When my friend Kelley moved from Boston to the Bay Area last year, she (cruelly) sent me a picture of her and BFF Quinn, with the comment "There's someone missing from this picture."
Looking back, that was probably the first moment I seriously considered moving. It took another three months and a particularly vile New England ice storm to finalize my decision. I can say I moved for a better climate, for the amazing local food scene, for a more relaxed vibe, whatever. In the end, my friends were a huge part of why I moved.
2. There are flowers. In the middle of OCTOBER. And crazy Dr. Seuss-looking shit growing everywhere.
3. You can buy booze everywhere, every day of the week, at any time. I still find this so exciting that I refuse to buy booze at an actual liquor store. This is clearly less exciting to everyone else who lives here, because thus far I'm the only one I've seen at CVS buying beer, vodka, gum and tampons.
4. The Farmer's Markets. Dear god.
5. Vosges Bacon Chocolate bars. This has nothing to do with California, except that my local grocery store sells both the milk and dark chocolate varieties. And they are AWESOME.
Plus, their cheese section looks like this:
Oh yeah, did I mention I'm in California?
Yep, I am now a proud resident of Oakland, California in a neighborhood that rates quite highly on the awesomeness scale. Everything I need to be happy in a four block radius: the public library, used bookstores, video stores, a comic shop, bars (in my two favorite flavors: "filthy dive" and "tiki"), a movie theater, a half dozen coffee shops and - get this - a yarn shop.
There's even a weekly knitting group that meets every Saturday, at the library! Which I heard about from my next-door neighbor, who's also a knitter.
Add in fantastic friends who put me up while I was apartment hunting and who ferried me on countless shopping excursions and moved piles and piles of boxes and offered their husbands up for shelf assembly/electronics hook-up duties, and you've got a pretty painless cross-country move. As these things go.
I've even been doing some knitting. But more on that later.
8 comments:
Hi, it's Caitlin from library school! Congratulations on the move! It sounds particularly awesome this morning as it is snowing here (I'm in NH, about an hour north of Boston, but still--it's only October). Best of luck with everything--can't wait to see the knitting!
Congrats on your move, and coming over to the light side! (I myself moved here from the Boston area 12 years ago.) Although I think you could get good cheese in Boston too. But it's pretty easy to get used to seeing blooming flowers everywhere, year-round. And booze too.
Oh, I am so jealous of the flowers, apparently there was snow today (somehow I missed it). The cheese and booze and chocolate sounds pretty good too...
I am glad it is going so well!
Just wait until we take a field trip to Cowgirl Creamery.
I'm making your bring adult diapers for that one.
Oh hell yes. This move is long overdue. So happy for you!!!! Send me your updated contact info, okay? Christmas card season approaches.
THIS WAS PAINFUL FOR ME. YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT.
But it was also REALLY good to read about how awesome it is that you're in a place for which you are much more suited.
But I miss you a lot. That, and THIS WAS PAINFUL.
Love,
Jenny who still lives in a place where it FUCKING SNOWS IN FUCKING OCTOBER.
Hi Ariel, glad to hear your happy in CA!! I'm pretty amazed that flowers also bloom in Philly 'til Dec, what?!
Glad that your blogging again and I'll look forward to reading,
Suzy
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