What's it like where you live?

[kaoskat]

I'm very curious about other places. So if you could, where do you live and what is life like there? I'll tell you about where I am to show you what I mean.

Place: Alabama in the USA

I live in a college town so I think it might be a bit different from other places in my state. Cultures and ideas tend to mix a lot here. It's an odd place that, while it's actually rather big, doesn't feel too much different from the teeny little town I grew up in in south Florida. The only difference is EVERYONE doesn't know EVERYTHING about me whether I want them to or not. That's kinda nice. Sometimes we encounter people with a heavy southern accent but mostly accents aren't so heavy because of the constantly changing population. That's good for me because, while I know a lot of people find it charming, that accent annoys me. In fact, the accents and even languages seem to really vary a lot. It makes it kinda fun to hear people talk! 

There's a really interesting mix of people here. Because of the college there are people from all over the world. There's a lot of Asian and Middle Eastern people here as well as the mix of the races I'm more familiar with (Black, White, Hispanic, and Native American). It's fun to see all the different types of people. In spite of that, people seem to get along ok. We also have a lot of people of varying gender identities and sexual orientations and no one seems terribly bothered. (I know that those aren't entirely accurate impressions because I remember what happened with the Chick-Fil-A fiasco and I've seen the hate filled bumper stickers, but I haven't seen anyone hurt or over heard evil comments when I'm around the usually targeted types of people. They don't even seem to get noticed really. I get the feeling people just don't care enough to bother to be evil in that way most of the time here. They are too busy arguing over football teams or something.) We also have a wide example of wealth from really really wealthy to homeless. They don't seem to run the homeless off here. I'm glad for that. I like the homeless people. And the giant houses are so pretty! Over all the feeling of the place here seems like the people range from either accepting or just disinterested. There is this odd politeness and fake smile kindness here though. Southern hospitality or something I guess. I like that people are polite but, sadly, I think it tends to take the place of actually bothering to care about others sometimes.

We have a beach nearby, which is awesome. We have a mall, but it sucks. I'm from south Florida so there are far too many hills here for my taste but I think it's still rather flat to most people really. It rarely snows (as in once in a blue moon) and it's over warm and humid most of the time. Hubby says we are in the "Bible belt" and we are an Archdiocese or something.  Which means we have an archbishop here, I think... It's important if you are Catholic, I think, but I'm not. But anyway, there are churches everywhere! And a lot of them are huge and seem to own huge chunks of the town in their area and most of those have private schools attached. There are other religions here, too. Buddhist temples and things. It's really neat to see all the temples and churches. A lot of them are old and big elaborate buildings. There are a lot of hospitals here too, because of the colleges. Apparently we have one of the top medical colleges in the country or something. We also have a large number of Starbucks, McDonalds, and Walmarts, but I think that's probably just how it is everywhere in this country. Oh! And trees! There are SO MANY trees! I love trees but I also love the sky and there is hardly anywhere here to see the sky. Sometimes it seems like they just shoved all the houses into a forest and didn't bother to clear any space except where the house was planted. There are these weird trucks that drive down the street carving tunnels out of the branches so the trees don't start taking out the cars driving down the road.

The people here seem obsessed with 2 things; football and pets. There are all sorts of pet events and rescues everywhere all the time. It's pretty cool.  And football...... Yeah it's insane. The colleges have "Vs" stores all over (stores that sell merchandise for 2 rival teams) and every car seems to have at least one team bumper sticker or team flag on it. Most of the clothing options people choose are team themed and every store carries some sort of merchandise related to the teams.

There are bad things about living here too. For one it's boring. There's really not a lot to do. We have a lot of stores, but most of the stores are just repeated a lot and there's really just a handful of them if you took away the repeats. The population changes a lot, so when you find a favorite barista or cashier at a store, they are only there until the graduate and then they go back to where they come from. A lot of our doctors work the same way since most of the offices are connected to the colleges and your doctor is often a graduate student. I hate having to change doctors every few years. Things change a lot here really. Shops and restaurants and things shift out quickly too. We have the beach and a lot of parks but it's so hot here most of the time it's not much fun to go. The mosquitoes are insane. There aren't a lot of sidewalks so walking anywhere means walking in the street or people's yards. Sales tax is ridiculous.

That's all I can think of. Now, tell me about your home! What is it like to live where you do?

Edit: Somehow I forgot all about Mardi Gras. It's HUGE here. One of the places it started in this country or something. Not really my thing and it makes getting downtown impossible, but everyone else seems to love it. And the stores filled with masks and beads is neat.

[lovebeam]

i live in washington state, by the border of idaho. I cross the border to work in idaho. Where I live is very blue collar, poor and redneck. I moved here from california and at first i was shocked by how non urban, non granola it was here. People here are more stoic and less touchy feely. There are tons of boarded up abandoned businesses and homes. Lots of meth in the area, lots of crime. Winters are cold and bleak, but spring and summer are beautiful.     

[Princess Lala]

Me, currently North Texas. (McKinney-Frisco)

NOT what most people think it is, in fact it seriously surprised me! *keeps adding amazing stuff about area-sorry! LOL*

What I expected:boring felids, trailer parks, tornados, cowboys, hot weather, red dirt, cows,  country music festivals.

Reality: BEAUTIFUL city covered in pink and white crepe myertles, no tornadoes in fact either floods or ice storms. AMAZING cultural melting pot here. There is a share of cows and feilds though! My nornal day is working overnight and morning, then sleep a little, and hitting multiple stores hunting for toys! I love the way that north DFW is set up because the cities run left-right along a highway that runs north-south. That means I can get places FAST with the highway! x3 Dallas is seriously not that far from me, and Austin is only 4 hours away with bad traffic. Flat land- AMAZING I MEAN AMAAAZIIING night sky near Abilene. Google "Fort Griffon Park night sky" it really does look like that in person and I camp there all the time on meteor shower nights! Nearby in south and west of me I have anime stores, the hotels and spas here are all oriental themed, like 17zillion gamestops, targets, walmarts, and it seems like there is an unlimited amount of Asia Marts as well as a JAPANESE. DOLLAH. STORE. Want Indian food? We have western, eastern, vegan, vegetarian, and heck even gluten free speciaty resturaunts for that just Indian. Dont even get me started on Pho resturaunts. We have cosplay stores, Korean jpop stores, OMG its soooo amazing. We have black metal concerts, hatsune Miku and Pokemon concerts, multiple anime conventions every year in Dallas! In Dallas we even celebrate Tanabata, Japanese Summer festival (thats why I buy yukatas!), and even Chinese New Year. Not everything is Asian here though: Close to where I live there is a Norwegian gift shop, resturaunt, and store. Really close to me is a place that sells authentic chocolates handcrafted and flown over here from Germany and Belguim and the people who run it are from there. REAL italian chefs running italian resturants with menu items made daily IN the resturant all handmade. So many restuarnts with a high zaggot rating. Fine dining is a norm here! A resturant in Dallas shaped like a tower ball that serves like duck everyhing on rice food items (hubby took us there lol). World candy shops- I mean some stuff you can't read without Google translate scanning! All kinds of shops. Downtown McKinney we saw a Star Wars shop! Yes...a shop that sells only Star Wars items.

All the people here are pretty much foreign in the area I live in but they are ALL very friendly and amazing cooks! The drivers in Dallas are crazy though. Back to food.(because food is art and art is life!)  We have literally ANY food you can think of here I hardcore cannot even explain enough how much food selection we have. Sorry California, Texas puts you to shame with food selection. Malls... sooooooooo many malls, one of them has a saltwater aquarium inside. The Dallas aquarium itself is amazing.

Yeah so Texas was NOT what I expected!

More about the weather, climate, etc here. Texas is sooooo diverse, drive 7 hours in any direction from Austin and you will feel like you are in a different part of the US. The beaches down south are beautiful and very peaceful! Drive out West, you get gorgeous desert-like plains with locus flowers, these strange random mountains that are flat on top, and prickly pear bushes with all the westerny animals like coycote, jack rabbits, lizards, etc. Drive where I live, north Texas, you will l feel like you are in Indiana or even Kentucky but with cretaceous fossils and chalk deposits. The bugs here arent bad, but the spring-summer months i notice a strange appearance of diffrent bugs that appear almost monthly like Animal Crossing (yes...i went there LOL!) One month will be cricket month, the next dragonfly month, the next midgefly month. Luckily no misquito, scorpion, or ant problems! Speaking of bugs- I LOVE the butterfly migration here every Fall! Around September (i wanna say its usually September?) every year all the northern monarch butterfiles migrate to Texas and Mexico. There are monarch butterflies everywhere and since the city is decotated with crepe myrtles they tend to hang around and you will even see groups of them in the sky like birds! Its one of my favorite times of the year! The grass here is softer than out west or south, and it doesn't get hot where I live. Its mostly rain rain raiiin all year long and ice in winter. I really miss living in Florida on the key with my dad more than anything  but Texas is just sooooo much awesome and if I moved I would be heartbroken because of the overwhelming variety of everything here. I hardcore encourage people to come here all the time and not to stereotype it. I'm actually proud to live in Texas, it has a special place in my heart and I'm glad I moved here! I'm happy to call north DFW my home

[Bekuno]

I live in south-east Texas (think Houston or Galveston) in a pretty small little town referred to as "the heart of Texas". The most impressive thing we boast is that we have the largest county fair in the state (not the same as a rodeo!). We also have a big Stephen F. Austin statue.

I was born and spent my first three years in Austin but we moved back here because this is where my family has been pretty much since the place was founded. We own a two (maybe three?) different ranches here (one of which has existed for over 100 years) and most of my family are in the cattle trade including my parents who joined in a few years ago. My parents will likely be moving to my great-grandmothers ranch home now that she's passed (or we'll be building our own house on the ranch if another family member wants the old house). It's really nice out there. We also have large DOW power plants out here and one of our community colleges is geared towards engineers looking to work for DOW.

Non-historically, my town is pretty bland. We have all the basics but no malls or fancy shopping places. We have tons of schools though and a big highschool. We also have a pretty nice stadium because we have one of the best highschool football teams in the area. I'm also not to far from beaches which is nice. I actually live, work, and go to college in three different towns. The town I work in is the next town south and has a mall and some nicer shopping selections but still isn't that great. That town is also the birthplace of famous singer Selena! The town I go to college in is north of me but further than the closest community college but the school is better. The town is mainly populated by immigrants and the shopping is even worse than my own town but they have an amazing antique mall that I practically live in. It's also the birthplace of baseball player Nolan Ryan.

Since my town is only a hours drive from downtown Houston there's always a lot of things to do. Downtown Houston boasts the hobby center (great musical selection, love it!), a zoo, aquariums, a rodeo, minute made park, lots of museums, and tons of great concert venues among other things.
Galveston is great for waterparks, beaches, moody gardens, shopping, and boardwalk theme parks. I don't go there as often as I do Houston however.
Kehma is also another place I enjoy going to. It's a theme-park boardwalk with shopping and restaurants!

The cities outside of Houston (Sugarland and Pearland) are great for shopping and dining as well. I also enjoy going to Texas City

[Princess Lala]

^ YAY another Texan! *highfives* You are talking about miss Selena Gomez!!!! (o^^o)♪ I love that area of Texas, Corpus Christi-Houston on the beaches.  Mustang Island is soooo beautiful and its my favorite place in TX because I know if I look off the coast to the southeast- my old house in Florida is directly across the water somewhere as it faced the water in the gulf northwest! I was there last Fall actually and we are definetly going back on a whim next time hubby and I get at least 3 days off on the same days! I camped on the beach and it was amazing! Houston is awesome- SO much to do there!

[Galactica]

i live in washington state, by the border of idaho. I cross the border to work in idaho. Where I live is very blue collar, poor and redneck. I moved here from california and at first i was shocked by how non urban, non granola it was here. People here are more stoic and less touchy feely. There are tons of boarded up abandoned businesses and homes. Lots of meth in the area, lots of crime. Winters are cold and bleak, but spring and summer are beautiful.   

I have visited that area!  Do you maybe live in or near Lewiston or Clarkston? I had to go there for work once-  I think the upside to where you live is that it is near to rivers and canyons and you could actually do some pretty epic white water, hiking?

I live in Washington too-  smack in the middle of Seattle.  I can't believe it has already been 12 years here! I moved from San Francisco, and before that Huntington Beach CA, and before that Hesperia CA, and before that Long Beach CA (where I grew up). 

I love Seattle! 

Biggest complaints: long dark/rainy winters; too many white people; people here are introverted and a little hard to get to know; HIGH cost of living and housing- which is not commiserate with salaries; far away from my family in So Cal.

Things I love the best:  SO much to do! INCREDIBLE summers with neverending daylight!  Reasonably good public transit; short driving distance of countless hikes, trails, mountains, camping, parks, islands, farms, Mt. St. Helens; a little further drive will get you to Vancouver BC, Mt. Ranier with a real glacier, a real rainforest with old growth trees!  Also the downtown shopping is pretty good, the nightlife is fun, the music scene is REALLY good, the queer community is friendly and inclusive, people are not as body-obsessed as So. Cal (which is good if you are a pale plump lady). Also, although the introverted people are a little hard to get to know- they are awesome if you can stick it out, and there is a real pervasive GEEK culture (that is probably the result of dozens of the world's largest technology companies) which means a lot of fun geeky events/cons and a truly EPIC Library system.   Because Seattle is reasonably dense, it is also not too hard to find like minded pony and doll nuts!
 

[Bekuno]

^ YAY another Texan! *highfives* You are talking about miss Selena Gomez!!!! (o^^o)♪ I love that area of Texas, Corpus Christi-Houston on the beaches.  Mustang Island is soooo beautiful and its my favorite place in TX because I know if I look off the coast to the southeast- my old house in Florida is directly across the water somewhere as it faced the water in the gulf northwest! I was there last Fall actually and we are definetly going back on a whim next time hubby and I get at least 3 days off on the same days! I camped on the beach and it was amazing! Houston is awesome- SO much to do there!

Oh no no, not Selena Gomez (Gomez was born in Grand Prairie). I mean Selena Quintanilla-Pérez  (Born in Lake Jackson) She was a very famous tejano singer in the 90's who met with an unfortunate fate. There's a very well known movie called "Selena" released in 1997 about her life and we watched it every year in Spanish class. She was very talented, I recommend giving it a watch (and listen to some of her songs)!

Surfside is probably my favorite beach around here, I've never been to Chorpus Christi (at least I don't remember..).

Oooh another fun fact, the big Houston Rodeo is about to start up. I live directly in front of the location the aforementioned "largest county fair" and just before the rodeo starts we get the trail riders here for a day or two as they continue to Houston to get to the rodeo. Horses on the highways if you can believe it! That's Texas for you. There's thirteen different cities where trail rides start!

Do you have small cattle farms around where you are or are you more in the city? One road right off of my house has a pen with a few horses and another road a little ways down has a big longhorn ranch. They're scattered about but there's fields of cows, horses, and hay bales everywhere!

[BlackCurtains]

I'm originally from Wisconsin but I've lived in SW Florida for almost 10 years.

I'm in a weird little area that divides the last signs of civilization and total wilderness. There's a main road leading to a Wal-Mart behind my house in one direction, but if you try to go the other way you'll just run into jungle-y marshland for miles. There's even a Venus Project compound in there somewhere

Anyway, it's a small town that's really quiet and dead most of the year. During tourist season it bursts at the seams (it's still season right now) and the roads are awful. Just awful.

There's a whole bunch of beaches to choose from. We like Manasota. It's a nice white sand beach with tidal pools. You can find an abundance of shark teeth and wild dolphins and manatees (and stingrays) are plentiful. Some people won't swim in the Gulf, but I do. I love it. It's really salty and feels good on my skin, plus I love all the fish and animals.

Just like the rest of the town, during off-season, the beaches are mostly deserted, but when tourists are here it's hard finding a spot. There are people from all over. I've heard more languages and accents living here than I can count. You kinda get to recognize people... like Canadians They are always the sunburned ones

Around my actual house is a ton of wildlife. I'm surrounded by water, with a lake across the street. So I see all kinds of things, which is awesome.

Honestly, I don't get out much. Most people seem to flock to bars around here. Our mall is meh. Fairs and the like are too redneck themed for me. I think Sarasota has more the type of "scene" I'd be into. Of course, I'd have to be super rich first

[Strawberry Swirl]

I like to call it "Middle of Nowhere, Minnesota."
The actual town I live in is absolutely dead. We have a bar + grill, bank, and post office. That's it.

In the town nearest to us, we have essentials like Walmart and small owned businesses but nothing fancy.
The mall's most exciting feature is Shopko. Whoopee.

Luckily, if you like to drive around, you can drive to nearby towns like Mankato to feel like you live near other human beings!

[Galactica]

I'm originally from Wisconsin but I've lived in SW Florida for almost 10 years.

I'm in a weird little area that divides the last signs of civilization and total wilderness. There's a main road leading to a Wal-Mart behind my house in one direction, but if you try to go the other way you'll just run into jungle-y marshland for miles. There's even a Venus Project compound in there somewhere

Anyway, it's a small town that's really quiet and dead most of the year. During tourist season it bursts at the seams (it's still season right now) and the roads are awful. Just awful.

There's a whole bunch of beaches to choose from. We like Manasota. It's a nice white sand beach with tidal pools. You can find an abundance of shark teeth and wild dolphins and manatees (and stingrays) are plentiful. Some people won't swim in the Gulf, but I do. I love it. It's really salty and feels good on my skin, plus I love all the fish and animals.

Just like the rest of the town, during off-season, the beaches are mostly deserted, but when tourists are here it's hard finding a spot. There are people from all over. I've heard more languages and accents living here than I can count. You kinda get to recognize people... like Canadians They are always the sunburned ones

Around my actual house is a ton of wildlife. I'm surrounded by water, with a lake across the street. So I see all kinds of things, which is awesome.

Honestly, I don't get out much. Most people seem to flock to bars around here. Our mall is meh. Fairs and the like are too redneck themed for me. I think Sarasota has more the type of "scene" I'd be into. Of course, I'd have to be super rich first

Haha, I bet some of those sunburnt ones are also from Seattle-

I love that you live near a bunch of wildlife!  I bet you see SO MANY awesome birds/reptiles/amphibians/arachnids/insects! I'm super jealous- the one thing I don't see a lot of is wildlife, (except the occasional Bald Eagle or Cooper's hawk eyeing our chickens) - I miss having lizards in the yard... whenever we go on vacation I always want to go somewhere there is going to be a LOT of critters!

[lovebeam]

I live in Spokane so red part of the blue state.

[pony_magick]

I'm going to be the first odd one out.

I live in Christchurch, New Zealand. Second largest city in New Zealand (biggest in the South Island).

At the moment all we're known for is Earthquakes.... We've just had our 5th year Anniversary of the earthquake that killed over 180 people. At the moment the city is still rebuilding. The CBD (main centre of the city) is no longer mainly empty spaces - there are now buildings going up which is nice but I can't say the same for the suburbs that were really badly hit.

We used to be known for our Victorian gothic architecture and being more English than England but since all those buildings collapsed, that is no longer the case. I think you can say we're now developing a new more contemporary style, going by the new buildings going up.

We're mainly white of European descent as Christchurch was one of the first settlements in New Zealand and we have a history that is really British. Our population has shrunk quite considerably after the earthquakes but it's slowly coming back as people realise it's a safe city to live and lots of exciting things happening in the way of entertainment.

The ground is flat in the city and we're almost surrounded by hills on 3 sides of the edges, it's no more that 1hr to the beach from the city. Lots of places for walking in the hills and taking in the scenery.

As far as weather goes, we're pretty dry most of the summer (quite often go into droughts) that is usually nice and warm but this year it's been SO much hotter than usual (going up to above 30C most days for weeks on end).

[Princess Lala]

Oh no no, not Selena Gomez (Gomez was born in Grand Prairie). I mean Selena Quintanilla-Pérez  (Born in Lake Jackson) She was a very famous tejano singer in the 90's who met with an unfortunate fate. There's a very well known movie called "Selena" released in 1997 about her life and we watched it every year in Spanish class. She was very talented, I recommend giving it a watch (and listen to some of her songs)!

Surfside is probably my favorite beach around here, I've never been to Chorpus Christi (at least I don't remember..).

Oooh another fun fact, the big Houston Rodeo is about to start up. I live directly in front of the location the aforementioned "largest county fair" and just before the rodeo starts we get the trail riders here for a day or two as they continue to Houston to get to the rodeo. Horses on the highways if you can believe it! That's Texas for you. There's thirteen different cities where trail rides start!

Do you have small cattle farms around where you are or are you more in the city? One road right off of my house has a pen with a few horses and another road a little ways down has a big longhorn ranch. They're scattered about but there's fields of cows, horses, and hay bales everywhere!

Haha my bad! xD I thought Selena Gomez was from that area! I havnt heard of the other Selena you mentioned- i will have to check her music out!

Im in the city but we have our share of cows farms and horse ranches in my area! In the city below me we have big alpaca farm in the middle of the city next to a walgreens.... Its a big place too! xD i live really close to a horse rescue! On the east side of historic Mckinney near downtown the police officers are actually on horseback! Its very very cool!

[zombienixon]

I moved out about a year ago to Greenville, SC since it's a lot closer to work than where I was.  I'm actually surprised by how cosmopolitan it is.  Many of the people at my apartment complex are from India, several of my co-workers are Colombian, there's a Korean church next to mine, it's a lot more diverse than one would expect from upstate South Carolina.  The city has grown a lot in the past two decades, especially since the BMW plant opened nearby.  Now there are a bunch of German companies coming over here for the cheaper labor.  There are also a lot of engineering firms in the area as well. 

Cost of living is pretty low compared to other parts of the country, but the average rent has gone way up compared to last year, so I don't know how long it'll be like that.

There are some places to go in the area, but not a lot that interests me personally. But they do have a lot of choices when it comes to food, at least. 

The infrastructure hasn't really grown along with the city, so traffic gets pretty bad, especially considering it's not really that big of a city. Of course, you can just find backroads most of the time to avoid the major roads as much as possible. And going on the interstate during the morning or after 5PM? Forget it.  The roads are also in such poor shape that I've had to have my wheels repaired twice in the past year and a half.

And there aren't a lot of people in the area that are going to have any kind of nerdy interests, or if there are I certainly haven't found them.  I think they do have a convention, but I don't think it's very big. 

It's not really a bad place to live, but I've been wanting to move to a larger city like Charlotte or Charleston.  The former is where a lot of my friends are and the latter is where I could possibly land a good paying job, so it's kind of a toss up.

[Honeycomb]

Let's see ... I think I could write a book about this.
I'm living in Southern China, Guangdong Province, not far from Hongkong and Macao. My city has about 14 mill. inhabitants, there are people everywhere.
The weather is tropical, with extremely wet springs, hot and humid summers, beautiful falls, and no real winters. Winters last for about 2 weeks, and this year we had the coldest one in I think 70 years, with a few days only 3 degrees Celsius. Mind you, we have NO heating in the houses, so it's extremely uncomfortable.
My city is close to the sea, so the air quality is not as bad as in other Chinese cities, we don't have much smog.
What I love about living here is that you can find food everywhere. There are restaurants, small shops, vendors, bbq stalls and whatnot everywhere, and it's delicious. Shops never seem to close, you can get a haircut at 9 pm, a massage at 11 pm, and you don't need a car, because everything is in walking distance, everything you might need. Public transportation is excellent and cheap.
What I don't like is the way animals are considered 'goods' and 'toys' or 'products'. But that's another story.
Also, it can be a little dirty to the western eyes. They do throw their rubbish everywhere. This is especially bad in the countryside. The scenery would be pretty but people litter wherever they go.
I will think of some more to add later.