocating the end of August from Sacramento, (not quite bay area but close)! We are so excited about the move, the area is awesome and everything you love about Cali is even better in Raleigh. Its so hard to describe, just better and less costly! Raleigh is populated but not NEAR Cali, so the slower paced lifestyle with all the fun of west coast is amazing to say the least. We just couldnt afford the living in Cali along with trying to travel to Carmel, SD, etc...
Only an hour or so away is the ocean, so you wont be missing anything at all !!! Not to mention Myrtle Beach is a nice drive and so fun as well in SC.
I actually just visited my relatives back in San Jose, so I can give you the picky version of what Raleigh doesn't have:
1. Sourdough bread (bring some with you because you won't find good San Francisco style sourdough bread anywhere)
2. Gallo Salami (bring that with you too because you don't even want to have Salami on your pizza because it is just lacking the flavor of Gallo)
3. Mother's cookies (oddly enough, they don't sell them here)
4. See's Candies (only available on the West Coast, but you can order it online)
5. Chevy's (they just have the best fajitas)
6. Semi-logical school system (we bus kids 45 minutes to get to some of their schools in Wake County and have them on the insane block schedule, which is fine for high achieving students, but really hurts those who struggle in school and the lack of alternative schools for those who are really not interested in being in a regular classroom setting)
7. Small, clean and tasty Taquerias (there are a few, but not like there were in CA, one on practically every corner)
8. Carpool lane and mass transit (no Bart, no light-rail, the bus system isn't really even comparable to that in the Bay Area)
9. Beach nearby with hotels to stay in (people only rent houses here, there are very few hotels and motels compared to Santa Cruz, which is a positive and a negative)
10. Fresh, reasonably priced seafood (in the general grocery stores, you can pretty much only purchase seafood from the counter, there aren't any packages to buy like you can with meat, and you can't find really fresh seafood in the restaurants)
11. Fences and backyards that are landscaped where you sit and hang out (backyards typically consist of a BBQ and grass...nothing else)
12. Jamba Juice (someone really needs to open a franchise here!)
I really miss all of those things, but I have to say, as I sat in Chevy's while visiting CA last week eating my tasty spicy shrimp fajitas (mmm) I still said to myself, I can't wait to get home to NC. It's green, it's beautiful, it's quiet, I don't feel claustrophobic, I can walk slowly through the grocery store and not get run over, I have a nice beautiful home that I never would have dreamed of affording back in CA with a huge backyard, and open land everywhere instead of three-story condominiums and houses built right on top of each other. Overall, I think it's a better way of life here. Also, I'm atheist too and a teacher and my students sometimes ask me what religion I am, but no one has asked me which church I go to and I've been here a year now. I have also found that the lack of In N Out doesn't bother me since I found Five Guys (way better fries too). =)
If anyone has any suggestions on finding comparable items to my above list, I would be forever grateful to hear them. =)
I actually just visited my relatives back in San Jose, so I can give you the picky version of what Raleigh doesn't have:
1. Sourdough bread (bring some with you because you won't find good San Francisco style sourdough bread anywhere)
2. Gallo Salami (bring that with you too because you don't even want to have Salami on your pizza because it is just lacking the flavor of Gallo)
3. Mother's cookies (oddly enough, they don't sell them here)
4. See's Candies (only available on the West Coast, but you can order it online)
5. Chevy's (they just have the best fajitas)
6. Semi-logical school system (we bus kids 45 minutes to get to some of their schools in Wake County and have them on the insane block schedule, which is fine for high achieving students, but really hurts those who struggle in school and the lack of alternative schools for those who are really not interested in being in a regular classroom setting)
7. Small, clean and tasty Taquerias (there are a few, but not like there were in CA, one on practically every corner)
8. Carpool lane and mass transit (no Bart, no light-rail, the bus system isn't really even comparable to that in the Bay Area)
9. Beach nearby with hotels to stay in (people only rent houses here, there are very few hotels and motels compared to Santa Cruz, which is a positive and a negative)
10. Fresh, reasonably priced seafood (in the general grocery stores, you can pretty much only purchase seafood from the counter, there aren't any packages to buy like you can with meat, and you can't find really fresh seafood in the restaurants)
11. Fences and backyards that are landscaped where you sit and hang out (backyards typically consist of a BBQ and grass...nothing else)
12. Jamba Juice (someone really needs to open a franchise here!)
I really miss all of those things, but I have to say, as I sat in Chevy's while visiting CA last week eating my tasty spicy shrimp fajitas (mmm) I still said to myself, I can't wait to get home to NC. It's green, it's beautiful, it's quiet, I don't feel claustrophobic, I can walk slowly through the grocery store and not get run over, I have a nice beautiful home that I never would have dreamed of affording back in CA with a huge backyard, and open land everywhere instead of three-story condominiums and houses built right on top of each other. Overall, I think it's a better way of life here. Also, I'm atheist too and a teacher and my students sometimes ask me what religion I am, but no one has asked me which church I go to and I've been here a year now. I have also found that the lack of In N Out doesn't bother me since I found Five Guys (way better fries too). =)
If anyone has any suggestions on finding comparable items to my above list, I would be forever grateful to hear them. =)
Thanks for writing a response. So this is Raleigh you speaking of? If yes, any idea how different the school systems are in Chapel Hill/Cary?
Raleigh, Cary, Wake Forest, Rolesville, Wendell, Apex, and Zebulon are all part of the (too big in my opinion) Wake county school district which still thinks it is a good idea to bus kids to schools across the county in order to "balance" the socio-economic demongraphics of each school. Basically, it's what San Jose did when I was in kindergarten (I grew up in SJ), but realized didn't work within a few years and went back to schools being neighborhood schools. The block schedule was a valid attempt at trying something new, but it isn't the block part that is failing the students, it's having your core courses for only half of the year that really messes with their ability to build off of the previous level.
Chapel Hill/Carrboro (not Cary, Cary is part of Wake County) runs the typical system you see in CA where kids have their core courses all year long, they even do the regular summer school we are used to seeing in CA whereas Wake county only offers an extremely limited online program. I hear great things about Chapel Hill's school system, but I think that has largely to do with the fact that they are a much smaller school district. You just can't expect to be able to make sound decisions that will fit both the students that live in inner city Raleigh and the kids that live in Cary, it would be like trying to make a decision that would work for the type of kids that live in Los Gatos and the type of kids in East San Jose, they're two different groups and should be treated as such.
I'm not incredibly familiar with Johnston county although I think they run block schedule, but don't do the idiotic bussing thing that Wake County does. All of my info comes from working this past year at a Raleigh High School and slamming my head against the wall nearly every single day out of frustration for my students and the situation they are forced into here. I'm sure not all of Wake county is the same as where I worked, that was just my experience with it all and I've found little information to make me think otherwise.
Raleigh, Cary, Wake Forest, Rolesville, Wendell, Apex, and Zebulon are all part of the (too big in my opinion) Wake county school district which still thinks it is a good idea to bus kids to schools across the county in order to "balance" the socio-economic demongraphics of each school. Basically, it's what San Jose did when I was in kindergarten (I grew up in SJ), but realized didn't work within a few years and went back to schools being neighborhood schools. The block schedule was a valid attempt at trying something new, but it isn't the block part that is failing the students, it's having your core courses for only half of the year that really messes with their ability to build off of the previous level.
Chapel Hill/Carrboro (not Cary, Cary is part of Wake County) runs the typical system you see in CA where kids have their core courses all year long, they even do the regular summer school we are used to seeing in CA whereas Wake county only offers an extremely limited online program. I hear great things about Chapel Hill's school system, but I think that has largely to do with the fact that they are a much smaller school district. You just can't expect to be able to make sound decisions that will fit both the students that live in inner city Raleigh and the kids that live in Cary, it would be like trying to make a decision that would work for the type of kids that live in Los Gatos and the type of kids in East San Jose, they're two different groups and should be treated as such.
I'm not incredibly familiar with Johnston county although I think they run block schedule, but don't do the idiotic bussing thing that Wake County does. All of my info comes from working this past year at a Raleigh High School and slamming my head against the wall nearly every single day out of frustration for my students and the situation they are forced into here. I'm sure not all of Wake county is the same as where I worked, that was just my experience with it all and I've found little information to make me think otherwise.
Gosh, I think I need my wife to read your post since she is a lot more familiar with how schools work or how we want them to be. One of the reasons we are looking at Chapel Hill specifically is because of the school systems. Our child is 3.5 years old so we still have a little bit of time to decide.
My mom actually works in the elementary system here and says that if you feed into the right school (and with annual redistricting you never really know where you will feed into, remember the bussing thing) then she feels the elementary schools are run better here than in CA. I sincerely hope that things at the middle school and high school levels will change in the next 5-10 years just as they changed in CA. My biggest worry is that Wake county will continue to remain as one county instead of separating, especially since it continues to grow each year. They currently employ 10,000 teachers and when a system is that big it's just impossible to make decisions beneficial for everyone concerned. It would be like controlling a company with 10,000 employees spread throughout 112 locations in a 60 mile radius. Craziness.
whatatrip: I'm originally from Burlingame (and San Mateo), but went to private school in the bay area and don't have children yet here so I can't offer any advice on schools, but if you have any other specific questions I'd be happy to answer them! from your original post:
what i like about this area: it's pretty darn similar to the peninsula in general--without the water views. BBQs, both restaurants and in the backyard! you won't find attitude like say, Hillsborough or Atherton. the chance of snow in the winter. the cost of living.
what i don't like: thunderstorms. humidity. no direct flights RDU-SFO. i haven't found a great sandwich place yet (like mr. pickles or Lorenzo's), but now that i think about it that may have to do with sourdough rolls. the malls in the bay area are unbeatable. lack of public transportation. subdivisions (but no one will make you live in one, but they're so different from the bay).
I completely forgot to add the lack of tasty sandwiches to my list. I completely agree.
When you do. . . let me knoW!
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Been in Raleigh a year from Fremont
