I am currently in Maryland, for the third time this summer. One of my sons had surgery and his wonderful neurosurgeon is in Maryland. I really miss Palo Alto. Fortunately we should be able to come home on Tuesday night.
The day before surgery my New York based son came to visit my Palo Alto son with some other friends from Palo Alto who are living in New York as well as some of their New York friends. We were discussing the HBO show Silicon Valley and we all agreed it was an accurate description of life in Palo Alto. They claimed much more so than Jame's Franco's movie "Palo Alto", but Franco's childhood in Palo Alto was 10 years before my son's and his friends, so maybe his experiences were very different.
In any case, being in Maryland really makes me appreciate Palo Alto. I miss, in no particular order:
1. My mornings at The Dish at Stanford. Walking back and forth from my hotel to the Greenbelt shopping center just does not cut it,
2. The California Ave Farmers Market. I went to a Farmers Market in Silver Spring yesterday and bought nothing. They did allow dogs at the stands so that was nice.
3. The weather here is awful. It has been in the 90's, horrible humidity, and thunderstorms all week. Palo Alto is so temperate.
4. I miss sidewalks. Except for Barron Park Palo Alto has sidewalks everywhere and is walkable. The city planners in everywhere but the urban areas forgot to put in sidewalks.
5. I miss the bike lanes. As much as I sometimes get frustrated with the pedestrian bike interactions in Palo Alto I have yet to see anyone on a bike in the 4 years we have been medical tourists in the DC area. With no sidewalks and no bike lanes it is all cars all the time. There is a subway system, the metro, but only circling the DC area. I guess the weather is too crappy for people to want to walk or bike places.
6. I miss the hills surrounding Palo Alto. It is just flat here.
7. I miss big redwood and oak trees in Palo Alto. The trees here are too skinny.
8. The buildings are tall with street after street of high rise apartments and condos in Silver Spring and Bethesda. They should be suburbs, but the streets are as crowded as cities with cars. The buildings have better proportions and are not as tall in Palo Alto.
9. It is summer, so fresh food is plentiful in Maryland currently. However, in the winter the food is so much better in Palo Alto.
10. My Vente Vaencia Orange Refresher from Starbucks is the same here as it is in Palo Alto. Some things are universal.
If you have any questions about buying or selling a home in Palo Alto please feel free to contact me.
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Marcy Moyer
Cal BRE 01191194
650-619-9285
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