The city I live in

I haven't ever really lived in a new city since my family moved to Richmond when I was fifteen, and then I wasn't really able to take advantage of the full depth of the city as I was often too young for things or later, didn't have a car.

DC was not entirely new--while I only found out that Arlington was more than a cemetery when I met a friend from there my freshman year of college, my grandparents had always lived in Silver Spring (Exit 33B off of the Beltway until they changed the way the exit was set up). Visits to DC with my parents when I was young mainly impressed upon me the importance of telling the driver what lane to be in to avoid doing something crazy like getting off on the 270 spur. I have nice memories of making a day at the museums with my mother, having lunch at some of the Smithsonian cafeterias, and gawking at the mangy mammoth in the Natural History Museum.

DC has certain things that it believes about itself. Maryland and Virginia drivers both believe that the other state has the worst drivers in the country. On the Metro, you stand right and walk left, and get out of the way of people getting off the train and THEN get on; if you do not do this you are an immoral person.

So as the arrogant interloper, I had to laugh when I got here and was informed of a few things:

1) It gets really hot here during the summer. (Some times it gets up to 79F!!)
2) Traffic is REALLY bad. (Heh)

Some additional things I noticed, which mostly have to do with driving:

1) Everyone LOVES to honk at each other here. You hesitate at the line, you'll get honked. You turn too slow, you get honked. You don't run a stale yellow, you get honked.

My favorite was the time a dude came blazing around our corner and considerately honked to tell pedestrians NOT to cross because he sure as heck wasn't going to stop.

2) I have seen so many people just pop their car into reverse and cruise back an entire block or two to take a missed turn or nab a parking space. It is disconcerting when cars whiz by in the wrong direction. When I am walking it makes me wonder if it is me who is doing something wrong that has somehow upset the fabric of the universe for a second.

3) Nobody waits for train occupants to get off a Metro train before trying to get on. This, to me, amounts to the total breakdown of society.

So all in all, I don't think the driving here is nearly as bad as it was in DC, but it's a strange blend of bad-in-a-different-way that I wasn't expecting. I suppose these aren't things that people think to warn you of if they're normal habits...I wonder what tips I'd give people about DC now that I'm gone from there and have some other-city perspective.