The coolest places you've lived in.

[ED-057]

I was looking at real estate listings recently and discovered that in a nearby town there is a Mame Street. How cool is that?

I have mixed feelings about travelling. Whenever someone asks me if I would like to visit Japan again I tell them "sure, as soon they build a bridge across the ocean so I can drive there."

[Randorama]

I grew up in a small Italian city surrounded by the mountains (L'Aquila).

I have lived one year in Konstanz during my BA, in 2003-2004. After that I studied in Utrecht (NL) 2005-2006, and I have been living in Sydney since 2007.

I have visited virtually every country in Europe and most mediterranean countries via Interrail, or when I was in the Navy, and have been in China (I lived in Beijing for one month), US (in Boston for 1 1/2 month), Japan, the small pacific countries (Fiji, Samoa, Tonga) and NZ as well.

Right now I'd like to move somewhere around the Alps though. As a redneck from the mountains (and with an austrian grandpa to boot), Konstanz was easily the place I loved the most, a sort of virtual home. I liked Utrecht a lot too, whereas I don't like Australia much. It feels very, very provincial and, quite frankly, Italy/Spain/Greece have better beaches. I really dislike like chaotic big cities, of which Sydney is a prime example.

A fascinating experience was when I was in Tromsoe a few days before Christmas, during the aurora borealis, quite breathtaking show.

Growing up, I have come to dislike travelling, or more appropriately live in some place as a tourist. If I can, I much prefer to live and work in a place.

[greg]

dcharlie, you are way more adventurous than I am. I will never go to a country where a. I can't trust the government/police, b. I can't drink the water, and c. people defecate in the streets. India covers both b and c, and I don't know about a.

Street vendor food is actually usually pretty safe - where people fuggup is (or -was- back then - this is 14 years ago after all)with not checking seals on bottled water or eating salads to "play it safe" (washed in bad water - oops).

The books my wife read described these street vendors. They have a bucket of water they use all day for washing the dishes without changing the water out. If you ask for ice in your drink, they dump the used ice from a previous customer's cup into yours. Go to a candy store and find ants crawling inside the candy bins. Then there's the taxi drivers who try to extort from you, the little children whose job it is to drag dead corpses out of their holy river to be used for science, etc.

Ugh, no thanks. I really like Indian food from what I've had, and I tried it for the first time in Kobe when I lived in Japan. But I think I'd rather just experience this food from a safe distance and never go to India.

"Welcome to India! Please enjoy our weird, mushy food."

[Vexorg]

I figure with my current job there's a good chance I'm going to end up in India at some point (most of our test team is there) but I'll worry about that when it happens. In the meantime, I quite like the place I'm in now: an 8th floor apartment with a nice unobstructed East-facing view of the Cascades, and some nice amenities to boot. It doesn't even cost that much more than the bland suburban apartment I occupied previously. Also, my job is only 2 1/2 blocks away from here, so my daily commute is a 10-minute walk (although that happened after I moved in.)

[Shocky]

I've never actually lived in a cool place, but I have visited most of the cool places. The coolest where I've stayed (for two weeks) was probably a favela in Rio de Janeiro, called "Morro da Babilonia". It was pretty infamous years ago, because of the drug war, but now it's quite calm - although I did meet teenagers with shotguns in the alleys. It's on a beautiful, lush hill with a good sea view over the Copacabana beach, weird animals like opossums move in the night, horny baile funk parties on weekends and most importantly, the people there were amazingly cool and nice.

I don't have any good photos from there because I didn't want my camera stolen, it's still a favela and police don't go there without a heavy reason (although I hear that there's a "police pacification unit" there nowadays - hope they aren't corrupt).

[neorichieb1971]

If living at at your grandmas counts. I lived in Taranto/Southern Italy for 6 weeks. She still lives there. Its got a nice swinging bridge, a submarine port, a few castles and a nice beach nearby. I heard the Italians there shutdown Mcdonalds by never eating there lol.

[dcharlie]

i got thinking about this again and , whilst cool is probably not the right word, i started thinking about where i lived in the UK.

I grew up not too far from Sellafield, so this has given me a little bit more insight into living with radiation/contamination given the current situation in Japan. Town i'm from is as rough as you like - and growing up there means you learn to fight and defend yourself. But it was also within striking distance of the Lake District which is absolutely stunning.

But anyways, the place that sprung to mind is the house i lived in when i was at Uni in Liverpool. I had a place in Aigburth - just down from Dingle. The pub over the dual carriage way from us was the one that got firebombed, and we got to live through the whole "Summer of Hate" with a grandstand view.
Completely unnerving time but one i look back on with a :O face.

lol, following which i moved to Streatham in Saafff Landan. "Highlight" was seeing some 14 year old kid being shot dead from my office :/ Starting to think bad news follows me about as i think about all this!

[Demetori]

I lived on the Gold Coast Australia, Surfers Paradise for two months in the Marrakesh Apartments. I had an awfully good time there, however I won't go back as I feel I overstayed my welcome, too much of a good thing. I was only 14 at the time, and we were staying there for a job preview my dad was doing at the time, so his company let us pick a spot to stay in during that time. (This place also had ESP Ra.De on Free-Play)

I lived in Tarumiku, Kobe for three months with a friend I met on World of Warcraft before she moved to Tokyo.
As I didn't know Japanese at the time I was incredibly anxious the entire time I was there. I only felt relaxed if I was in the general area of where I was staying, since I came to know the people who lived around us and the storekeepers in the area. Let it be known.. I was staying at her parents house. I'm not really sure If I want to go back there, there are a lot of other places I want to visit still.

I've been to Thailand and Korea respectively for two weeks at a time. If anyone has been to Thailand, they'll know the cities are some of the otherworldly places you could go to, a lot of scamming goes on, and you have to be real careful with some of the locals. Other than that I would highly recommend Thailand!

[CHI]

well...
for the past 3 months (2 months and 3 quarters to be precise) i was in Miami Florida, staying at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach... business trip, expences all paid for... my Coolest Place so for
New Years Eve: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQJC0eMJhoI

before that...
18 months at St.Kitts and Nevis... great sun and that's it!

and before that...
2 and a half years at Kaohsiung Taiwan... that's south taiwan... almost like hong kong but without the up-to-date-coolness!

[Acid King]

New Hampshire. I love it here. No sales tax, no income tax, the people are cool and the atmosphere is relaxed. The weather is insane, you really get the full effect of all 4 seasons and when it hits its stride, especially in fall, winter and spring, it's really gorgeous. I don't want to move from here but finding work in my field in the surrounding area may be difficult so I'm enjoying it while I can. Atleast I'll be around for the Republican primaries, I've heard it's quite insane.

[headcaseGames]

always such interesting topics in the sh,ups forum. You can always count on well-read and decently educated/worldly people to show up in here

I grew up in the suburbs outside of Boston, and it's been one of my life-long dreams to "live in several major cities of the world" since then. Well, so far it's been Boston and Los Angeles. Been in LA 11 years now, and I have succumbed to that American ideal of "kill yourself working" rather than spit myself out into the world, come what may..

Well, such was my upbringing, and my local culture growing up. Since those days I've been working in an industry which strongly favors what I have just preached ("kill yourself workingX10000") but at least I have traveled around a little bit in my time, more than most of the middle-class folks I grew up around. Enough to make the world feel a lot smaller and interesting, rather than scary and off-putting

Living in LA is a blast, even a decade in I still love it here. Growing up in the frigid, snowy Northeast was never an issue but as I got older, it got old... I never get tired of the sunny skies and warm temperature here. I am fortunate to live right by the main thrust of Hollywood, far enough away that it is peacefully quiet when I go to sleep but close enough that I can walk into the heart of the nightly madness when I need an escape from all that ails me. Besides all the darkness and dankness and things you'd expect, we are extremely lucky to have such a strong cross-pollination of cultures in such a small area. I swear I'll never scratch the surface of the majority of the great affordable and tasty ethnic foods and such that are all just a few miles down the road, it never gets old.

The clubs and bars are great, there's a huge stereotype of people out here ("everyone is fake and full of themselves" - I remember believing this when I grew up in Boston) but in all honesty, people are people. There's nice people and assholes everywhere. You need to get used to the local culture anywhere, but for the most part I find a lot of the folks who's paths I cross are just like myself.. not entirely sure what we are doing here, but just trying to have a good time and get along and do our thing. I do still want to pick up one day, lose my mind and go live in NYC/London/Shanghai or something.. and I just may... but if I have to spend the rest of my days here, it will not be a bad thing either

Shmuppers feel free to drop me a line if you do find yourselves out this way, I love showing people around this crazy town.. just make sure to stock up on advil 1st..

[Obiwanshinobi]

Glacial lakeside where I used to spend summer holidays as a kid with my family under canvas on a wild campsite. Could have been some guardian spirits protecting the area.

[robivy64]

While I have spent a lot of time in the Middle East, Dubai was by far the most awesome place i've visited. I haven't spent much time in Europe, but I will be in a few months.



I guess as far as "lived" goes, Kuwait City is about the only other place, which isn't bad, but it isn't great either. Fortunately, I was there during the winter, so I didn't get to experience the 60C summer temps, although my lungs have filtered plenty of uranium dust and shit crystals.

I've also stayed a stint in Doha, Qatar.

[professor ganson]

Cool pic, Rob.

The coolest place? SF, no doubt. The coldest place: Ithaca, NY. No doubt. The year I spent in New Haven was pretty cold as well, but not upstate NY cold.