It has been almost a year up here in Northern California, and there are a ton of things that I miss from Los Angeles and many other things that I have noticed about this place. Let us start off with the most noticeable.
1. People from NorCal do NOT like Los Angeles.
I’ve heard it all, from too much traffic, to how much they hate the Lakers, Kings, and Dodgers. It’s funny, in Los Angeles, people love San Francisco and look forward to visiting every once in a while. It is a one-way hate, I guess.
2. Where the heck are the food trucks!?
NorCal people have given me very weird looks when they find out that in Los Angeles, we follow food trucks on Twitter to know where they are going to be, and get in line before it gets there so we don’t have to wait for two hours, and wait one hour for our food instead.
3. People cannot give an accurate estimated time of arrival.
Yes, in Los Angeles, people can tell you how long it will take to get to you, even if they are currently stuck in traffic. Here, they say stuff in miles. What the heck? How long is 10 miles? Give me a time.
“Oh, sorry dude, I’m stuck on the 5, it is going to be another 40 minutes. Yeah, I’ll get there around 3:30pm.”
4. In LA, GPS navigation only SUGGESTS routes.
If you are trying to get to LAX at 4pm, and the GPS says to take the 405, you chuckle at it, and find another route. Period.
5. Average freeway speed is 80 MPH in LA.
I could not get used to driving at 60 mph in this area of northern California. And the lanes are too wide. If you’re not getting an adrenaline rush from driving next to a huge truck that has a space of 6 inches on each side of his lane, you are not living.
6. Having the beach right there and not going.
Sometimes its nice to know that the ocean is there, even if we don’t go.
7. San Francisco seems to be the maker of stuff that tastes really good.
Not everything is bad around here, actually the people are really nice most of the time. One thing that I notice is that the entire area up here is being populated by places that originated in San Francisco. I’ve seen Philz, ice cream shops, vegan places, sandwich houses, and a bunch of stuff that spreads around up here. I wonder if any of these places would succeed in LA.