My semi-weekly bah

Why I can't wait to get the hell out of the Pacific Northwest:

1) I need a *REAL* distinction between seasons, not that one is a little less grey or a little warmer. I want a few feet of snow and a summer that is 80F/27C/300K on average and a nice crisp fall and a wonderful thawing that occurs slowly and beautifully in spring. Not grey and spitty all year round and where I have to carry long sleeves with me all summer because it's cold in the shade and at night. I want warm summer nights. I'm sick of getting spit on and seeing nothing but clouds and grey and an average of 50F/33C/283K all friggin' year. HATE IT!

2) I never EVER knew that there was such a thing as a non-kosher hot dog. Granted, I'm a vegetarian, but still the point remains. It was fairly mind-blowing, just like how white it is here, even in the lower income areas of Vancouver. (This ties in with #3)

3) This is bar none, the WHITE-IST place I have ever lived. EVER. Although I am used to living on the east coast: Philly/NYC or Chicago and always in low income areas (since that *is* my income) to give you something to gauge that off of. (Though even in Seattle the lower income neighbourhoods are drastically split between African-Americans and whites) I miss people speaking Spanish and the local Bodega and I hate people looking at me funny whenever I use Yiddish. (Though my friend who came out here and is currently teaching at local suburban college has taken to using yiddish curse words since no one out here knows what she's talking about.)

4) I crave a city that's an actual city. (And don't tell me that Seattle, Vancouver, or Portland qualify as cities, they're too suburb-like). I like being able to hop on a train with my bike and get everywhere in appx 15-20 minutes (though in Chicago *everything* is 15 minutes away whether it actually is or not, we're weird like that). I hate having a car, but it'd be damn hard for me to get to all the things I need to get to without one here. And public transport that runs ALL NIGHT LONG to ALL places, not just particular routes once a friggin' hour (the night-bus in Vancouver is an annoying nightmare sometimes.)

Though I love being somewhere where there is a plethora of really good vegetarian food, there are really nice places in the cities, mostly ethnic places, so it's not like I'll want for good food I can eat. It is nice to have Bollywood theatres and lots of Indian culture, but I miss my old Puerto Rican neighbourhoods. That is something I haven't come across before, but it still isn't the whole mix of cultures that NYC or Chicago are.

I guess what brought this on is that it's been sunny, and that's nice and everyone's chirping about spring, but it just doesn't feel like spring, and there will be no thunderstorms to solidify it's springness. *sigh*