What is it like where you live?

A past conversation while chatting on here got me thinking- what is your home like? What about your yard(if you have one)? I have this picture in my head of everyone living in London- city livivng- that is on here from the UK(LOL) and I know that is not true but that is what I "see" when I chat with you!

I wonder what some of you "see" when you chat with some of us from the States? How about the Aussies?

I wonder how what we see in our minds varies from reality.

For me, we live in a neighborhood of around 100 homes. Our lots are around 1 acre in size(some are larger) and homes range from 30 years old and need some work to brand new homes that people built after knocking down the old one!

We have lots of oak trees, pine trees, many flowering shrubs and sodded yards...our subdivision is shaded and very pleasant to walk through. We bought our home for the large level backyard and it happened to have a swimming pool as a bonus!

What is it like where you live?

I live in a really quiet town, most of the houses around me are semi-detached 3-beds, and there's quite a few avenues of trees too. Most of the residents nearby are retired, so they have impeccable gardens and ours is still a bit of a mess as neither of us know what we're doing in a garden! Our garden is quite a lot smaller than yours by the sound of it.. it did have lots of overgrown bushes when we moved in, so we've levelled it and put down a lawn.

There are a handful of shops about 15min walk away, and my walk to the shops takes me through a playing field with play park in it. If we want to go to a bigger town with lots of shops we have a few choices all less than 20mins drive away.

It's quite quiet here, really, other than the out-of-control-teen who lives down the street who throws loud parties and has been given an ASBO order to have no more parties lol.

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Originally Posted by rainbowflower

I live in a really quiet town, most of the houses around me are semi-detached 3-beds, and there's quite a few avenues of trees too. Most of the residents nearby are retired, so they have impeccable gardens and ours is still a bit of a mess as neither of us know what we're doing in a garden! Our garden is quite a lot smaller than yours by the sound of it.. it did have lots of overgrown bushes when we moved in, so we've levelled it and put down a lawn.

There are a handful of shops about 15min walk away, and my walk to the shops takes me through a playing field with play park in it. If we want to go to a bigger town with lots of shops we have a few choices all less than 20mins drive away.

It's quite quiet here, really, other than the out-of-control-teen who lives down the street who throws loud parties and has been given an ASBO order to have no more parties lol.

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Sounds lovely to me! You guys refer to your yard as a garden, correct? Here, garden would be limited to mostly where I choose to plant flowers or fruits/veggies.

I LOVE the idea of being able to walk to shops. We just took a vacation where we could do just that and we rented bikes and I had a blast with the kids walking or riding bikes to town! So fun.

Another thing that people outside the States would find crazy or ridiculous is the size of our vehicles. I have traveled a little bit to other countries and the cars do not compare in size to what we are now used to. They are very large- even our "compact" cars are much bigger than what I was in while in Europe.

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Originally Posted by nuthinbutpink

Sounds lovely to me! You guys refer to your yard as a garden, correct? Here, garden would be limited to mostly where I choose to plant flowers or fruits/veggies.

I LOVE the idea of being able to walk to shops. We just took a vacation where we could do just that and we rented bikes and I had a blast with the kids walking or riding bikes to town! So fun.

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yeah that's correct! a yard would be an area that is paved :)
how far from the shops are you?

where have you been in Europe? I've never actually left Europe, but I hear that houses are massive over there (or at least they all look it on Supernanny USA)

We live in a village on the edge of a very old hilltop town and we love it :D There are both old and new houses in the town but we especially love the old ones. Ours is a detached 3 bed Victorian cottage (built in 1859) with a lovely well established garden (yard!). It's nowhere near an acre but you'd have to be rich to own that here! We moved in 2 years ago when it was only a 2 bed cottage and we built a 2 storey extension. Our town has a really lovely feel, lots of individual little shops and many great coffee shops :D It couldn't be further removed from London - I really don't enjoy big cities (or towns even!).

We are close enough to bike(1-2 miles) but it is not set up to be able to do that with kids- much too much traffic at high speeds- not safe. We drive to do all shopping.

There are many large homes. Lots of bedrooms and finished basements too- just like the main living floors.

I have been to Germany and Austria. That's it in Europe. I didn't see anything that looked like it is where I live- lots of country side(drove from Frankfurt to Munich and back) which is a similar landscape but the towns are nothing like what they are here. Our buildings are much too new compared to what I saw there. Much more character in the buildings in Europe IMO.

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Originally Posted by zanacal

We live in a village on the edge of a very old hilltop town and we love it :D There are both old and new houses in the town but we especially love the old ones. Ours is a detached 3 bed Victorian cottage (built in 1859) with a lovely well established garden (yard!). It's nowhere near an acre but you'd have to be rich to own that here! We moved in 2 years ago when it was only a 2 bed cottage and we built a 2 storey extension. Our town has a really lovely feel, lots of individual little shops and many great coffee shops :D It couldn't be further removed from London - I really don't enjoy big cities (or towns even!).

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Sounds like the story books we read here! I picture a little cottage with smoke billowing out of the chimney and a picket fence! LOL.

Really, sounds lovely. We did live in a 1930's home in the city once. We love the character of the older homes too. Some of my favorites are early 1900 homes here in Atlanta.

What are the class sizes in your kids' school? How many kids in a class?

zanacal that sounds beautiful! we're also country-lovers and not city lovers, although with the house prices here I doubt we'll ever be able to afford somewhere more rural

NBP Germany is lovely isn't it? I lived there for over a year during uni. in the UK school class sizes are usually around 30-31 up to the age of 16, or less if you go private

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Originally Posted by rainbowflower

zanacal that sounds beautiful! we're also country-lovers and not city lovers, although with the house prices here I doubt we'll ever be able to afford somewhere more rural

NBP Germany is lovely isn't it? I lived there for over a year during uni. in the UK school class sizes are usually around 30-31 up to the age of 16, or less if you go private

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Wow...30-31 is huge for where we live. Most are 20 kids per class- public or private. Do most kids go on to Univeristy(College)?