Greetings from Levittown 4.0!

The one thing that I had pushed to the back of my mind during this move was my strong distaste for the suburbs. There’s a lot I’m already starting to miss about the city. I miss the simple street names - First Street, Second street, M Street, etc. Here, they have really cheesy names that are trying hard to convey a bright, safe (boring) existence. For example, I live on Golden Meadow Drive, which is off of Scenery Road. Also, there's really no such thing as walking to grab a bite to eat or walking to the metro since the closest one is about a 20 minute drive!! There aren’t any nifty little shops and ethnic restaurants in a neighborhood with old buildings and houses that have seen many decades of change.
I’m trying to look at the bright side, though. Its not all terrible - there are some benefits, such as parking. In suburbia, there's sprawling shopping malls with free parking in large, spacious lots. I don't need to worry about breaking into a sweat while trying to parallel park my car in front of a restaurant as the customers who are eating on the patio outside watch me in amusement as I shift back and forth, trying to fit in between the large SUV in front of me and the Civic that's taking up part of MY parking spot, only to realize that I have no quarters, nickels or dimes for the meter. That's another thing - I'm hoping to start appreciating pennies a lot more now that I'm in the suburbs. There is nothing more annoying than needing to feed the meter (after spending 10 minutes fitting into the damn spot) and opening your wallet to find 5 measly pennies. I used to always zip it up, search through my pockets and then re-open it, hoping that they had somehow magically turned into a nickle to buy me enough time to get change for the twenty dollar bill that I had probably JUST taken out of the ATM for (that I probably paid a $2 fee for). That is definitely one thing I will NOT miss about living in the city.
Back to my distaste for the suburbs. I appreciate a big old Target and pretty tree lined streets but I really don't need to keep reading the bumper stickers on the backs of various mini vans and SUVs proudly proclaiming that the driver's child is an honor roll student at Middle School. I hate how there's nothing authentic about the "burbs." I miss the random coffee shops, used book stores and interesting architecture of the city. I miss the metro and the random bricks you see scattered about the city and the abundance of happy hours filled with people my age. Check back in with me in two weeks and the abundance of Olive Gardens, Best Buys and two car garages might have me actually missing the fast food joints, liquor stores and ethnic hair salons that littered Georgia Ave.