Writer's Block: No place like home

[prosodic]

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5 Things I Love:

- the mountains and Puget Sound: I don't have to choose whether I want to live near mountains or water because I can do both!

- the culinary scene: superb restaurants...and gosh, but we love our farmers markets here.

- so much to see and do

- excellent bookstores

- great parks, most of which are very dog-friendly

Really, I could go on.

5 Things I Hate:

- the cost of living

- the job market

- geographically, I'm still far away from my family

- the traffic

- the weather, for about 2/3 of the year

Compared to:

Findlay, Ohio: well, I still love Findlay. It's my birthplace. But things there are much quieter and slower-paced than here.

Columbus, Ohio: Seattle beats Columbus, hands down. Except for the fact that Seattle doesn't have Ohio State University. :) I still love Columbus. Columbus is home for me emotionally. But the scenery is blah compared to here. And there is so much more here culturally, food-wise, etc.

Germany: Considering that my 4 years there were probably the happiest of my life up to this point, Germany trumps Seattle. But mostly because it was a great base of operations from which to explore the rest of Europe. I traveled a lot more. We were more carefree when we lived there. We didn't have as many real-life burdens weighing us down. So yes, in that respect, Germany was better.

Comments

[maitsukishiro.livejournal.com]

You're right, OSU definitely makes Columbus something to see. I definitely love it there. I definitely know how you feel though. Buffalo will always be home to me no matter where I go. it breaks my heart to see it fall as much as it has, I hope someone can revitalize stuff around here.

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

I love so much about Columbus. German Village. The Short North (the gallery hop is amazing...have you ever been?). The Park of Roses. The area of High Street around campus. The Greek Festival. It's a very underappreciated and underrated city.

Anthony Bourdain covered it briefly on "No Reservations" the other night. He pretty much acted like Columbus was full of soulless neanderthals who wouldn't know good food if it hit them in the face. He was surprised that there was more to Columbus than just Applebee's and TGI Friday's. I was more amused by it than offended, though.

[maitsukishiro.livejournal.com]

I've one Gallery Hop a couple times. I live in Baker West, which is the art kids dorm (despite going to be a senior and living in a freshman dorm...) and it's really cool!

I'm surprised he was under that assumption. Columbus seems to have a lot of different varieties of food because it's a test market for all different kinds of a restaurants. A lot more than I've seen anywhere else. I mean, there is Jenni's with unique ice cream and Wings Over Columbus with the best honey mustard chicken fingers I have ever had in my life. And that's a lot coming from somone from Buffalo.

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, he was with Michael Ruhlman (a Cleveland native) who totally dissed Columbus and seemed amazed that Cowtown's fine citizens had a palate for something other than Chili's. I cannot possibly tell you what they were eating, though...something Japanese.