If you've lived outside of DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chicago. Obviously the weather is the worst part but you adapt. Great architecture, awesome food scene, very walkable/decent public transport, lots of neat neighborhoods, amazing cost of living for a city.

How long is the bad weather?

I’m thinking of moving there. I have lived in Vermont and Maine and the winters there were bad enough

its probs not for you then!

winter on the great lakes can come in Oct. Last through Easter. No sun. Wind comes off the lake so cold it hurts to breathe.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in Southeast Wisconsin (I would never return) but attended college at the UW in Madison. It was a great place to live in my early 20s. Loved the outdoor activities, educated population, politics, shops and restaurants, mix of people from across the country, and all things Badger.

I have lived in Arlington (not for me), Baltimore (not for me), NW DC (mostly loved it), Annapolis (great for weekends but not full time), and Bethesda. Minus some of the recent local politics, I love everything that Bethesda has to offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in Mill Valley, a town about twenty minutes north of San Francisco. It was the perfect mix of nature and outdoors, great restaurants/businesses, and a community atmosphere. If you wanted a city experience or to go clubbing, San Francisco was close by. If you wanted to hike or visit the outdoors, there were mountains, beaches, and forests.

I am stuck in DC/NOVA for career reasons, but if I could afford to move back, I would in a heartbeat. It is the perfect place to raise a family.

I also grew up in Marin County, but in San Anselmo. I completely agree with your sentiments. Marin has some pretty glaring issues when it comes to segregation and just general class consciousness. However, for a kid, it is pretty awesome.

[Anonymous]

Places I've lived that I loved (to be sure, they each had their own drawbacks, but overall great experiences)
- Rome
- Johannesburg
- Nairobi
- London

Places I have no desire to live in again:
- Syracuse
- LA
- Northern VA

I could maybe do New York again but I like DC better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Faves: Brussels, Rome, Lake Tahoe

Mehs: Boston, DC, Syracuse, Frankfurt

This is the only one I quibble with. What did you like about Brussels? I find it boring and soulless. Lived there for a year and it is one of the few places I have no desire to return to.

Multicultural and multilingual with great local and international schools

Thriving diverse business center: both of us have been able to climb the ladder in our respective fields

Supremely easy travel: in 1-2 hours, we can drive to Germany, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands. France is a half hour away.
Minutes from a huge international airport with direct flights to Dulles. Fast train takes us to Paris and London in under 3 hours.

Great beer and food and tons of Michelin restaurants plus fun festivals and beautiful Christmas markets. Great shopping, good arts and music scene, nice and interesting museums.

Tons of outdoor activities in and around the city and many are family friendly — we hike, bike, volksmarch as a family more here than anywhere else we’ve lived.

All these things attracted me to Belgium/Brussels to make me want to move there and request it as a relocation, but out of the 25+ cities I have lived in internationally it's still in the bottom 20%. A good base for going other places is the main draw in my opinion. The weather sucks, the people aren't great, it's surprisingly backwater outside of the EU crowd, and the food is good for what it is but not diverse in the least.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. We really liked Brussels. Lived in Woluwe. Great international school, Brussels is well located for visiting London, Holland, France, and Germany. Plenty of culture. Good bars, food, and shopping.

Probably our least favorite place was Ipswich (lived there 3 years), and favorite was Germany (9 years in Kaiserslautern). Utrecht and Madrid fall in between.

In the US, I liked NYC more than I thought I would, but vastly prefer DC. Have family out west and would love to eventually move to Colorado.

I used to live in Kaiserslautern too. Small world. We loved it. Kids born there. Sad we had to move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love DC and have lived in the city for 31 years (honestly though, I am from MD).

I left 2x.

-Atlanta - NOPE. Too pretentious and the people are dumb
-Charlotte - lovely, but it's a company town and full of stepford wives.

I love DC b/c people are smart here. They are not just into being skinny (Charlotte) and driving fancy cars (Atlanta).

People in this area are definitely educated, but I wouldn’t use the “s” word

DP. I think you must've never lived in a place where the people are dumb. My spouse and I lived in South Carolina and would occasionally go to bar trivia. The two of us would win against multiple teams of eight adults. I'm not saying that bar trivia is a perfect proxy for IQ, but it's telling when many groups of adults can't come up with basic knowledge things like the name of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. People in DC are smart. It's a stark contrast.

Informed and smart are not the same things. Sure, I think more people in states (usually southern) where they don't spend money on education are more ignorant of things and that's tragic, but IQ-wise, they are probably the same. Just more wasted intellect.

You think they don't know things because they don't spend money on schools or the schools don't teach it? Yeah, you've never lived where there's an abundance of dumb people. There's no mistaking it. I had to explain to a colleague (in a municipal financial management office!) that there are four quarters in a year.

I lived in Charleston. People there aren’t any dumber than here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love DC and have lived in the city for 31 years (honestly though, I am from MD).

I left 2x.

-Atlanta - NOPE. Too pretentious and the people are dumb
-Charlotte - lovely, but it's a company town and full of stepford wives.

I love DC b/c people are smart here. They are not just into being skinny (Charlotte) and driving fancy cars (Atlanta).

People in this area are definitely educated, but I wouldn’t use the “s” word

DP. I think you must've never lived in a place where the people are dumb. My spouse and I lived in South Carolina and would occasionally go to bar trivia. The two of us would win against multiple teams of eight adults. I'm not saying that bar trivia is a perfect proxy for IQ, but it's telling when many groups of adults can't come up with basic knowledge things like the name of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. People in DC are smart. It's a stark contrast.

Informed and smart are not the same things. Sure, I think more people in states (usually southern) where they don't spend money on education are more ignorant of things and that's tragic, but IQ-wise, they are probably the same. Just more wasted intellect.

You think they don't know things because they don't spend money on schools or the schools don't teach it? Yeah, you've never lived where there's an abundance of dumb people. There's no mistaking it. I had to explain to a colleague (in a municipal financial management office!) that there are four quarters in a year.

That explains it. In the South, the only people who work for the government are those who couldn’t get a job anywhere else. The smart people are all in the private sector.

In any case, those people who couldn’t answer government-official trivia are likely to be smart about things that most DC people aren’t. Like, how to maintain their house, fix their car, build anything. I’m constantly shocked by how incompetent and clueless DC people are about anything practical. I’m having an addition built, and the Southern “good ole boys” working on my house barely have high school educations, but they smart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love DC and have lived in the city for 31 years (honestly though, I am from MD).

I left 2x.

-Atlanta - NOPE. Too pretentious and the people are dumb
-Charlotte - lovely, but it's a company town and full of stepford wives.

I love DC b/c people are smart here. They are not just into being skinny (Charlotte) and driving fancy cars (Atlanta).

People in this area are definitely educated, but I wouldn’t use the “s” word

DP. I think you must've never lived in a place where the people are dumb. My spouse and I lived in South Carolina and would occasionally go to bar trivia. The two of us would win against multiple teams of eight adults. I'm not saying that bar trivia is a perfect proxy for IQ, but it's telling when many groups of adults can't come up with basic knowledge things like the name of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. People in DC are smart. It's a stark contrast.

Informed and smart are not the same things. Sure, I think more people in states (usually southern) where they don't spend money on education are more ignorant of things and that's tragic, but IQ-wise, they are probably the same. Just more wasted intellect.

You think they don't know things because they don't spend money on schools or the schools don't teach it? Yeah, you've never lived where there's an abundance of dumb people. There's no mistaking it. I had to explain to a colleague (in a municipal financial management office!) that there are four quarters in a year.

I lived in Charleston. People there aren’t any dumber than here.

You can't be serious.

[Anonymous]

Live in NC, Tenn, Mass and prefer it here, in DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love DC and have lived in the city for 31 years (honestly though, I am from MD).

I left 2x.

-Atlanta - NOPE. Too pretentious and the people are dumb
-Charlotte - lovely, but it's a company town and full of stepford wives.

I love DC b/c people are smart here. They are not just into being skinny (Charlotte) and driving fancy cars (Atlanta).

People in this area are definitely educated, but I wouldn’t use the “s” word

DP. I think you must've never lived in a place where the people are dumb. My spouse and I lived in South Carolina and would occasionally go to bar trivia. The two of us would win against multiple teams of eight adults. I'm not saying that bar trivia is a perfect proxy for IQ, but it's telling when many groups of adults can't come up with basic knowledge things like the name of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. People in DC are smart. It's a stark contrast.

Informed and smart are not the same things. Sure, I think more people in states (usually southern) where they don't spend money on education are more ignorant of things and that's tragic, but IQ-wise, they are probably the same. Just more wasted intellect.

You think they don't know things because they don't spend money on schools or the schools don't teach it? Yeah, you've never lived where there's an abundance of dumb people. There's no mistaking it. I had to explain to a colleague (in a municipal financial management office!) that there are four quarters in a year.

That explains it. In the South, the only people who work for the government are those who couldn’t get a job anywhere else. The smart people are all in the private sector.

In any case, those people who couldn’t answer government-official trivia are likely to be smart about things that most DC people aren’t. Like, how to maintain their house, fix their car, build anything. I’m constantly shocked by how incompetent and clueless DC people are about anything practical. I’m having an addition built, and the Southern “good ole boys” working on my house barely have high school educations, but they smart.

Fair enough. However, in all honesty, while I've lived in the South, I've never lived around people who knew those basics either.

In DC, I can pay for the basics.

[Anonymous]

There are a lot of booksmart people in DC. Less common sense/street sense.

[Anonymous]

Moved back and forth form DC to other places since the 80s. Arizona is my fave and I bought my retirement home there. Only 8 years to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. We really liked Brussels. Lived in Woluwe. Great international school, Brussels is well located for visiting London, Holland, France, and Germany. Plenty of culture. Good bars, food, and shopping.

Probably our least favorite place was Ipswich (lived there 3 years), and favorite was Germany (9 years in Kaiserslautern). Utrecht and Madrid fall in between.

In the US, I liked NYC more than I thought I would, but vastly prefer DC. Have family out west and would love to eventually move to Colorado.

I used to live in Kaiserslautern too. Small world. We loved it. Kids born there. Sad we had to move.

I just looked this up. Beautiful and quaint city! What kind of jobs did you have while there? Is it simple for Americans to find work there?

[Anonymous]

^^^Also is it diverse?