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What is your city's annoying little foible?

R

Richard III

Duke of Gloucester
Joined
Nov 6, 2001
Messages
4,873
Location
bla
A few weeks back, I was in London, and discovered to my anger that there were no garbage cans (aka "rubbish bins") anywhere, since they were apparently bombed often by the IRA. Ended up carrying coffee cups for hours.

Tonight, I am writing from sunny Washington, D.C.. I was relying on the idea of using phone books, booths and internet kiosks to work from to file a freelance story: London is now full of net kiosks and internet cafes of all shapes and sizes.

But here I am at a Kinko's, exhausted from having spent two hours earlier today wandering Constitution Ave. and the area hunting desperately for a phone booth. Net kiosk: nonexistent. Internet cafes? Well, there's a Kinko's buried at 7th and D. ;) A very polite cabbie explained to me that the lack of pay phones is designed to deter drug dealers :cool: .

So, as advice to weary CFC members who might be travelling in future, what is the little foible that might surprise people travelling to your city? Anything wierd like the above that we might want to know before we visit?

R.III
 
When you're in Minneapolis, if you make a wrong turn, it could cost you at least a half hour :p
 
I live in New York City.

My #1 problem with this place : the air, I really hate pollution
#2 problem : cost of living

If it was cheap and the air was fresh I'd probably never want to move out, except of course to see the world and sow my wild oats :D

- Narz :king:
 
Calgary has a population of less than a million, in an area approaching the size of greater NY, yet the roads and mass transit are horribly ineffective.
 
Vancouver, Well lets see, Sh*t for public trans, and a city in which everyone b*tches about everything. We almost lost the Molson Indy, We almost lost our fireworks, We almost lost the PNE, We almost lost the airport :lol:

People moved in near the airport, They were told it would expand as the city grew and the moved in got cheap places, then complained when a new runway was opened and almost got it closed. So if you come to Vancouver, be ware, you may have to open a can of whoop ass on the locals who complain about anything under the sun, or moon as bars can't stay open till 4 AM.
 
London:

As you used, very few rubbish bins.
Also, jolly expensive, and, like any major city, it is not as clean as one would like, and the traffic is, er, slow.
 
Singapore - no chewing gum. :p

And the death penalty for drug trafficking.

Otherwise, everything else is super-efficient, fr govt bureaucracy to public transportation.
 
Glasgow - Neds are our big problem.

In the USA they are know as hoods, and carry guns.

Neds in Scotland have various tribal attributes.
Nasal voice, fake gold jewelry, tracksuit, skip cap, crappy hair style and jobless.

Neds make the place look intidy, they think they are tough gangsters (one or two are)
these hooligans strain our economy by mass-producing loutish children and vanadlising everything.

It was a sad day when the UK stopped conscription...
Here are some Neds from Scottish comedy TV show, Chewin the Fat!
 
Vancouver is most easily described as a "no fun" city.Fun is just not allowed. :(

Gang war has led to a drastic increase in drive bys.This is not much fun either.:(

Canabis bars OK though :goodjob:

RAIN.Lots of rain.Don't come you won't like it here.Its awful.Really it is.

:D
 
Manchester:
The foible here is students - heaps of them. I don't know if this is the case now, but 4-5 years ago we had the highest student population (in terms of percentage of all residents) in Europe.
Where I live, it is a heavily student-laden area, and the place is deadtown in summer when they've all buggered off home. But at least then you are able to get to the bar.
And in term-time they come gibbering down the roads, blind-drunk, at three in the morning, screaming and shouting their heads off.
Just like I used to when I was a student, now I come to think of it ;)
 
Stockholm:
Like Glasgow, lot's of "ned's", these often run around at night killing each other or old people.

Lots of skinheads and other various nazi scum around the city, they fancy beating the crap out of immigrants and communists.

That, and people are rude.
If you see past that, this is a nice city.
 
Ottawa is (obviously) the Captial of Canada and has about 986 000so there's the usual government types, and civil servants, also Ottawa still has many tech jobs in fibre optics and most of our industry is about that, unfortunatly that sector is going through a major bust period so Companies like Nortel and JDS Uniphase are struggling and there's now a lot of unemployment. Well Ottawa is a nice city, rather than have a highly dense core (it still id densly populated though) Ottawa is just REALLY REALLY spread out and can take hours just to drive from end to the other and most of it is just barren nothingness, also IT'S REALLY REALLY COLD IN THE WINTER and MIND NUMBLING HOT IN THE SUMMER, Ottawa is also kinda boring becuase you have to drive all the way to the downtown area to do thing, but it's still interesting, there's lots of national museums and shopping areas and we have an NHL team, so it's not all bad
 
Altough Karlstad is one of the biggest cities in Sweden, we have NO nightlife here. All the nightclubs around here charge you an arm and a leg if you want to get in there. And because of this, people tend to stay in one club the entire night, since it would be ridiculouslly expensive to go bar hopping here. And because of those high entrance-fees, people tend to wait with going out until at least midnight, and all the clubs close at two, so that's no good. And since people don't go out until midnight, the bar club owners raise their prises even more to make ends meet, so people go out even later, etc. etc. All really sad. The only place with a bit of a night life aroung here is Burger King at 3 am, since this is were everyone goes after a night on the town.

Edit: Whoo! 200 posts! Only 100 more to go [dance]
 
Dublin. Public transport (rail/bus services) are ABYSMAL. Well, that's overstating it, but trains are regularly late, are filthy and sometimes uncomfortable. Buses supposedly have a timetable, but in my experience it's best to just turn up at the stop and wait.

I could at this stage moan about the farsical happenings I witnessed two days ago, but will save you my incessant whining.
 
Turku (Åbo):

I've learned to live with the flaws, but...
One picture says more than a thousand words. I see this piece of 'art' (in the picture with Xmas decoration) every time I go to work, go out, or come home.

God I hate it. :mad:

posankkajoulupieni2.jpg
 
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