Where do you live? What's it like?

minerman said:
Dryden, VA (actually, Seminary is the name of the little place I live now, but I lived in Dryden for about 15 years, which is probably about 4-5 miles away).....Nothing here at all, just hills, mountains, & rednecks....Lived here all my life, so I guess that makes me a redneck too...Used to be a pretty big coal mining area, but it's just about dried up...

What's is like around here??? Pretty much the ass-end of the world IMHO, I can drive about an hour & there are a few malls, shopping centers, etc., but close to my house there's literally nothing...

Here's a pic of where I grew up, one way in, one way out, while I don't live there now, pretty much looks like this everywhere around here:
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It looks tranquil, but a little run-down. I think I would like to live there.
 
gecko zzed said:
It looks tranquil, but a little run-down. I think I would like to live there.
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That's actually where I grew up at, the blue house on the left is my parent's home...It's pretty quiet here (especially where the pic was taken), but there's literally nothing around here man...I can drive about an hour & hit a couple malls/shops/whatever, but again, there's really nothing here...It'll always be home though...
 
jonny deep said:
Isn't Sydney horrendously expensive? Is it worse than London? I lived in and around London for several years recently. I like it back up north a lot.
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Oh yeah... it's up there with the most expensive cities in the world in terms of real estate - it's basically a form of collective insanity we're all involved in. There's a new development going up around the corner, 2 br/2 bath apartments off the plan are going "from" a "low" $720,000 according to the advertising. And as I said, this is 20 minutes from the centre... it only gets worse as you go in.

Day to day costs, I don't know, I'm sort of used to it. Whether someone from overseas thinks it's expensive depends upon the exchange rate. When it was 33p for a dollar, English people found it cheap. Now it's 52p you'd probably find it OK. When it was up towards 70p a couple of years back, you could hear the howls of outrage everywhere....:D
 
I lived all over the US.... NJ, CT, FL, HI, CT, MA, TX, VA, FL, VA, TX.... Currently just outside of Austin where Starbucks meets the cornfield. I lived here throughout the 90's and came back about 6 years ago with family in tow. It was a small city back then with a great music culture. Now it's grown into a metropolis and the city's soul has sold out. Still, the weather is great and the schools are excellent. And we are locked in here until the kids graduate. :D
 
Behind the Orange Curtain. The best weather in the US. I hear that Costa Rica might be marginally better.

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SoCals brilliant, I miss it...but its expensive and too far from Europe for me....saying that Id move back in a heartbeat

The US is 40% like home, 10% nothing like anything at home, and 50% a shithole.

I liked Australia the most out of English speaking countries Ive lived in, Canada was nice (yuk) but the weather kills it...I miss the UK but not with kids, London was crazy expensive, my average three bedroom in a normal middle class suburb went for $800k+ a couple of years ago, its around a million now!
 
minerman said:
Nothing here at all, just hills, mountains, & rednecks....Lived here all my life, so I guess that makes me a redneck too...
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I thought rednecks were more the farmer types...and you mountain folks fall more into the hillbilly category. :D ;)

I've got rednecks up here around me. :)
 
miroslav said:
I thought rednecks were more the farmer types...and you mountain folks fall more into the hillbilly category. :D ;)

I've got rednecks up here around me. :)
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Well that's true too man, but there's farmers around here too, so lemme re-phrase: I'm a redneck hillbilly.....:)

BTW, where's "here" anyway????
 
Interesting responses! Keep them coming.

I'm down with the Google Maps thing - here's my street: https://goo.gl/maps/hzYgw

CrowsofFritz said:
Just traveling. Saw a coupla plays. One with Ralph Fiennes in Man and Superman. It was so good!
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So you'd be one of the American tourists I was talking about?!


Greg_L said:
What's it like? Like any other suburban community. Strip malls, tanning salons, at least two dozen starbucks. A couple Wal Marts. A bunch of other useless retail places and tons of restaurants.
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That sounds like most places here nowadays. And tanning salons in Texas - is there a need?


Bubba po said:
I live near Castleford, West Yorkshire. Once famous for coal, glass, bricks, chemicals and Romans, it's now only famous for Rugby League and that only intermittently. :D My village is nice, though. :D
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I know of Castleford. Over near Pontefract, right? You're not too far from me, actually. I used to live in Bradford for a few years when I was at the uni there as well.


minerman said:
Dryden, VA (actually, Seminary is the name of the little place I live now, but I lived in Dryden for about 15 years, which is probably about 4-5 miles away).....Nothing here at all, just hills, mountains, & rednecks....Lived here all my life, so I guess that makes me a redneck too...Used to be a pretty big coal mining area, but it's just about dried up...

What's is like around here??? Pretty much the ass-end of the world IMHO, I can drive about an hour & there are a few malls, shopping centers, etc., but close to my house there's literally nothing...

Here's a pic of where I grew up, one way in, one way out, while I don't live there now, pretty much looks like this everywhere around here:
Click to expand...

Hey Miner - I thought you lived in Kentucky for some reason.
 
Armistice said:
Oh yeah... it's up there with the most expensive cities in the world in terms of real estate - it's basically a form of collective insanity we're all involved in. There's a new development going up around the corner, 2 br/2 bath apartments off the plan are going "from" a "low" $720,000 according to the advertising. And as I said, this is 20 minutes from the centre... it only gets worse as you go in.

Day to day costs, I don't know, I'm sort of used to it. Whether someone from overseas thinks it's expensive depends upon the exchange rate. When it was 33p for a dollar, English people found it cheap. Now it's 52p you'd probably find it OK. When it was up towards 70p a couple of years back, you could hear the howls of outrage everywhere....:D
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That sounds just like London - and the insane government here just keep coming up with new ways of pumping up house prices, especially down in the south east (London being the epicentre).


Chili said:
I lived all over the US.... NJ, CT, FL, HI, CT, MA, TX, VA, FL, VA, TX.... Currently just outside of Austin where Starbucks meets the cornfield. I lived here throughout the 90's and came back about 6 years ago with family in tow. It was a small city back then with a great music culture. Now it's grown into a metropolis and the city's soul has sold out. Still, the weather is great and the schools are excellent. And we are locked in here until the kids graduate. :D
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You've been around a bit. I've done similar around English towns/cities over the years, but that would be like just moving around Texas for you guys :D.

kcearl said:
SoCals brilliant, I miss it...but its expensive and too far from Europe for me....saying that Id move back in a heartbeat

The US is 40% like home, 10% nothing like anything at home, and 50% a shithole.

I liked Australia the most out of English speaking countries Ive lived in, Canada was nice (yuk) but the weather kills it...I miss the UK but not with kids, London was crazy expensive, my average three bedroom in a normal middle class suburb went for $800k+ a couple of years ago, its around a million now!
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That's partly why I wanted to move back up north, so I have a chance of ever being able to buy a house. I reckon I'll end up back down south, though. That's where all the jobs are.
 
jonny deep said:
Hey Miner - I thought you lived in Kentucky for some reason.
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Well dude, I live in VA, but if you walk to the peak you see in the pic, then just over the top heading down the other side, you're in KY....It's actually not that far either, I've been there many times, even on foot when I was a kid....Worked right across the hill for years too...
 
I've also lived in several countries: born in Western Canada, moved to England for a "year or two's adventure) in 1976 and ended up staying 31 years (with a six month sojurn in Cyprus) and have now taken early retirement in a place called Toowoomba which is in Queensland in Australia. Toowoomba isn't famous for anything...and we want to keep it that way. It's too nice a place to let in more riff raff like me!

It's a city of about 125,000 people perched on the edge of an 800 metre/2500 foot escarpment. We're 100km straight west of Brisbane and tend to get weather that's a couple of degrees cooler and way less humid than down on the coast.

The view from the edge of the escarpment, looking down towards Brisbane:

Table-Top_zps03b1bfb5.jpg

By the way, I've also been to York several times, including a drunken party weekend at a local guest house. However, I'm enough of a nerd to thing the best thing there is the National Railway Museum!
 
jonny deep said:
That sounds like most places here nowadays. And tanning salons in Texas - is there a need?
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No, not at all, but the big cities in Texas are just like any other. Rural Texas is like you'd expect - cowboys, cattle, oil rigs, and wide open spaces. But the cities are every bit as modern and vapid as any other big city. Houston and Dallas are huge, crowded, sprawling metropolitan areas of rampant modern consumerism. The only differences between Houston and a place like L.A. are the climate - we're way hotter, geography - the only hills in Houston are freeway overpasses, and price. If you're okay with the heat and humidity and totally flat landscape with no natural beauty, then Houston is a great place to live. I don't think any US city gives you as much bang for your buck as Houston. They give away houses down here. Our cost of living is exceptionally good for the size of the city.
 
Right outside of Milwaukee a block away from Lake Michigan.

I aint gonna lie, it sucks 4-5 months a year because of the weather, if I didn't work outside maybe I would feel differently.

It's a beautiful state in the summer though, and I'm lucky enough to have a job that takes me to a different place most every day. Nothing like getting paid overtime for a hundred mile drive home through the countryside in summer.:cool:
 
jonny deep said:
Interesting responses! Keep them coming.

I'm down with the Google Maps thing - here's my street: https://goo.gl/maps/hzYgw

I know of Castleford. Over near Pontefract, right? You're not too far from me, actually. I used to live in Bradford for a few years when I was at the uni there as well.
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Yes, that's the place. It's a slightly run-down little town but it's home. :D

This is an awesome thread, it really brings home how different everybody's home circumstances are.
 
I live in the northeast US on a wildlife refuge in the woods just outside of Providence, RI.
This is what my yard looked like yesterday morning on the joyous second day of spring:

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Providence is a big college town (Brown, RISD, J&W, URI, etc) with a lot of restaurants, music, etc. Boston is about 30 minutes north, the Atlantic ocean about 20 minutes east.
 
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