We've had that el-lay sucks thread going in the main forum for a couple of years now, I thought it would be fun to do a positive spin on discussing cities. So what is your favorite city, and why? Do you like big cities or small cities (towns? villages?) What sort of amenities do you require? brewpubs? soccer stadia? nightclubs? zoo? ballet? symphony? theater? What does it for you? GO QUAKES!! - Mark
I'm not into big cities. I don't like the scale, the noise, the congestion, the pollution, or the anonymity of big cities. But, I do like the symphony, ballet, museums, soccer stadia, and so on that go with big cities. So in some ways, living in Vancouver is great. I'm close enough to Portland to enjoy big city stuff, but I don't have to live there. Still, I'd rather live in a place like White Salmon, WA, Ben Lomond, CA, or Graymouth, NZ. I'll have to ponder this a bit more. GO QUAKES!! - Mark
Agreed! From their over the top homicide rate to their aggressive bums and beggars, their stench filled filthy streets, lack of parking, horrific traffic, graffiti splattered buildings and over priced everything, I can find nothing worth going, nor could you pay me to go.
OK, we've got: Corona, CA Victoria, BC Coronado, CA Berlin, Ger (What's the proper abbreviation for Germany?) But no reasons for why we like them? Come on! Tell us why these places rock! Alright, so The 'Couve (Vancouver, WA) rocks because we have at least three good brewpubs (one within staggaring distance of my house!), the best ice cream shop in the solar system, we have huge public parks, a beautiful waterfront, a great airfield museum (and one of the oldest continuosly opperating airports in the world, Pearson Airfield, est 1904). We have the Fort Vancouver Nation Historic Reserve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Vancouver). It's a very cool town. Seaview is another killer town. Right on Long Beach Peninsula with allegedly the world's longest beach at a staggaring 28 miles. It reminds me a little of Santa Cruz in the early '60's. The whole stretch of little towns is funky and cute. They grow tons of cranberries there too and WSU has a cranberry research facility on the peninsula. Seaview scores because of it's excellent B&B, which contains one of my favorite pubs. (http://www.theshelburneinn.com/) The restaurant there is killer too. So fess up! What floats your boat about these places. And let's cool it with the hate. There are some cool things about SF, if you can overlook some other things. GOOOOO QUAAAAAAKES!!!!!! - Mark
Lots of excellent brew pubs too! And tons of Indian restaurants. I swear, standing on a corner in Greenwich we could see five Indian restaurants. And it's no wonder, the Engulish have no idea how to cook. We found a killer vegetarian place too. But it's a friggin' huge city. Gigantic. And the tube is excellent also. There's a lot to recommend London really. But Heathrow sucks. GO QUAKES!! - Mark
I loved London. London, Vienna and Budapest are my favorite cities in Europe--they're just such great places to walk around and explore. So many things to do in all of them.
Sorry, I've never been to Vienna nor Budapest though I have heard from multiple sources that both are great. I loved Barcelona. Excellent food, killer good beer, lots to see and do. I love Gaudi's architecture and the museums. Though, about a third of the people in Barcelona speak Catalan (Catala) and don't care if you can understand them or not. The street maps are all in Spanish, but the street signs (such as they are) are written in Catalan. Excellent public transit systems though. Lisbon rocks too. And all of the young people (say, anyone under 30 or 35) speak at least some English. Great food, lots to do, and you can get around without a car, which is great because Portugal has more accidents per mile of paved roadway than any other country in Europe. We need more high quality public transit systems in the USA, and our cities sprawl too much. We rarely have those compact city centers that Euro countries have. GOOOO QUAAAAAAKES!!!!!! - Mark
My love of Berlin is probably contextual... I spent a week there on my own during World Cup 2006, right after graduating high school. Madness followed.
Here's my backup info for Victoria, BC. It is a beautiful little town, and it seems like every other place of business is a pub. It's small enough that it's walkable, and with all those pubs, who wants to drive anywhere? It helped that I was there when the weather was incredible -- sunny and warm, but not hot or humid, and not cloudy and rainy as it often is in the Pacific Northwest. I'll try to get to Coronado later. I'm going there for Christmas since my in-laws live there.
I always liked Solvang.....only all I could find to eat were pastries and bread...not too much good food....LOL!
Dude, my in-laws rock. My wife's father breaks out the good stuff from their wine cellar when we visit. If only we could get them to babysit once in a while -- they don't seem to want to hang out with their grandson. Anyways, Coronado is a cute little town. It's on an "island" (actually connected to the mainland through a little sliver of land) in San Diego Bay -- very scenic. Half of the island is a naval station, the other half is a very expensive little town, with a fun little main street and lots of really cute (and super expensive) houses in walking distance from the main drag. There's an Irish pub where I have had many a pint, a couple of brewpubs, some pretty good restaurants -- I don't do much in the way of nightlife with a toddler at home so I'm not in a position to rate that. It's in San Diego so it has the best weather in the known universe, but it's surrounded by water so it's not in danger of burning down every fire season like the rest of San Diego. They have a great 4th of July parade, and an awesome fireworks show over the bay. We try to go down there for a vacation that time of year. The only drawbacks (for me, personally -- not saying these are drawbacks in general) are that it's not very diverse -- it's very white, very few blacks or Asians or latinos, even being not very far from the border -- and it's pretty Republican, being that there are a lot of retired military who live there -- I'm used to the flaming liberalness of the Bay Area. I would love to live there, except it's too far away from the Quakes, and I'm not sure how the job market is down there -- most of the jobs in Coronado itself are either service-oriented or Navy -- there is a ferry to downtown San Diego but most of the tech jobs in the San Diego area are in La Jolla or points further north, and the commute from Coronado would be a real pain. Oh yeah, and it's super expensive -- if we could get my in-laws' house, that would be great, but if we had to buy, I don't think we could afford it -- and there's not many cities in the US that I can say that about.