This city is a bit rough around the edges, a bit abrasive. It’s a tough love city. To live here, you have to know what you want. And then you have to ask for it because no one is going to tell you ...

Thinking of moving to Denver? I don't blame you. It has a lot to offer--Denver great weather, easy access to nature, and an open and innovative group of people always working to make the city better.

The East Bay is the area on the east side of the San Francisco Bay. The general feeling of the East Bay is very mixed, but overall relaxed. A lot of the bustle of San Francisco is lost across the bridge and there is some stale hippie culture lingering in Berkeley that probably makes its residents more apt to recycle.The East Bay is the area on the east side of the San Francisco Bay. The general feeling of the East Bay is very mixed, but overall relaxed. A lot of the bustle of San Francisco is lost across the bridge and there is some stale hippie culture lingering in Berkeley that probably makes its residents more apt to recycle. The mornings are gloomy and overcast, nearly without exception, but most non-winter afternoons clear up and blanket us with warm sunshine. Living right next to the bay also means that it’s often windy—about half of all evenings the wind is howling around here. In the summer there have been a couple warm days that made leaving the non-air conditioned apartment a good idea, a few gorgeous days around 75°F, but mostly mediocre days on which a sweatshirt is non-optional.

There is quite a bit of good food around Berkeley, but most of it comes with a price. I’m not saying it’s expensive, but most of the deliciousness will be found at sit-down restaurants that will drain you to the tune of $30 for a couple. That may be par for the course (no pun intended—ouch) at most suburban eateries, but I guess I was spoiled by the abundance of awesomely cheap food in San Diego that allowed me to survive on less than $10 a day for the better part of seven years. That said, you could probably eat that cheaply up here, though you might end up with an obnoxious illness or a stab wound or two.

This is the beautiful thing about Chicago. This is not one city. This is several hundred little villages all packed together, each with their own distinct flavor and culture. One good thing that being the most segregated city in the north brings is that we can travel to a dozen different worlds without ever leaving home.I’m sitting on a warm blanket on a cool summer night in Grant Park, watching the Blues Brothers on a huge screen with a few thousand other people.

There’s one beer in my hand and four in my liver, and I’m howling at every joke along with the rest of the crowd. Lawn chairs, picnic baskets, and empty bottles of wine litter the grass; green during the day, but black right now. To the east the moon is rising over Lake Michigan, casting a long, rippling shadow all the way up to the pier. To the north I can see the unfinished 92 story Trump Tower where they filmed the final showdown between Batman and the Joker. The lights are always on inside, even though nobody has moved in yet.

On Summer Tuesday nights in parks all over the city, you can catch these movies. They bring out a diverse crowd; cinephiles, families, college kids, and the people who just like drinking in the park every night, no matter what’s going on.

I lean back on my elbows and take a swig of my beer, then exhale. I have a hundred and three things to be worrying about right now. I have to find another job, get out of my parents’ place again, think about which train to take back home, keep the bubbly blonde next to me happy, stop drinking so much and finish that novel I’ve been working on for too long. But right now, none of it registers as important. Right now, I’m on the lake, sipping a drink and enjoying the evening breeze with several hundred new friends for the night.