14 Realizations You Have When You Move To A Large City After Growing Up In A Small Town

1. You must. eat. EVERYTHING. The closest your town got to “ethnic food” was the Taco Bell across the street from your high school, and now there’s a family run restaurant every block or so AND they’re serving dishes you didn’t even know existed! Come to mama, moussaka.

2. Seriously, the food choices are almost overwhelming. You just want to run back home and tell your family, “There’s a whole world out there! And it all starts with rice paper rolls!”

3. The view of the city at night is great… but you’ll constantly miss the sight of a sky chock-full of stars.

4. …You’ll also miss the idea of complete darkness. You used to be able to turn off your bedroom lights and have the only light be the moon outside your window. Now? There are LIGHTS GALORE. Basically: City darkness = small town dusk.

5. Your idea of “walking distance” is veryyy different from a local city dwellers definition. Back home, everything was spread out enough that it only really made sense to drive. In the city, if it’s only a few bus stops away, you might as well walk and save yourself the fare.

6. …Which works out in your favor, because with the amount of exciting food you’re consuming, walking everywhere is really the only way to survive.

7. You never really considered yourself a light sleeper… until you moved to the city. Why are there still so many people out at 3am?? What can they possibly be doing?

8. …Speaking of which, THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO AFTER THE SUN GOES DOWN. You’re so used to everything closing by 9pm and just driving around with your friends, but now you can go out. And like, meet people. That you haven’t known your entire life.

9. Driving is stressfulllllllllll. What used to be a relaxing way to pass the time, is now filled with honking, traffic, jaywalkers, and don’t even get you started on parking.

10. PARKING IS THE WORST.

11. Back home, the idea of paying for parking was ludicrous. Uhhh I’m just leaving my car by a curb, why is it going to cost me $8 for 2 hours???????????

12. Moving in isn’t the big to-do it is back home, where everyone made sure to welcome the new family with plates on plates on plates of cookies. Here, neighbors are mostly concerned with how loud your music is going to be.

13. Everyone walks so fast! You obviously have places to go and people to see, but you did NOT realize that getting there would require you to move at a semi-jog just to keep up with the flow of traffic.

14. FREEDOMMMMMMM. You can literally do anything without having to worry that Jill down the street saw you and is going to tell your mom at book club.