City Reviewing

Recently, I was thinking how I love to review everything and how there is a whole category of things I have totally neglected: cities. I travel a decent amount, and expect to travel more soon. There are many cities I have been to, and it would be cool to keep good track of what I liked and didn't like about them. That way when I am older and ready to choose where to move to, I can easily remember 'ah, yes, it's that one for sure!' assuming I move to a city. But I'll probably always want to be within a day's drive or so to some big city.

I've been trying to decide how to work it, what categories to use, and what numbers I should assign. So here I'm going to sort of do an example one with my home city.

City: Washington, DC
Geographical Location: Mid-Atlantic, East Coast, USA
Population: 600,000 in the city proper; 5.4 million in the metro area
Size: 68.3 square miles
Climate: humid subtropical

My Time There: I have lived here, in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, since December 2009, and will probably be moving away in July or August.



Weather: 4 out of 10. DC weather is fairly nice in the spring and fall, and winters are generally mild (not this winter, though). However, the summer is ungodly hot and humid and barely tolerable. Also, the weather fluctuates a huge amount, and it rains with some frequency.



Food: 7 out of 10. We've got some great food. Lots of delicious American, Italian, Asian offerings in the city proper. Not much in the way of good Mexican food in DC, though. There are several great farmers' markets, and a couple (Dupont, Eastern Market) are even year-round.



Walkability: 8 out of 10. Good sidewalks, feels safe, lots of people walking around at all hours. Sort of unusual to find a closed sidewalk.

Bikeability: 9 out of 10. There are lots of bike lanes and more are getting added all the time. That doesn't mean that cars (cabs, especially) will honor the sanctity of the bike lane, though... Slightly hilly, but not too bad. The awesome new bikeshare system makes this an even better place to bike.



Public Transportation: 9 out of 10. You can get almost anywhere you want to go in the city by metro, and many places in the suburbs, too. Buses cover a lot of spots that aren't so metro accessible. Metro is easy to navigate, but the buses are actually pretty difficult to figure out (it took me nearly a year of living here to figure out even the buses in my neighborhood).



Vegetarian-friendly: 7 out of 10. My neighborhood is great for this, and there are a lot of veg places in the city.

Beauty: 5 out of 10. There's no coast or mountains to gaze at, but the old buildings down on the mall, and the cherry blossoms in spring, for instance, are quite nice.



Museums: 10 out of 10. DC is full of fabulous, FREE, museums. If you want to see basically any topic covered in a museum you just wander down to the Mall and pick a Smithsonian. There are some other museums that aren't free, and some of those are good as well, though generally at least $14.



Cool Shops: 4 out of 10. I like to look in thrift stores/consignment shops and they are sadly lacking in DC. There is the occasional shop like The Brass Knob, which is basically an antique doorknob store, but there isn't much for me in the way of cool places to go in.

Free Stuff to Do: 9 out of 10. There are the free museums, then also the free monuments. There tend to be a lot of things that happen in the city that are free or quite cheap; DCist is a great guide for that.

Great Outdoors: 5 out of 10. There are some parks, but a lot of them you can't sit in without being bothered by beggars or the smell of urine. We have Rock Creek Park, which has some nice hiking trails but you shouldn't be there if it isn't daytime. You can get to several good hikes in a couple hours by car.



Cleanliness: 5 out of 10. Depends on the part of the city, but generally it is only sort of clean. My part of the city, especially in the winter when they suspend street sweeping, can be pretty dirty indeed.

People: 6 out of 10. There are a lot of friendly people to be found, though many of those are just crazy and/or homeless people that will start talking to you on the street. Generally a good vibe, though, except maybe for angry government employees on the subway.

Cost of Living: $$$ out of $$$$. Rent is high - in Columbia Heights, $1300/month is a good deal for a one bedroom basement apartment. You can find rooms in the $800 range if you're willing to do group housing. Food is not especially expensive, however. It's easy to find cheap dinner under $10 or more pricey stuff is around $15.

Tourist Congestion: 4 out of 5. It definitely depends on what part of the city you're in, but if you're anywhere downtown and it is anywhere near summer, watch out, you are going to be in a mob of escalefters and matching backpacks. September, October, January, and February are relatively peaceful (I should know, I worked in a museum gift shop).

Safety: 3 out of 5. Certainly there are areas of the city that would get a higher score here. But there are places I wouldn't be comfortable walking alone during the day, and even in my neighborhood I limit the amount I walk alone after dark, and try not to be out at all if it's late enough.

Overall Thoughts: I like DC. It's awesomely easy to get around under your own power or by public transport. The whole free museums thing is a major perk. It's big, but not huge, so you don't feel totally lost to anonymity. It's not the prettiest of cities, but it is pretty vegetarian friendly. Probably the worst part about it is the summer. It is really awful. Thanks a lot, founding fathers, for building it on a swamp.

I will almost certainly be updating this with new things I think of. Let me know if you think of something I should add!

New Apartment!

above: the loft

above: view from our balcony

above: the bathroom

above: stairs to the loft, below: bed alcove

Oh man, I was doing so well on a post a day until this weekend. Let's just say it was a good weekend but rather tiring and with little down time to spare for blogging. Friday I went to my job interview (mixed) and recently my friend Sarah told me the company is going bankrupt, so... I suppose it's okay that I probably didn't do very well in the interview (I hate job interviews...).

After that and the horrors of driving back to Jeff's house (thanks to the GPS telling me to go all the way back on 50, the worst possible route, and me not knowing the area well enough to go a different way - so I'm not sure how I feel about my first time using a GPS while driving), Jeff and I got bagels at Einstein's and then headed into DC to check out some apartments. The first we went to was in the same house Jeff had looked at a room in before, but that room had been taken but it just so happened that two other rooms in the house were vacated at the same time. So we took a look at both of them, shown to us by Tia, the girl who was moving out of the first room Jeff looked at (who is totally awesome by the way). The first room we say was #4. It was on the 3rd floor right at the top of the stairs. Both Jeff and I were instantly taken by it. It has a loft and a balcony, and is lovely. We also saw #5 which was much smaller. Tia had said the landlord was awesome, and the house itself was very nice, too. More on that later.

We then left and checked out the nearby organic market and also the hip bar/restaurant/bookstore Busboys and Poets. We had another apartment to view at 7, and this one was really close by, too. It was sort of a condo but mostly an efficiency apartment. You open the door and there is the tiny room, with a bathroom, closet, and kitchen. That's it. Though the kitchen had brand new appliances (the fridge was HUGE) and was really nice (the one in the other house is pretty small, well about the same size but shared).

After that we actually ate at Busboys and Poets which is rather delicious. I had a poached pear salad because my toothache is coming back (although at this point potentially receding again). We talked about how much we liked the first room and how much we were going to call the landlord immediately and try to sign the lease. After dinner we went outside and both called our respective moms. Then Jeff called the landlord and we set up an appointment for the next day at 7 to sign the lease.

Saturday we helped Greg and Steph move into their new apartment (also it turns out Suz was moving in that day too). We left to go into DC at 4:15. We had dinner at Love Cafe (which is affiliated with Cake Love). My black bean quesadilla was delicious. Then we shared a cupcake. The icing: awesome. The cake part: highly disappointing. Sad face. After that we made our way to 13th and Fairmont which is where the house is. We met with Ernest, the landlord, at a little after 7 and went over the lease and signed it! It is going to be so awesome. Jeff is moving in December 1st and I am moving in after exams are done (the 15th perhaps). Other tidbits: a maid comes every other week to clean the common spaces (but you have to do your own dishes - it's an added bit actually in the lease which I am very pleased about), we have a little atticy type space up in the loft, there's already a dresser in there (and a bed which we'll probably replace though), and did I mention we have our own bathroom? Also we got the keys already and the landlord is fine with us moving stuff in early. Though we need to copy the keys for me.

In our boundless excitement we went to Ikea on Sunday and several furniture stores in Potomac Mills. We weren't actually ready to buy anything - but also I'd never been to Ikea. So it was fun! Now I can't even concentrate on school a little bit!