Hi everyone! Happy Monday and welcome back to the blog. Today I wanted to touch on sort of a fun and lighthearted topic \u2013 what it\u2019s like living in Salem, MA (as someone who didn\u2019t grow up here). My perspective is a little different than those who have grown up in Massachusetts or in the north east. For those of you who don\u2019t know, I am originally from the west coast. I grew up outside of Seattle, WA and Massachusetts is fourth state I have lived in. To sum it up, the first half of my life was spent on the west coast and the second half has been here on the east coast. To be clear \u2013 I knew ALL of these things before moving here, of course. It\u2019s not like I moved here without ever visiting. I was a long time visitor before moving into the area and then into Salem. Here are some random and silly observations I have made as a MA transplant.<\/p>\n
Salem is an extremely walkable city. I work for myself from home and live right on the edge of downtown so a tank of gas will literally last me like a month. Salem is easy to navigate on foot, has a train station right downtown, has its own car service program (Salem Skipper) and a bike share program. Seeing how long the gas in my car lasts me is a testament to how little you need to drive.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s widely understood that there are about a million Dunkin Donuts locations per town. However, I think CVS has them beat. I have never lived anywhere in my life where I have access to so many CVS locations at any point.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t know this was a thing until I moved here and transferred my license and car registration to MA. It\u2019s basically a road safety check, which is great. Making sure the cars on the road aren\u2019t dangerous to the driver or others around them is great. However, I have never experienced this anywhere else and again, I have lived in four different states through my life.<\/p>\n
I knew this before moving here, of course. However living here and seeing it regularly is what makes it stand out to me. The wind is insane here, I can literally feel it pushing my apartment sometimes. It whips around the area I live and can be insanely strong at times.<\/p>\n
I may catch some heat for this one but I really don\u2019t get the whole roast beef sandwich thing. There are a trillion spots all along the north shore that offer their take on a classic roast beef sandwich and folks around here will argue over which is best. When I finally tried it myself for the first time, I have to say I was sort of underwhelmed. Maybe I need to explore other roast beef spots because I seriously don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n
I have never lived anywhere with so much on street parking, so I had to get used to this one really quickly when I moved here full time. If you don\u2019t know how to parallel park your car \u2013 you\u2019re going to have to figure it out. \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n
There ya have it! Today\u2019s post was sort of a silly one but was fun to write and reflect on the differences between living here in Salem and other places.<\/p>\n
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