>> no mosquitoes with all that rain?..
Yeah, I don't know why.
What is even more confusing is that the humidity is never as bad as a NJ summer, when "muggy" is a constant. Roofs and driveways rapidly acquire moss, but the humidty is only mdoerate.
Maybe because the rainy "season" is the three cool seasons, and summer is dry.
The first thing I noticed when I moved "out West" was that everything seemed newer and cleaner than in New England cities.
>> don't forget the taylor ham!!!
True, and even delis are rare. Sometimes I think that passersby are thinking "friends don't let friends eat red meat", but they're too polite to say anything.
Not many bakeries either, whereas parts of NJ that hosted sequential waves of immigrants from different countries retain at least one ethnic bakery from each wave. And even specialty bakeries don't make pumpernickle. At most, "dark rye", which I am told is different.
Another difference - one I really like - is the omnipresence of "barista huts". Little places about the size of 4-6 phone booths where pretty women sell espresso, lattes, whacha-may-callit-chinos ... all those fancy coffee-based beverages, tea and "power drinks". Maybe all the caffiene staves off gloom-induced depression.
Local to my neghborhood is another tradition that staves off depression, at least for guys. This is a varient on the "barista hut": "bikini baristas". I think it's self-explaining, but some carry it to extremes with fancy lingerie.
A friend visited from Nantucket, so I took him to several "bikini barista huts", and his eyes popped way out. I think the collection of empty coffee cups on the floor gave us away, because at the third hut, the barista winked knowingly at us and said "I know what YOU boys have been doing!".
The next day, I almost pulled in at my regular hut where I get coffee every day, and my friend was shocked and dismayed. "We can't go THERE!! They're fully dressed!!!"
So now I tease him with that line before we go into establishment whatsoever, from restaurants to libraries.
We have things that we CALL bagels and CALL pizza, but no one who ever went to Pepe's or The Spot in New Haven would call THAT "pizza".
On the other hand, even in cities, only 1-2% of WA drivers are totally, 100% crazed and deranged. And we blame that 1-2% on the Californication of Washington state.
Sometimes the politeness and courtesy become almost hard to take. People chat with clerks (slowing down the line!!) and even slow down on the road to let people in ... yes, they sometimes slow down on the road! And yet no one shoots anyone over it. Who can figure?
