Blog: October 2007

The Safeway at 17th and R streets in Dupont Circle is derisively known as the "Soviet Safeway," due to its being frequently out of many items. Its defenders point out that it is, after all, one of the smallest supermakrets in the city.

I finally visited it the other day, and it may be small by DC standards, but compared to New York supermarkets, it's a cornucopia of diverse products and low prices. Sure, the stock was a bit thin on a few items, but nothing to the degree one would find at my local Food Emporium or an Upper East Side D'Agostino's. And the groceries were so cheap!

Likewise, when signing up to rent this apartment, the previous tenant explained how parking was ample during the day, but difficult to find on evenings or weekends. I've now parked 3-4 times a day for a week, and it's true, if by "ample" you mean "about two spaces available per block" and "difficult to find" you mean "requires driving around for a few blocks first." I just assumed the Manhattan definition of "hard to park," i.e. "you have to drive around for half an hour to find a single space."

Yes, it's all relative. The supermarkets here may be barren and the parking scarce compared to Palo Alto, California, but I'm moving from Manhattan. Everything's cheap, from rent to insurance to groceries, from that point of view.

The day we got back from Bangkok - the most crowded, polluted, and overrun-with-malls city I've ever been to, and the fifth least green and livable city in the world - we walked around the Upper West Side. Some of the terms that came to mind: "calm," "spacious," and "not so many stores." Not how Manhattan is typically described.

Yes, it's all relative.