<p>I believe that you can make it boring or exciting at every location, period, including being in a middle of nowhere. For some “exciting” places are just as boring, they do not want to deal with logistics and crowd around them. For others, they have to be surrounded with some kind of mess (like NYC traffic) 100% of the time. It all depends what you are looking for. Anybody could make their lives very exciting and practically not have a single minute to be bored at any location. I personally would never ever live in NYC, but half of my family enjoy their lives there. I personally believe that I can do much more every single day because I just hop in a car and go to various places after work and on a weekends, I do not worry about getting stuck in a traffic or having problem parking. But others would have a problem with that. So, unless you define your “boring” very clearly, how you can “match” yourself to location? As one example, ocean means nothing to me, unless I can snorkle right there off shore. There are many others who would be totally excited if they can only be on a beach…I would be bored…we are all different…I rather be in a middle of nowhere than in NYC, I would not even visit if not for my family…many other LOVE to live in NYC, including members of my family.</p>
<p>Sally and Marsian, if this thread was about the south, you would replace Chicago and Minneapolis with Atlanta and New Orleans and hopefully someone would bring up phrases like “Bless Your Heart” and we could talk about grits, barbeque and gumbo. In truth, I am feeling a kinship with my Southern counterparts through this thread as well.</p>
<p>^ It’s REALLY hard to find good grits here in the Northeast. Our family has taken to cooking our own. (How bad is THAT?)</p>
<p>3togo,</p>
<p>Speaking of Bostonians, I’ve never understood the stereotyping of them as aloof and cold. </p>
<p>They were certainly the opposite for the most part, IME. Moreover, I found undergrads there to be far less pretentious and aloof…especially about dressing up/allowing friendly strangers to join them in college parties than their NYC counterparts. </p>
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<p>That’s not just the midwesterners, but nearly everyone outside of the NYC area…including the local suburbs in the tri-state area and even more suburban areas of NYC like Bayside, Queens and Staten Island. </p>
<p>Especially those who’s unfamiliar or whose only memories of NYC are the crime-ridden period from the late '60s till the late '80s. Odd considering NYC has been ranked among the most safest US cities in the last few years in terms of crime rate statistics. </p>
<p>Even nowadays, if you heard some of the tri-state suburbanites I’ve encountered speak about NYC, you would think it was exactly like Pelham 1-2-3 or the 1979 film Warriors.</p>
<p>I’ll throw in my vote for the gulf coast as good place to consider for graduate school. There are plenty of decent universities to attend, and the cost of living is very low compared to the east/west coasts. </p>
<p>I think the biggest adjustment for anyone coming from the north is the weather. It’s humid year round and there is a lack of discernible seasons other than hot and humind and cool and humid. I like it because I enjoy a lot outdoor activities year round, but I understand it’s not for everyone.</p>
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Careful-- discussion of political topics is against the TOS.</p>
<p>^Everyone knows you fold it over.</p>
<p>If we are talking BBQ, one of the top places to go in the country is Kansas City. Doesn’t get more midwest than that. :)</p>
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<p>Well, you would be wrong. There have been numerous threads on CC about the glories of the South. Threads in which southerners invariably claim that they are a) nicer than everyone else, and b) dissed everywhere, while simultaneously c) slandering people from my part of the country. (Something in which they are generally joined by the midwesterners.) You can look it up.</p>
<p>Just saw in Yahoo Travel: America’s Dirtiest Cities. NY is #1. NY also #1 for loudest and rudest. . .</p>
<p>btw, I live in KC and don’t like the BBQ here–Memphis style is my favorite.</p>
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<p>You make a fair point about the preferences of recent immigrants and their first-generation offspring; I more had in mind non-Chinese New Yorkers who complain that you can’t get good Chinese food outside of New York–and by the way, they tend to make the same complaint about everywhere on the East Coast that isn’t New York on this score, as they do about the Midwest; same with bagels and pizza.</p>
<p>But when it comes to recent Chinese immigrants, there are tens of thousands of them in Chicago. Some of the restaurants in Chicago’s Chinatown clearly cater to a non-Chinese clientele; others are almost exclusively patronized by Chinese and almost all transactions are conducted in Chinese. Then there are places like the regionally-themed restaurants owned and operated by China-born celebrity chef Tony Hu, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of Sichuan, China’s first modern culinary institute, who is bringing regional Chinese cuisines to a cross-over market of Chinese and non-Chinese clientele. (I don’t think dishes like “Sichuan Pork Intestine and Pork Blood Cake” are on the menu to appeal to Americanized tastes).</p>
<p>By the way, Chef Tony and his Chicago restaurants have won numerous awards not only locally but nationally (including “Most Authentic Chinese Food” and “Top Ten Chinese Restaurants in America”) and internationally, and he’s become something of a celebrity in China, too, for bringing authentic, contemporary Chinese cuisine to America.</p>
<p>[Tony</a> Hu, Chicago Chinatown restaurateur, aims high - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com](<a href=“http://www.sun-sentinel.com/topic/ct-dining-0913-tony-hu-timeline-20120913,0,7956276.story?track=rss-topicgallery]Tony”>http://www.sun-sentinel.com/topic/ct-dining-0913-tony-hu-timeline-20120913,0,7956276.story?track=rss-topicgallery)</p>
<p>Why IS it that when people think of the midwest, they think exclusively or mostly of small, somewhat backwards towns in the middle of nowhere, populated by people who never left the farm, when so much of the population of the midwest is in urban/suburban areas? (Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Detroit, KC, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Indianapolis, etc.)</p>
<p>And yet funnily enough, places like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse - which are smaller than many of the above - aren’t “off the grid.” </p>
<p>I find it odd especially because frankly, once you start traveling to all these places, your life in any urban / suburban area is pretty similar. Every city has its cool hipster area, its lovely old brownstone or similar neighborhoods, its urban ghettos. Every suburb has the older-stock housing and the newer McMansions. They all have the same Best Buys and Gaps and so forth.</p>
<p>I like to call it The Great Midwest, PG. Totally under-appreciated by so many people on our coasts. I knew my son would find some of his favorite colleges there and I was right!</p>
<p>FinanceGrad–everyone in the south keeps telling us up north how humid it is there, yet every time I have been to the south I have never noticed any humidity or anything unusual. I think the real surprise would be how humid it is up NORTH.</p>
<p>Steve, I can’t believe you have ever spent anytime along the gulf coast -Or a summer visit to Orlando- in July or August if you never noticed any humidity in the south. I grew up in northern Wisconsin, but I have lived in the far northwest corner of The Florida coast, Nebraska, Oklahoma and the DC area, all of which are pretty darned hot and humid in the summer. There is no comparison in terms of humidity between the south and the north in the summer.</p>
<p>"And yet funnily enough, places like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse - which are smaller than many of the above - aren’t “off the grid.” </p>
<p>What is meant by your statement? Those places aren’t on anybody’s grid that I know.</p>
<p>eastcoascrazy=try living a little more centrally in the Midwest and tell me that there is no comparison for the humidity :D. Sorry, but we spent 2 weeks in Orlando in Mid July and the humidity back home was several degrees higher than it was in Orlando. Other trips to Texas, Arkansas, Georgia and the Carolina’s have had the same results. Now, a couple weeks ago when we were in PA and had the remnants of Issac move through, I noticed that humidity, but still similar to some of the worst days here too.</p>
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<p>With few exceptions, most NYC/NE urbanites regard those cities as being as much/more in the boonies than many small midwest/southern towns. </p>
<p>Moreover, like central Pennsylvania, those cities tend to have much more in common politically with the most red southern states than other NE states, downstate NY, or many parts of the midwest. </p>
<p>The fact recent governor candidate Mario Paduano with his fiery tea party rhetoric which would have found much support in the most reddest southern states came from and got most of his political support from that part of the state is a good indication.</p>
<p>Steve, what you said was, “Everyone in the south keeps telling us up north how humid it is there…” As we have concluded on this thread, it is best not to make sweeping, stereotyped statements about enormous areas of the country, like “the south” or “up north”.</p>
<p>The south is farther south than the north. I will make that sweeping generalization.</p>
<p>Here is my Kumbaya moment…After living outside of US for 2 years, I wouldn’t mind living anywhere in the US. I am always so happy when I land in the US after a trip overseas, no matter how good of time I’ve had. I feel lucky.</p>