Friday FiveLocation, Location, Location

Singing Owl brings us this Friday Five:

My daughter, her husband, and their toddler, Trinity Ann, are moving from Minneapolis, Minnesota to our place. It's a long story, but the short version is that they will be loading a Ryder truck on Saturday, and on Sunday afternoon we will unload it into a storage unit in our town. They will move themselves, their two cats and their BIG dog into our place. Yes, there will be issues, but this Friday Five isn't really about that. (Prayers for jobs for them and patience for all of us are most welcome, however.) This post is about locations. My husband has lived at 64 addresses in his life so far (16 with me) and he suggested the topic since we have moving trucks on our minds.

Therefore, tell us about the five favorite places you have lived in your lifetime. What did you like? What kind of place was it? Anything special happen there?

I have a lot of choices to pick from. At last count, I've lived at at least 22 different addresses (not counting separate dorms in college). When you consider that I'm 28, and have lived in the same building for the last 6 years, that's saying something.

So, here are my top 5:

1) Bethesda, MD
I LOVED living near our nation's capital. The cost of living is high, but there is a ton of free fun stuff to do. I love the diversity, I love the public transportation (in fact, I like combining the two: listening to all the different languages spoken on the Metro). We moved there 2nd semester of my junior year of high school. I made wonderful friends, and for the very first time ever found people that I felt like I really fit in with. Oh, and did I mention how much I love all the different kinds of food?

2) Granville, OH
I went to Homecoming last weekend, and remembered how much I loved my college stomping grounds. It's a little funny to share this as part of the Friday Five, because I realized that part of the reason I love Granville so much is that my 4 years of college were the first time I'd ever lived somewhere for more than about 2 1/2 years. No kidding it feels like home! It's a charming town, the campus is beautiful, and the memories are (mostly-- the ones that don't make me cringe, anyway) wonderful.

3) Okinawa, Japan
I did not expect to enjoy Okinawa. We went for a year when I was in 8th grade, and ended up wishing we'd requested a 3-year tour. Because my mom chose an "unaccompanied" tour (1 year, and she took me at her expense), we lived out in town instead of on base. I had a lot of freedom, and really enjoyed exploring. I took the bus in town, explored tiny fun shops, and took walks down the winding streets. That year was really an adventure.

4) Oceanside, CA
We moved a lot, but we also returned to CA a lot. So, off and on, I spent more time growing up in California than anywhere else. There are a lot of things that I miss about it, things I didn't appreciate when I was there. (Yes, the food again, but not JUST the food.) It was another place where diversity and integration were the norm, rather than just a topic of dicussion (by a bunch of white people). I miss how normal it was for people to be active and outside. There were a lot of public areas-- parks and mountains and beaches. I lived in a city, but it was easy to get to open spaces.

5) Elizabethtown, PA
Here, I live in the country, and it's really difficult to be in open spaces-- because they all belong to someone else!
I'm including this mostly because it's where I met Mr. M, and because major life things have happened here. It's been horizon-broading; I've never lived in such a small town before. There are fun parts: the fair every summer, the farmers' market, the historical buildings.