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This is a pretty open ended question, but I'm just curious about goon locales. I know it's pretty dependent on the respondent but I'd like to know about more places to seek out and to avoid. I'll start with where I spent my formative years. I grew up in what was once rural and is now thoroughly suburban Northern Kentucky. There was no real cultural experiences to speak of. You sometimes had barnyard parties and hunting was a pretty big deal, neither of which I cared a whole lot about. That combined with the state's less than ideal politics (for a person of my persuasion) encouraged me to leave. There were a lot of pretty woods and geography around where I grew up tho and occasionally we would get real snowfall come winter. I live someplace a lot more tropical now and I didn't think that would be something I'd miss, but I do. I don't think I'll ever return to Kentucky except to visit family. There's nothing there that I really want to do and what my spouse does (environmental science) is only valued by mining interests and some big corporations which my spouse is not into working for. I had a Bi-friend of mine tell me they were moving to Kentucky and I asked them why they would do that. She was going to Louisville which apparently has a decent LGBTQ scene but I think I convinced there were much better ones in many other places. One of the worst parts of N.KY is that it's very politically conservative. A lot of people who live there commute to Cincinnati, OH but want to pay the taxes in Kentucky. You wind up getting a lot of entitled shits that think the blacks in Cincy should get their poo poo together while the only thing these Kentuckians do is cross the river to work 8 hours and immediately try to escape back to their bluegrass. My favorite places to go in Northern Kentucky was Newport when it got all freshly developed (teenaged me thought that was the poo poo) and then Covington to go drinking with friends. The place is filled with German culture but there's no decent locally brewed beers (at least that I can remember). Finally, growing up in my part of Kentucky felt very weird when it came to 'southern'ness. It was a stereotype and joke to Ohioans that we were all shoeless hicks who talked funny. And we would say the same thing about people from Tennessee or below. And a lot of people I've met from Georgia, Alabama, and other parts of the American South think of Kentucky as the midwest or north (definitely not the south). Kentucky's biggest export is Marijuana (illegally obv) and the state would immediately benefit from legalization but people just couldn't wrap their head around it. TELL ME ABOUT YOUR HOMELAND, OUTSIDER
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Aug 28, 2017 13:38
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I live in Orange County, California, U.S.A. It's okay. Lots of people, so sometimes it takes an hour to go 13 miles. Living here is pretty expensive. My 730 Square Foot 1 Bedroom apartment goes for $1450 a month. Luckily there's a lot to do here. My wife and I frequent Disneyland a lot as we are pass holders, and it's fun to go for date night and just grab food and people watch. Costa Mesa has a really high number of quality Japanese restaurants. I'm not sure what else to put. Feel free to ask!
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Aug 28, 2017 15:32
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I grew up and lived in rural North Dakota for 25+ years. The sense of community and togetherness is awesome. Everything else sucks. The weather, the politics, the jobs. I highly recommend not moving there if you are black, gay, any shade of brown, female, or if you sympathise with the plight of any of the listed groups. I now live in Orange county. I really like living in Irvine even though it's super expensive and would probably not move unless it was out of the US entirely.
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Aug 29, 2017 23:08
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I live in Queens, NY what I like most about my neighborhood is that walking down any given block you'll see people from like 20 different countries. there is lots of good food and music from all over the world what I dont like is rent is expensive, the subway is all hosed up, and there is too much garbage in this city, even considering the size. I've been to every major city in the US and many in other parts of the world and few other places have this problem, its not just a matter of population but attitude, New Yorkers just love throwing garbage all over the place and its gross. we even have frequent train delays because of track fires from people throwing garbage on the train tracks
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Aug 30, 2017 00:04
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Earwicker posted:I live in Queens, NY I currently live in Jamaica and I have never seen littering quite so bad in my life as here. If you're in very touristy spots, especially on the North Coast, they are very clean. But that is because the government hires people to go out to pick up trash daily from the roads (and the touristy spots attract fewer locals who dutty up jamrock like nobody's business). I live closer to Kingston and every time I go to town, trash is just lying everywhere. Part of it is an issue of waste management too because a lot of communities have unreliable or no trash pickup. Did you grow up in New York or did you move there? Canine Blues Arooo posted:I grew up and lived in rural North Dakota for 25+ years. The sense of community and togetherness is awesome. Everything else sucks. The weather, the politics, the jobs. I highly recommend not moving there if you are black, gay, any shade of brown, female, or if you sympathise with the plight of any of the listed groups. What makes Orange County better (I have my assumptions but I want you to confirm all my biases)? And how do poor people live where you live with rent like that?
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Aug 30, 2017 04:59
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I've lived in two places long enough to form some semblance of an opinion. Fresno, CA The good: As California goes, the cost of living is incredibly reasonable. You have decent weather for gardening almost year round, and that translates to ample, affordable produce pretty much no matter where you shop. We don't have a lot of fine dining, but you can find good Mexican/Indian/Lebanese/Italian/Vietnamese and whatever other cuisine you want, sometimes within the same shopping center. And you have the accompanying level of diversity. Moving back after living somewhere that was mostly white was awesome, because I grew up hearing multiple languages being spoken every day, and it's kind of cool to be in that again. Fresno's other great quality is being close to things that aren't itself. From my house I can be in Pinnacles National Park in about 2 1/2 hours, Yosemite in 2, and Kings Canyon in 1 1/2. Wanna check out the state capitol? Two and a half hours. Wanna go to SF for the weekend? About 3, traffic willing. L.A.'s just a little longer than that. Monterey and Pismo Beach are about the same. We're slowly gaining attributes a Real City would have (got a pretty fine zoo, regular cultural events, high speed rail coming down the line, we're not entirely made of rednecks). The bad: Holy gently caress. It was 111 degrees today. The air is unbreathable. Fall brings a brief respite before Murder Fog Season arrives in the Valley. There's a ton of urban sprawl. The High Speed Rail project is going to connect to other Valley cities first, assuming funding holds out, and in the meantime everything along Highway 99, one of the main arteries, is being torn apart. There are a lot of rednecks---my high school was, essentially, forcibly integrated, and some of the seniors protested this by waving Confederate flags as the buses drove by. In 1999. Overall: I'm glad to be here for now for personal reasons, but I don't want to live the rest of my life here. Arcata, CA: Of note: I was here for college, but I also came in as a 28 year old "non-traditional" student, so my experience might not be typical either way. The good: As coastal cities go, cost of living is also good. The climate is amazing if you don't mind being wet. Winters and cool to cold and incredibly wet. Summers tend to be drier, with morning and evening fog from the coast and sun in the middle of the day. But rarely is it below freezing, and 80 degrees in the middle of summer is a newsworthy heat wave. Because of the state college there, Arcata is more diverse than the surrounding areas, with a lot of the amenities you'd expect in a larger college town. There is absolutely always something going on if you're into live music/dancing/movies/cultural events/nature. You're surrounded by redwoods and ocean, miles upon miles of trails crossing mountains, forest, beach, and marshes. You like birds? They have so many fuckin' birds. Because of Arcata's reputation, you have all sorts of interesting people living there or passing through. You like weed? There's weed. And most of the time, it's absolutely beautiful. The bad: If you hate being wet or are prone to SAD, you need to prepared, because you are 100% going to be wet and sad by February. And you'll think "spring will be here any minute, I can manage". It won't. Humboldt County is incredibly isolated, and the whole county's only got about 150,000 people in it. This can be good or bad for you. Eventually, the isolation wore on me. There's no good mass transit options, so if you want to get out of there your best option is driving...unless, like last winter, you have multiple rockslides that make the two major roads out of Humboldt impassable. One is still not 100% open due to a slide that happened back in...March? Arcata is liberal but not progressive. They're pretty okay with you being who and whatever you are, but they also passed a ban on nuclear weapons in the 80s because...sure, and more recently passed a ban on GMOs because they're scary. Trimming season brings "trimmigrants". I have nothing against seasonal migrant workers, but a lot of these people come without securing a job or housing first, camp in vans in every available space, end up not finding jobs, and then drain social services in already strapped towns. The permanent population of the town is about 16,000. The college has about 8,000 students. If that doesn't sound like your ideal student:resident ratio, you're in for a bad time. The area is economically depressed, and there's very little opportunity for advancement in basically every industry. Overall: I love it and miss it and want to visit often, but the isolation and lack of jobs make it not for me long term.
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Aug 30, 2017 05:11
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N. Senada posted:
It's largely a function of politics and social norms. For me, the big example is that every on in OC knows I'm gay, doesn't care, and we move on. This is in stark contrast to ND - not a single person in my family knows I'm gay and I probably need to keep it that way for the foreseeable future because there is real consequence not only to me, but to my immediate family if that becomes a known thing. Beyond that, it's much easy to find people with similar interests. The dating pool is much more vast and much more diverse. All the things that come with a larger population center (both good and bad) are generally true. As for the second question... I live in Irvine. Irvine is pretty affluent and at least as for Irvine proper, the answer to the question of 'How do poor people live where you live', the answer is, 'they don't'. I make pretty reasonable money and I still have 3 roommates as it makes a lot of financial sense to do so. The more complete answer is that poorer people tend to live in the northern chunks of OC. Santa Ana and some parts of Anaheim get the stereotype of being the 'poor parts of OC'. Irvine generally is simple too expensive to live in when 10 miles north, you can pay half as much.
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Aug 30, 2017 06:54
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N. Senada posted:I currently live in Jamaica and I have never seen littering quite so bad in my life as here. If you're in very touristy spots, especially on the North Coast, they are very clean. But that is because the government hires people to go out to pick up trash daily from the roads (and the touristy spots attract fewer locals who dutty up jamrock like nobody's business). I live closer to Kingston and every time I go to town, trash is just lying everywhere. Part of it is an issue of waste management too because a lot of communities have unreliable or no trash pickup. I grew up in California and moved to NYC about 9 years ago, however a lot of my family is New Yorkers so I'd already been coming here to visit family for most of my life. I somehow (not on purpose) ended up in the same neighborhood as the graveyard where my great grandmother and a few other relatives are buried.
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Aug 30, 2017 11:43
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I live in Edinburgh, Scotland The good: Lots of museums, top restaurants and cultural stuff. This month was our Fringe Festival, the largest arts festival in the world. The city near doubles in size. Check out the Surgeon's Hall Museum for the history of medicine and rooms full of gnarly poo poo including a notebook bound in the skin of William Burke. Or Mary King's Close; a 17th century street excellently preserved due to having the Royal Exchange built on top of it Socially liberal, lgbt friendly and not plagued by the sectarianism still seen elsewhere in Scotland (just fuckin ban the Orange Order already how are they not a hate group?) It's probably the most beautiful city in the UK. Glaswegians hate it The bad: Housing is expensive Climate's a little cold.
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Aug 30, 2017 14:47
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I live in Houston, we just got some rain.
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Aug 30, 2017 15:03
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I live in Calgary. It's incredibly mediocre in most ways but is never quite bad enough that I'd gamble moving to some place that's probably worse in some/many ways, unless I had a really compelling reason. There's nothing amazing about it, but there's nothing awful about it either.
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Aug 30, 2017 21:40
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I live next to the beach in San Diego in an old rear end apartment building. I will never be able to afford a house lol.
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Aug 30, 2017 23:53
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I live on Long Island. Thinking about it I guess I take a lot of things about this place for granted. New York City is only like an hour+ train ride away, so I could go out and party in the city then get a drunk train back no problem. The Hamptons and Montauk are also like an hour and a half away, which is neat. Otherwise, there are beaches everywhere? We have pretty okay weather most of the year. Nothing too wild. Is it worth a drat? Yeah, I guess so, if you don't mind it being a bit more pricey and living around Long Islanders.
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Aug 31, 2017 21:43
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I live in Southwest CT. Our economy consists mostly of stock brokers and investment bankers who contribute nothing to society, pay a third of the taxes that people who do actual work for a living pay, and cost of living is based on how close you are to public transit to NYC, the quality of your local school district, and how long you can go without interacting with a non-white person (although this last factor is officially called "urban redevelopement" after the previous term "negro relocation" went out of vogue in the late '70s.) We have good pizza, good beer, a decent NY/Boston sports rivalry, revolutionary war history, and literally nothing else to offer. If you make under $100k a year you'll vote Democrat and choose between watching the news and hating people you voted for, if you make more than $100k you'll vote Republican and blame Democrats for everything, and in any case you get to pick two of three: kids, massive boat and beachfront property, or horses.Rotten Cookies posted:I live on Long Island. edit: parts of this post should be read tongue-in-cheek, but I'm 100% serious about urban redevelopment being referred to as "negro relocation" back in the '70s and the lasting legacy of institutional racism. Long Island is a very nice place that takes the brunt of hurricanes for us. GWBBQ fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Sep 1, 2017 01:05
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I live in San Diego. It's very nice.
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Sep 1, 2017 01:23
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Baltimore is extremely good. Well, thanks for listening.
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Sep 1, 2017 01:41
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Hey now, I've seen the wire and I'm not so sure about what you're saying I work with somebody from Baltimore and apparently she came from one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the USA, I should ask her more about that.
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Sep 1, 2017 01:47
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baltimore has a pretty high homicide rate but you have to understand that 90% of that is residents stabbing visitors who made jokes about the wire
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Sep 1, 2017 01:50
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I grew up in South Dakota. Fairly bad weather but mostly you could prepare and make it through, rarely catastrophic events other than tornados which are small-scale compared to something like Harvey. Very rural and sparsely populated with awful politics, the two "largest" cities of Sioux Falls and Rapid City have been improving a lot in terms of culture but it's still pretty weak. Low cost of living and plentiful low-paying jobs, which is both good and bad. Beautiful scenery in the Black Hills and Badlands, most of the rest of the state is boring. Some pretty cool "Wild West" history. Has a sizable (~10%) Native American population that is extremely impoverished. Overall I'd say it's an alright place to live unless you're Native American. There is a lot of awful racism directed toward Native Americans, you're mostly okay as other POC or an open LGBT person in Sioux Falls or Rapid City. Great and inexpensive place to visit, especially western SD with all the scenery and colorful history.
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Sep 1, 2017 01:58
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N. Senada posted:Hey now, I've seen the wire and I'm not so sure about what you're saying Actually, it's extremely good.
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Sep 1, 2017 02:01
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I live in Santiago, Chile. For being on the other other side of the world, for being a city close to the Andes and the Pacific Ocean, for being a city where I don't speak the language, for being a city with a turbulent history, and a lot of problems of developing countries, like poverty and pollution...it feels pretty normal for me. Like I don't feel that much different here than I did in a suburban bedroom in the 1990s in Seattle.
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Sep 1, 2017 02:06
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Pellisworth posted:
I drove through the Black Hills and was stunned at the beauty there. And then I saw Mt. Rushmore and I was so disappointed because it looked so lovely compared to the natural landscape (also a lot of trees were cut down which was sad)
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Sep 1, 2017 02:14
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I live in Gloucester County, New Jersey, which is across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. I was born in a suburb north of Philadelphia, then lived in Europe (Switzerland & southern France) and then back to the northern suburbs. Attended college in western Pennsylvania...so I have been in a number of different environments. I have been in south Jersey since 1985. The Good: It's suburban...but in 15-minutes, depending on what direction you travel, you can be in downtown Philadelphia (cultural and food mix, anything you can imagine) or in the middle of corn/soybeans/nowhere. The beach is 90-minutes away. NYC is less than 2-hours, if that floats your boat. Universities and culture abound. Art, music, you name it. My son is currently earning a degree in glassblowing in Salem, NJ. You Decide: you can buy a house for well under $200K. Rents are insane - cheaper to buy a house, if you can scrape up a down payment. South Jersey folks tend to be more easy-going than central & north jersey types. The weather is 4-seasons Northeast, but generally not as bad as New England. We get snow...sometimes none; sometimes a lot. You definitely get all four seasons. Bad: Property taxes are insane. My property is valued at $177,000 and we pay $5500/year. we paid $85K for the place in 1992, and the taxes then were $1800. We have a 1.5 story bungalow & the lot next to it as a yard. South Jersey is full of wannabe rednecks. Some of them are racists. Most of the southern counties vote red. We fight the good fight.
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Sep 1, 2017 02:25
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glowing-fish posted:I live in Santiago, Chile. How the hell did you wind up in Chile?  You a teacher?
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Sep 1, 2017 02:26
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I've lived in the Twin Cities area my whole life. It's pretty rad, got lots of great restaurants and breweries around and if you drive up to Duluth, it's pretty much more of the same, great restaurants, great beers, and some beautiful sights. Really the only problem I have with it is the school system in my town fuckin' sucks rear end, but that's pretty common given the state of education in the US. EDIT: Also Mark Dayton is a chill dude and Al Franken is my homeboy. TARDISman fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Sep 1, 2017 03:23
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Opposed to the fine people that live near civilization. I live in butthole town southern WI. Pop ~500. That being said, it's 20 minutes away from multiple tourist towns for Chicago wealth. If you live here you either work in the service industry, construction, farming, or nursing, apart from the highschool students that staff every store. Schools(highschools) do surprisingly well in athletic AND SCHOLASTIC competitons. But anyone that has the option, moves toward a city. No poo poo, its actually a good place to grow up and learn things as an open minded person. I haven't had a week where I haven't heard gunshots, but I know it's my neighbors practicing for hunting season, or just having fun. County fair's are a blast, and there's a dirt race track 10 minutes away from me. Everyone knows everyone. Which really sucks when you are trying to date/tinder. It is not uncommon to sleep with the door wide open and I haven't locked my car at home in months. Property is reasonably cheap. I don't plan on moving farther than 25 miles from where I grew up.( I'm going into teaching and there are like 20 high schools within a 45 minute drive and dozens of grade schools that most of which I don't even know exist). I can ride my bike on country roads and not see a humans/life for hours at a time. All that being said, choices for a nice dinner are fairly limited, there is literally no night life except bars filled with local drunks, and if you want to experience a city you need to drive at least 45 minites. And far more if you live in "real small town WI." E: homebrewed moonshine is also loving amazing.
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Sep 1, 2017 09:07
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Sure, why not. I grew up in western suburbs of Boston, MA. Not a bad state, but goddamn suburbs suck. Didn't do anything ever until I could drive. It was fun getting into Boston a handful of times a year. Schools are good, and I got a good education in particular because my dad is a teacher at a private high school. But that also meant not being able to escape the lax bros who live in the big mansions. Reasonable access to beaches in the summer and skiing in the winter, hiking spots, etc. Concerts come through. The weather is fine, I guess. The summers make me wonder how anyone can live further south and the winters make me wonder how anyone can live further north. I lived in Providence, RI for a while. Great city for its size. Small enough that you can bike anywhere (but watch out for the hills). Cool neighborhoods (especially away from the colleges), good diversity although could be more integrated. Lots of awesome restaurants and bars, good music scene, etc. Escape to Boston or NY as necessary. Now I live in rural CT outside Hartford which is still New England but also kind of sucks. At least I can drive to NY or Providence or Boston in a reasonable amount of time, but there's nothing going on here. If the wind blows the wrong way the apartment smells like cow poo poo for a week. In the summer there are nice places to take a walk, lakes and stuff, but in the winter no one leaves their house. Also UConn is a cesspool. Next month I'm moving to Cincinnati, OH. What am I in for? (don't doxx me) SurgicalOntologist fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Sep 1, 2017 13:53
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Do you like sweet and cinnamon-y chili on your spaghetti or hot dogs along with vibrantly yellow cheddar on top? If so, you're going to love it. My favorite movie theater in Cincinnati is the Esquire theater. It shows some independent films and stuff you might not catch at the bigger chains (fwiw, I haven't been in like 3 years). They used to do Rocky Horror Picture showings and screenings of the Room which were pretty fun. There's also a good metal scene there and if you're really into that I could see if my friend around there could hook you up with some venues! You could tell me if they ever got the street car up and running!
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Sep 1, 2017 20:33
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62DGe9i9lGQ
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Sep 1, 2017 20:33
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N. Senada posted:Finally, growing up in my part of Kentucky felt very weird when it came to 'southern'ness. It was a stereotype and joke to Ohioans that we were all shoeless hicks who talked funny. And we would say the same thing about people from Tennessee or below. And a lot of people I've met from Georgia, Alabama, and other parts of the American South think of Kentucky as the midwest or north (definitely not the south). i grew up in and currently live in atlanta. kentucky is not the south. it has southern parts to it but it's a distant cousin at best
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Sep 1, 2017 20:57
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I'll bite. I like in Rock Hill, South Carolina. It's a town which is constantly changing and has doubled or maybe even tripled in size since I've been here. A lot of people commute to Charlotte from here. It's still has a small town feel to it even though it's reaching 50,000 people. That's changing though. Another generation and it'll probably be gone. There's a ton of new buildings that are almost always being thrown together. The food is okay. Very little to write home about. There are a few restaurants worth a drat but not much. We do have an amazing French Pastry restaurant though. They also make the best soup I've ever tasted and I've been to 40/50 states and Canada. Some sort of cream based soup with vegetables. There's also a hole in the wall restaurant that's ran by Hong Kong immigrants and it makes pretty great HK Chinese food. I like their curry. Their quality feels like a secret though because nothing about the way they present themselves speaks to anything special or different than any other lovely Chinese food place. Mostly the restaurant quality out here though is either the remnants of when we were a smaller town before the chains really moved in, hole in the wall shops or chains. We got rid of (most) our blue laws a few years ago so there's that. We're still weird about when you can buy alcohol and you still can't buy liquor on Sunday, but you can buy a beer in a restaurant. Still largely little to do in the area. We did get a Strikers though so if you like greasy food and an arcade/bar/bowling alley/laser tag/restaurant there's that. If you want to enjoy anything really fun though you go to Charlotte. In fact if you want to do anything of note you almost always go to Charlotte. Charlotte kills our local culture by being so much better than almost anything we could whip up in its absence so people don't try as hard. Winthrop University is here and it's a school that focuses on teaching rather than research. The rates are pretty drat high though which is particularly stupid for a school that focuses on small classroom sizes, liberal arts and teaching. The dean at the time went into a massive building frenzy and instead of making due with what they had they spent money updating the campus and making new buildings, but this also made the rates skyrocket. I was able to graduate before the worst of the tuition hikes hit though. It does mean that there is a small island of intelligent thought out here in the South. Churches are everywhere from megachurches to strip mall churches. There are places out here where churches exist on all four corners of the road, though that's not as much the case anymore. We occasionally have people from all over the South converge on us for a young women's softball tournament and people from all around the world to smoke weed and incidentally play in a Frisbee golf tournament because that's apparently pretty big out here. Nature out here is pretty awesome though. Tons of places to hike and fish and hunt.
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Sep 1, 2017 22:07
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Boy CT is really over represented in this thread. As someone who stays at home all day I'll say it's fine as far as my wants go. Internet is pretty good, plenty of food options (Why yes there's multiple pizza places to choose from) and well guess that's good enough for me. gently caress Westfarms isn't that far and it has an Apple and a Microsoft store. (what more could you possibly need?) There was a kickin' rad sushi place briefly in a nearby strip mall. (Next to a Chili's it really was kind of bizarre)
Duck and Cover fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Sep 2, 2017 |
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Sep 2, 2017 04:01
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There are Microsoft stores?
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Sep 2, 2017 06:50
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I moved back last year to the southern Bavarian small town I grew up in after living in Freiburg in SW Germany and Vienna, Austria for nine years. First the bad: our state politics are awful, at least by German standards. Since the war Bavaria has been ruled almost continuously by the conservative Catholic CSU which always had had a tendency to corruption (due to its long and uninterrupted reign), moralistic rigour (except for the politicians themselves, obviously) and a “beware of everybody non-Bavarian and also everybody who doesn't fit our stereotypes of a true Bavarian“ attitude, but in recent years the massive surge in refugee arrivals has seen the party moving significantly to the right in order to gain that precious xenophobe vote  Also the proximity to boomtown Munich (it's about 50 min away from here by train) has driven rent up significantly here, and the municipal government have been sitting on their asses way too long in this regard, so affordable flats are scarce. Now for the good: we have full employment, as does most of Bavaria. The economy has never been so good as it is now. We've got loads of history in every tiny village (one farm here has been run by the same family for 30 generations or so). Augsburg and Munich are quite nearby, as are the Alps. Italy is only like four hours away. While the proximity to Munich has driven rent up significantly, cultural life here has grown as least as much. Even though we're a small town there's tons to do, there're art galleries, classical concerts by world famous musicians, festivals where indie pop stars from Israel or Berlin play and if you wanna grab a well made cocktail at 11pm then you can do so now! Which is not bad at all for a ~13,000 people non-college town, and back when I grew up here most of this would have been unthinkable. The “old“ culture of the town hasn't been displaced by this, though, and if you want to grab a beer in a traditional Bavarian “Boaz“ (basically a pub) for reasonable prices then you can still do so. Also the city has got an amazing sense of community which is something I really like. Politically most of my area (as is most of Bavaria) votes CSU, but at least here there's next to nothing of the xenophobic slant developed by the state-level party in order to compete with the openly xenophobic AfD, a new party with strong neo-Nazi ties that formed after the refugee crisis. The local AfD chapter is next to non-existent though, thank God, and even most of the local CSU people are really stand-up guys who often are more than a little bewildered by the direction their party's been going lately. I suspect that this might also be connected to the Catholic priests of my hometown (if you're religious in any way in Bavaria and even if you aren't, chances are you're Catholic) who are brilliant guys and have made it a point of being staunchly and openly pro-EU and pro-refugees. I'm not gay so I can't really comment on how LGBT people would fare here, but seeing as how even the most conservative parts of Bavaria now have no qualms about electing a gay Protestant Social Democrat as our equivalent to a county commissioner I would presume that it can't be too bad. There's a lot of outdoorsy stuff that can be done around here, but seeing as this area has been continuously settled by humans for millennia it's not really possible (as it would in many parts of the States, I guess) to “get away from it all“; even in the deepest parts of the forests here you're likely to encounter other people, and the next village or road is never far away. Tl,dr: I really like how my hometown has developed recently and I hope that I will be able to remain here recent political stuff in Bavaria makes me angry, but not only is it still far from being as bad as it is in many other countries, there are also plenty of signs that show me that at least in this town the attitudes are different.
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Sep 2, 2017 09:14
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That is a fascinating entry System. What kind of work do people do in your community? Is it largely agricultural? Are there a lot of commuters who travel elsewhere for work? I'm super curious about your village. Politics aside, it definitely sounds like a place where I'd want to visit/work/live.
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Sep 3, 2017 05:24
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Another Germany Goon, originally from the same part of the country as System Metternich. For the last six years I have been living and studying in the town of Weimar, Thuringia, which is right in the middle of Germany geographically and a part of former East Germany politically. As a general rule, life is cheap, clean, cozy and the cultural scene is unusually rich for a place of 60,000 people. Weimar is historically the place of famous poets and composers, but also the origin of the Bauhaus movement in Architecture and Design, which turned out to be probably the most influential school worldwide. Weimar has a major symphony orchestra, several good museums and lots of World Heritage sites. In fact, the building on the other side of the wall where my bed stands is actually UNESCO-protected property. Even though Weimar has an extremely significant historical and cultural role in Germany, it's still a small provincial town with a lot of provincial people. The average Weimarer doesn't really care for Bach, Goethe and Schiller, but definitely for Bratwurst, Dumplings and Sauerkraut. There is a massive divide between the large student and academic part of the population - theres two universities in town - and the "actual" Weimarers, which I don't really get interact with a lot. As a consequence I don't really know a lot about local politics even though I lived here for the better part of a decade. State politics are unique and we currently have a far-left coalition government, which would be unthinkable on the federal level. At the same time the far-right is unfortunately also much stronger than in many other places, but you don't get to see their presence a lot in this town, compared to the villages in the countryside. Having travelled many places around the world in recent months I learned you cannot understate the fact how high the standard of living here is and for how little money you get that. I currently share a nice and bright studio apartment with my girlfriend. It's in the very middle of the town, which contrary to the US is the most expensive spot to live in. I pay 180€ a month for rent and utilities. Food is 150-180€ a month. We cook most of the time and eat out maybe three times a month. Unfortunately, pay is usually also mediocre, especially if you work in the cultural sector. I temporarily solved this by working in Bavaria where I earn more than three times for the same job. I currently work only 36 days per year and still usually have several hundred euros more at the end of the month. It also means sitting in the train for close to five hours one way, but I learned to use that time doing organisational work on my laptop. Honj Steak fucked around with this message at 10:37 on Sep 3, 2017 |
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Sep 3, 2017 10:12
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I live in Utrecht, a city in the Netherlands. The city was founded by the romans about 50 Anno Domini. There's obviously a lot of history and historic buildings, but my 110 yo house is just old. The Netherlands are known by their tulips, clogs and windmills and legal prostitutes and legal weed smoking. I do have a windmill around the corner and some tulips on my table from time to time, but i do not smoke weed with a prostitute while wearing clogs (although one could do that I suppose, you weirdo). We have a king, he likes beer. We have four men trying to form a government with their parties for months now, because we couldn't decide what we wanted. I go to work on my bike, and to the inner city and to my friends. Lots of people do that and pretty much everybody owns a bike. We eat lots of mayonaise with our french fries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f24DOkYMa6o paraquat fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Sep 3, 2017 |
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Sep 3, 2017 19:48
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Honj Steak posted:. I currently work only 36 days per year. What happen? 
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Sep 3, 2017 22:06
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Arglebargle III posted:What happen? The job I do requires me to work one day a week, 36 weeks a year. The rest is holidays. I am about to work more next year, but I'm most likely not going to work more than ~120 days a year in the near future, because it's just not necessary and in my free time I can currently learn and do a lot of other things that will help my career more than working more hours.
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Sep 3, 2017 22:22
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You sound like a creature from a fairy tale, one who can only be seen one day a week, when the stars are just so, and who has the disposable income of a person working 40 hours a week. If you're lucky, you might catch a glimpse of him and steal his magical linked-in profile where you too can enjoy only 36 days of work. Idk, I imagine it's not what I'm envisioning but your life sounds like the definition of cushy.
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Sep 3, 2017 22:54
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