~The tram for the T
~Starbuck's on every corner for Dunkin' Donuts (coffee, that is) on every corner
~NW 23rd for Newbury St.
~ideas for idears
~parking the car for pahking the cah...for that matter, a free driveway for a $200/mo tandem parking spot
~2500 sq ft house with 3 floors for a 600ish sq ft "super studio" and 3 rooms (including the kitchen and bathroom)
~School and work a 5 min walk apart (and on the same campus) for school and work a 4-5 hr bus ride away (in different states)
~Mt Hood for...ok, there's no mountains in Boston. but we've got the Boston Commons.
~the Willamette River for the Charles River
~I-5 for the Mass Pike (I-90)
~Free road travel for toll roads
~everyone i know for about 3 people i knew when i moved here (although there is a place here where everybody knows your name)
~No local sport teams worthy of fanfare for the Red Sox, the Celtics, and the Patriots...championship teams, and we've the the Green Monstah, too!
~The sunset for the sunrise (over the ocean, that is)
~Walking on the Oregon coast wearing a hoodie and jeans (for free) for paying $5 to go to the beach on the Eastern shore in shorts and a swimsuit
~Sunriver for Cape Cod
~"way" for "wicked" (meaning very, as in wicked cold)
~DCH for CHB (aka The Children's Hospital)
This is not a complete list, but you get the picture. I feel I should elaborate on a few of the items listed above...
There's a completely different language here, including some of the examples I noted above... apparently there's not even time to speak in complete words...then there's the Bostonian dialect of English.
In case I pick up some of the local way of speaking, here are some translations so I will still be understood by my peeps in other parts of the world.~The tea from the famous Boston tea party is no longer as important to the common day Bostonian as the "T"- which is short for train- the Boston subway system. I take the green line to and from work most days (except when I'm running late...then I take the City Cab).
~Names of streets and highways are also shortened: Massachusetts Avenue is Mass Ave., Commonwealth Avenue is Comm Ave, and the Massachusetts Turnpike is the Mass Pike. It's amazing how much more free time now that I don't speak in complete words-who knew?!
~One of my greatest disappointments in life in Boston, and something that I will never understand, is why lots of people here seem to prefer 
(brace yourselves) Dunkin' Donuts "coffee" to Starbucks... and it's really hard to find a local coffee house around here. it's so weird- and DD coffee totally blows! i did actually try it before i decided it was fair to hate. it's like water compared to the real thing...it's just not right. fortunately, the nearest Starbucks to my house is only 3 blocks away, and there's one across the street from the Children's Hospital, and one just across the street from my subway stop at school. so no worries, i can still get my 'Bucks whenever i need a fix.
For the first time in my life, I paid money to go to the beach. My first Boston friend (and one of my favorites), Whitney, and I took a 40 min. ride on the commuter rail to the Singing Beach at the end of August. We walked about a mile before I saw the ocean. Then i saw something else- something i'd never seen before. a girl sitting at a table, charging people $5 to go to the beach- wtf?!
the first thing i thought was that my mom would be horrified, and would say that it's criminal...i was right about that. apparently this is common along the Eastern Seaboard, but it will take a very long time for me to get used to paying to spend the day on the sand. i moved past it, though, and discovered a few things I really enjoy about the beach here. The sun shines regularly, and people actually swim in the ocean. It wasn't warm, but at least my toes didn't turn blue in the water.
So, some trades are good, some not so good, and some neither good nor bad... the bottom line is- I know I'm in exactly the space I belong right now, and i wouldn't trade it for anything.
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