#10 Elevator Conversations - People in DC can be surprisingly friendly. The first few times someone struck up an elevator conversation, I was a bit taken aback. Having been here for a while now, I find nothing odd about a complete stranger in an elevator asking me whether or not she ought to come clean to the car rental company about the ding she put in her rental car.#9 Great Restaurants - The city has a surprising number of great restaurants and pretty much any kind of food you can think of. The only downside is that the food prices here are high. Forget those cheap $3.00 taqueria lunches like in California.
#8 Walkable Neighborhoods - People in DC actually walk. That came as quite a surprise to at least one overseas visitor I spoke with. In fact, most of the people I work with don't even own cars. The city is smaller than it seems. We can walk from our apartment to anywhere.
#7 Good Public Transportation - Those too lazy (or in my case, too late) to walk can hop on the subway or a bus. The system is clean and generally efficient (although I must admit that I try to avoid it during afternoon rush hour). Even getting to surrounding areas is relatively easy for the car-less.
#6 Unabashed Nerdiness - DC is heaven for nerds. The city is filled with bookstores and coffee shops where eyeglass clad, balding ivy leaguers debate public policy. Even the bar conversations tend toward the nerdy. It is the only place I've ever been where a bar television was on CNN (and not sports) at midnight on a Friday.
#5 Opportunities for Eavesdropping - Due to the nerdiness outlined in #6 above, DC is a great place for eavesdropping. This is particularly true for those of us who are political junkies. You never know what hill staffer, lobbyist, or other wonk is going to be sitting beside you rambling on about the politics of the day. This has been especially fun given the Obamania of the 2008 election.
#4 An Embarrassment of Museums - DC has a population of about 600,000 and yet it has enough museums to keep a population ten times that size busy. Incredibly, all of the Smithsonian museums are free. The museums also host free lectures, free movies, free concerts... The list just goes on. My personal favorite museum is, of course, The Museum of the American Indian. Incredibly, I still haven't been to them all.
#3 Concerts Galore - After living in Miami (where many musicians don't go because it is out of the way) and Santa Cruz (which is a tiny little town), living in DC is like concert heaven. Every week a new concert that Chris and I want to see is listed. We've already seen Pink Martini, Morcheeba, and Eryka Badu. We've got Anthony David, Rahsaan Patterson, Spanish Harlem Orchestra, and El Vez coming up - just to name a few.
#2 The World Just a Few Blocks Away - Miami was an international city, but it leaned heavily toward Latin America. In DC, I'm as likely to hear Swahili as Spanish. I've met people from Ecuador to Burkina Faso. Many of the embassies (just a short walk from my house) have cultural events, film screenings, and concerts too. You can learn about or how to do anything in DC. The picture above is of people tango dancing, for no apparent reason, in the middle of downtown.
#1 The Best Cab Drivers - If you really want to have a political conversation or learn about another country, just jump into a DC cab. You never know whose cab you might end up in. You may find yourself being driven around by the former minister of finance for some politically volatile country. DC cab drivers will talk about anything from the politics of Somalia to the recent switch to meters (from the old zone system). Chris has, on at least one occasion, sat outside our apartment in a cab chatting away for twenty minutes with the driver who took him home from work.
And there you have it, all my favorite things about life in the capital.
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