Maryland is different than Utah...

I was keeping a list of things that I've learned outside of Utah, but now my list has evolved more into a list of differences between Maryland and Utah. and believe me... there's a lot of them.

Here we go...

First of all, my nails grow longer here!  It's amazing!  I have the worst nails.  They're always cracking and layering and peeling and breaking.  In Utah I could barely grow any white on them without one of them peeling and breaking, but lookie here!  I know they're not even close to "really long", but they're really long for me!

it's a miracle!

I've only actually been able to grow all of them out this long once.  Usually at least one of them ends up breaking.

Another weird thing about Maryland is that they cancel school ALL THE TIME.  It's funny because I grew up in Utah and have never had a snow day in my life, but Maryland has them all the time.  And not only that, but they closed school due to "heat" the other day.  What?  I have never had school closed for anything except the Olympics coming to Salt Lake.  It's makes them seem kind of wussy, but then again, they get flash flood warnings and their streets turn into rivers and they don't even blink an eye.  But they'll close school at just the thought of snow!  So I guess every state has their thing.  Snow is not Maryland's. But yeah, there's a lot more unplanned school closures here than in Utah

They call snow cones- "snow balls" and they suck.  They're like snowcones used to be before Hokulia changed the snow cone world.  Like big hard chunks of ice.  Booo that.

I've been really analyzing their accents.  It's pretty fun.  The biggest thing I've noticed is they leave out their L's if it's in the middle of the word.  Like "hold" becomes "hoad" with a Baltimore accent.  Almost= "ahmost" older= "oader". They say their A's more like awww, instead of ah or a. Like it's more down in the throat.  Like awwwwkward and on= "awn" but like...down in the throat.  I don't know how to explain it over text.  Haha.

And Baltimore?  It's not Ball-ti-more.  It's Bawdimore. Apparently there's no T.  haha

People are very hasty to honk here. and I hate honking.  People will honk just all willy-nilly without a good reason.  I hate it.

There are no sprinkler systems here.  Isn't that crazy?  It literally rains enough for them to not need sprinkler systems.  Who knew??

The roads here SUCK. they're so bad. it's like off-roading, all the time. so many GIANT pot holes. And there's no shoulder.  Like ya know the 5 or 6 feet that's in between the road and the sidewalk where where people ride their bikes and park their cars and what not?  Yeah, non existent here.  There's no shoulders.  So when people need to park on the side of the road, they just park in the lane! and you just have to swerve into the other lane to get past them!  (That only happens in downtown Baltimore or DC). I hate driving in the right lane because it's SO close to the side walk and people and just feels so crowded!  And not only that, but in Utah, that 5 feet of extra space becomes a "right turn lane" at a stop light right? yeah, not here. The normal lane that you're driving in all the sudden becomes right turn only with almost no indication.  It doesn't sound like it's that big of a deal, but it is.  You have to memorize which lanes become right turn only lanes so you don't get stuck turning right when you don't want to.

I have a lot more to say about driving, but it'll continue my rant later.

There are lots of Jews and religious schools.  I'm learning all about different religion's holidays.  Some public schools here even close on Jewish holidays.  Basically the whole month of September is a Jewish holiday.  Literally, there's one school out here that's been closed for like 3 weeks because it's a Jewish school.  But yeah, lots of catholic schools, or montessori's, etc.

A purse is a "pocketbook"

Suckers (like the candy on a stick) is not a sucker here. it's a lollipop. Always.

I'm realizing that Mormons are the "crazy religious people".  Like the way I've looked at some other religions before (not saying specifically which religions), but like the you know how there's some religions you just think like...."they're kind of extreme."  PEOPLE THINK OF US THAT WAY!  I never knew!  And not only that, some people think we're on the same level as like... Amish people or Mennonites. Like  people clump us with the types of religions that don't associate with the outside world. I would just like to state to Mormon's live in regular society.  They do not seclude themselves and create their own little society.  They get normal jobs and dress like normal people, they celebrate all the normal holidays (with the addition of Pioneer Day).  Let's get real, I know everyone reading this is probably Mormon, but I would just like to shout that to the world.

Avocados are terrible out here.  It's very unfortunate because I LOVE avocados.  In Utah, I had this method.  I would buy like 6-7 avocados and leave them on my counter until they were just barely ripe, then I would stick them in the fridge.  They could last in the fridge for like 1-2 weeks before they were too gross to eat. Here, I've tried doing that, and it does not work. There is a much smaller window that avocados are good here. you have like...two days to eat them after they're just barely ripe, and then they turn more mushy and gross than I've ever seen them like in Utah.  and they just aren't as good here.  :(

And a note about the ghetto. So some of the places here are just as bad, if not worse, than what you see in the movies (I'm thinking of Step Up, Blindside, Take the Lead, etc.). But it's much scarier here, because in those movies, the person from the ghetto is always somehow rising above it. There's gonna be some happy ending about how they overcome the poverty cycle and get out of the ghetto. But the parts of the ghetto I see, there's no happy ending. It's just like...scary. So in that sense, it's not like the movies at all.

And here's my biggest bone to pick with Maryland. Everyone here has a different idea of what is "close" means than us people from the west do.  Basically everything here is 20-30 minutes away. and when I said everything, I mean EVERYTHING. Like I'll be somewhere in Balitmore and need to go to another store, and I think "oh it's probably close because I'm down here so far", then I put it in my GPS and without a doubt, it's always atleast 20 minutes away. And not only that, but even the closest grocery store and gas station are like 10 minutes away.  And the weird thing is, they're only like 2 miles away, but it takes 10 minutes to get there!  It seriously can't figure that one out.  For example, the metro station is exactly 2 miles away from our house, so you think, "oh that shouldn't take more more than 5 minutes to drive there with stop lights and everything", but  no, it takes a solid 10 minutes to drive there even with no traffic and hitting a lot of green lights.

And like... we have to give rides to people to church, and they try to coordinate who lives close to each other and stuff, and even if someone lives like 15 minutes away from us, they're still considered "close". given our ward boundaries are probably like..an hour between the furthest people north and south, but still.  In my book, 15 minutes is not "close". There's no such thing as like, running down the street to borrow something from my neighbor. It's more like, I have to drive 30 minutes to borrow it.

WARNING: If you don't want to listen to me go on a rant about how much I hate traffic here, stop reading now. This could get long.

So here's what I've figured out I think.  Baltimore has like this like imaginary bubble around it that expands maybe like... 40 minutes in each direction.  And people think that basically any city within that circle is "close". So for my job, they told me "we have some schools the are really close to you that we'll send you to." I'm thinking like...Stevenson University which is like 15 min away. Nope.  When they said "close" they meant, anything within that  Baltimore bubble.  And so I have will have like one school I have to drive to that's south of Baltimore (which is already not very close to me and my definition of close), and then another one that's on the opposite end of Balitmore!! but apparently people out here think that's "close"!!!!!! .That's not close in my book.

And not only that, but traffic here is TERRIBLE.  So something that's like 15 miles away, and your GPS says it'll take 22 minutes without traffic, can take like 45 minutes even when you're driving it at like 2 in the afternoon! WTH?!?!?! I heard on the radio yesterday the DC is in the top three worst places for traffic in the US.  And no doubt Baltimore is very far behind since DC is so close and some of that traffic comes up here too. So basically every day when I'm driving around, I ask myself over and over again "why would anyone want to live here??" "why would anyone CHOOSE to live here??"

For my job, if I want to be on time, I have to leave an hour beforehand to get to the schools on time and it's only like 15 miles away. So dumb. SO dumb. SO DUMB!

My mom asked me last night if the traffic here was like the traffic in Salt Lake.....Salt Lake DOESN'T EVEN HAVE TRAFFIC compared to here.  I literally didn't know what traffic was until I moved here. Think of like, if you're driving from Lehi to Provo...Google says that's 17 miles. Imagine if that took you 45-50 minutes to get there, EVERY DAY, basically no matter what time of day, and that's without some big event going on.  And it's not even because there's an accident or anything either, there's just TOO MANY cars! Normally in Utah you drive and eventually you get past the cause of the traffic (like an accident or a lane closure), and then it goes back to normal freeway speeds. Not here, It never lets up.  You just keep going, and maybe it'll speed up a little bit, and then it just slows right back down again for no reason.  And every single freeway here is like that! and then when there's an accident on top of the already bad traffic?!?! Yeah, no. Not great. The other day it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes to get somewhere that takes me 17 min with no traffic -because one lane was closed.  Just ONE lane. doesn't see like it should be that big of a deal.

Can you tell I have to drive a lot for my job and I'm NOT very happy about it?  yeah....

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now...

Anywho. Lot's of exciting differences here. Wooo hoo..I love Maryland (imagine me saying that with the least ecstatic tone you can think of)