Where are you from?

[Actor87]

Thought this might be fun. Tell a little about where you come from, where you live, etc.

I have lived in Union Parish my whole life. About 10 minutes away from the nearest store, I live in the middle of nowhere. Though they're not huge cities, Farmerville (20 minutes away) and Marion (10 minutes away) are the closest town to us....not to mention Strong, Arkansas (which is about 15 minutes away). I live in a small community (no lie) no longer than 2 miles. There's a family that nobody talks to, an old couple who preside over of an 8 member church consisted of mainly out-of-towners), my mom's brother's son and his mom (my uncle's ex-wife), my dad's first wife and her father, me, my mom, my dad, my brother (who lives with...), his fiance', her 2 year old son, my best friend, and then lastly another couple. That's it. That's Oakland. In Marion, known for it close-knit, country atmosphere, there's the Mayhaw Festival. And Farmerville, known for the northern-state-popular Watermelon Festival, is where 94% of my friend live. We also have a riding club there where we have rodeos, barrel races, fun playdays, etc.

I always get aggravated when people think "Louisiana: Jazz, Crawfish, Bayous, Mardi Gras, Katrina". Here in North Louisiana...it's completely different. It's like a mesh of culture and diversity. Blacks, Asians, Cowboys, Punk Rockers, Farmers, Lawyers....we have it all. It's more of a laid back country-style urban feel here. It's hard to descirbe. It just gets me a little peeved when people automatically assume Louisiana is full of gators and cypress trees. I mean...hell.....I live 5 minutes away from the Arkansas line! It's sooooo much different here compared to south Louisiana. Katrina hardly breathed on us.

So....enough about me.

What about YOU?!

[Q Steph]

I'm from Brooklyn, New York! I was born and raised there for most of my life. NY is very diverse with many different cultures. My family and I liked to go to Manhattan for very special occasions. LOL.

When I was about to enter Junior High, we moved to Rhode Island. HATED IT.

Two years later, we returned to New York but the second time around wasn't so nice. I got really sick and my skin started to peel off from a bad allergic reaction from within the building. Mom decided to move again. I'm fine now BTW.

We moved to Philly in 1998 and have been here ever since. Philly's cool. It's like a baby version of New York. Although, I always wonder what it would've been like if we were there on 9/11. We visited the day of the blackout and my mom nearly had a heart attack!

[ClassicsSoapFan]

Smack dab in the middle of Nashville,Tennessee.I have never been to the Grand Ole'Opry.I don't have a guitar and I don't know how to play one. My neck is not red.Country music is OK but not my favorite.We have family members who play in the Symphony and some who sing in a southrn gospel quartet.

I am the 5 th child of a 7 child family. Middle Tennessee always votes Democrat but most of my family is Republican.There are a few Democrats in the family,we try not to talk about them ,j/k

When we do get together we are a loud,loving boistrous family who all talk the same time--a lot of the time we talk about what happened on ATWT!

[Ms. Walsh]

Well, my profile says Oakdale! But honestly, even if it were a real town, I wouldn't live there w/ all the drama that occurs there every day!! :D

I was born in Providence, RI, and until I was 2, I lived in Pawtucket, another city in Rhode Island.

Aside from downtown Providence, RI isn't that amazing. But I live an hour away from Boston, which is cool.

When I was 2, I moved in w/ my grandmother who lived in a suburb of Providence, in Massachusetts though (we live 2 minutes from the MA/RI line though). And that's where I currently live.

Right now, though, I'm at college. I go to Smith College, which is in Northampton, MA (in western MA). It's right near UMass Amherst, Hampshire College, Amherst College, and Mount Holyoke College.

When I leave college, I intend to live in a big city, most likely Boston. Initially, I wanted to live in NYC, but I think Boston better-suits me, and the colleges in the area are more suitable for what I want to do. I want to get my Ph.D in History (I'm a History/Spanish double major), but I might try living in a South/Central American city for a few years (or in Spain--probably Madrid or Barcelona) before I do that.

I think the thing that bugs me the most is that people assume that if you're from the New England area that you're a liberal elitist. I guess if you came to NoHo, you'd definitely get that vibe here. In high school, everyone called me a "radical" b/c of my political views (I cried when Dubya was re-elected!!), but here I'm actually on a more moderate level compared to others

I'm not going to lie: the campus is extremely liberal, very gay-friendly (the ratio of straight girls and lesbians is 1:1 pretty much), there's always some kind of protesting going on (ie: a protest at Wal-Mart, a protest to get Coca-Cola off-campus). Essentially, if you read the "students'" description of Smith on princetonreview.com, that's pretty much what the campus is like, minus a few details.

At home, though, I really don't see that as much. Maybe in the area around Brown University, but honestly...the area is prodominantly Catholic. I know that my parents tend to be moderate-conservative. ::shrugs::: Yes, the area is very Democrat...but it's old-school Democrats

Other random things:

--RI has the worst drivers, according to a study. MA is 2nd!

--I think RI is the only place that has coffee milk. It's like chocolate milk, except coffee syrup.

--In RI, we have quahogs (ie. Isn't that the name of the town on Family Guy??). They're some kind of seafood...they have a big shell. Seafood is big here, usually seafood night is Fridays (I guess it's the Catholic influence)

--We have a lot of weird stores: Christmas Tree Shoppe. It sells a lot of junky stuff that people seem to dig. And no, it's not just an X-mas thing...it's all-year! And then Ocean State Job Lot, which like CTS, sells crap. Everything's ridiculously cheap, but it's low-quality.

--There's a Dunkin' Donuts every 2-5 minutes. I kid you not. In my small town, we have 5!

--Another Family Guy reference: the kids go to Buddy Cianci Junior High. Cianci was the mayor of Providence. He's this Italian guy, has big connections with the mafia. Anyway, a lot of people consider the guy a saint b/c he completely renovated downtown Providence (they moved the river!!, made a huge-ass mall, etc), but currently he's in prison for bribery or something like that...he was paid off to hire certain people to enter the Providence police force. When he's released, though, I'm sure the city would re-elect him just b/c he's that popular.

[King]

North East Pennsylvania and Central New York!

[Adam]

I was born in raised in Guelph, Ontario. A midsize city of about 100,000 just about an hour west of Toronto. It was an average city..... most known for its university which is one of the top ranked universities in Canada and one of the worlds best environmental reaseach universities.

[R3dheartz]

I live outside the city limits of Omaha. I live very close to the towns of Elkhorn and Bennington NE. I can get to Iowa faster than practically any other town in Nebraska. Most people think of farmers when they think of Nebraska which is true if you go west but not around here. The very mass majority of Nebraska is EXTREMELY conservative, way more than my liking but what can you do. Omaha is home to the college world series which is awesome to go to every summer. We have an awesome zoo, it ranks in the top 5 or 10 in the country. ummm that's about it. I think its a rule if you live here you have to be Nebraska Cornhusker fans since that's baically the only form of sports to watch here. There are the Omaha Royals (AAA for the Kansas City Royals) but no one goes to those games. They rank the lowest attendance wise out of all AAA teams. We also ranked 49th out of 50 states for tourism last year (to many election commericals lately)

[SpiritualJunkie]

Interesting thread!

I was born in Manila, Philippines until I was 4. I actually remember quite a bit...we lived at the back of a pharmacy my parents owned. They still own it and my aunt's now the manager of it.

We moved to Edmonton, Alberta...lived with my grandparents till the summer I was going into gr. 1. Then we moved to a condo situated in the most convenient area of the city, IMO. The school and shopping mall were a walking distance away, there were buses that came every 15 minutes or so...around the time I was in junior high, they built a transit centre by the shopping mall so even if I was too lazy to wait for a sub-bus to take me home, I could just walk home. The convenience store was literally a minute away.

But even though I was totally against the idea, my parents and sister wanted a bigger house so we moved to this new neighbourhood when I was in gr. 10 (I was 15 at the time). I've watched the area grow and become populated but the location sucks! For about a year, there was no bus service...I had to walk 2 to 3 long blocks away to take one..when there was finally a bus stop near my house, it was only a bus that operated at peak hours. It wasn't until this year (I'm 19 now) that it's operating all day but during non-peak hours, it only comes by every hour..and it goes through 3 different neighbourhoods...so it's a 30 min. bus ride if I just wanna go to the transit centre only 10 min. away by car. I live in the neighbourhoods outside the sign that says "Millwoods" but I still consider myself living there..they just need to move that sign. I'm not positive but I believe 50 000 or so people live here...I've heard Millwoods could be it's own town if it wanted to be because soo many people are here. It's also the most multiculturally diverse part of Edmonton. There is a very strong East Asian and Filipino community. It's interesting seeing the contrast on which people take the bus on my bus home (the majority of which are East Asians) and going elsewhere like school (where there is definitely not as many East Asians and more whites). Our area also gets a reputation of being gang and violence-prone...when I was in junior high, some guy got shot dead at a house near my school and about a year ago, someone died trying to stop a robber at a convenience store in front of the school I went to in kindergarten. Recently, a man was beaten to death on a bus by four teens (it even made the national news) and that bus left the transit centre near my house and 3 of those teens used to go to the nearby highschool. All my friends who don't live in Millwoods always refer it to "Millhoods" or whatever...and they probably do have just cause to see this area that way...but I really don't feel any of that stuff affects me and I've always felt pretty safe living here.

Nathan Fillion ("Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place", OLTL) went to the nearby Catholic highschool here. I was almost gonna go to that school but didn't...I don't regret it. There really is nothing there.

There's 3 Sobeys grocery stores (formerly IGA) in Millwoods...they're all within 2-8 minutes (by car) of where I live. And Sobeys is not a small grocery store. There's also 2 Tim Hortons that are about 3 minutes away from each other. In general, Tim Hortons is everywhere.

Edmonton is mostly known for the Oilers, West Edmonton Mall, and being a rock music city. Other than that, it's pretty much "Deadmonton". Most people here have this ridiculous feud with Calgary going on. I admit I join along sometimes but there really is no basis for it..other than the fact that we're all jealous that Calgary is the more well-known and economic city even though we're the capital city.

[Rebecca]

Born in Norfolk, Virginia! Moved when I was around 10 to Virginia Beach, Virginia... kinda the place that you move to when you have enough money to get out of Norfolk, lol. I felt more comfortable in Norfolk though... people STILL dont understand why I choose Wendys over nice restaurants, lol. The area is called Tidewater (or Hampton Roads) and I've been here all my life. Big navy area, very diverse, and I love it. I have family here, in North Carolina, Boston, St. Louis, but the majority are in Iran.

[FrenchFan]

I live in a small town (4000 inhabitants) in France: Charlieu. It is 500 kilometers away from Paris. It is close to Lyons.

[darraholic]

The Calgary vs Edmonton rivalry is insane.

I was born in Quesnel, BC and lived there until I was 6 weeks old. My mom moved me to Edmonton & Nanaimo for 6 weeks each before we settled in Kamloops, BC. I lived in Kamloops for 16 years and graduated from Norkam Secondary School.

A week after I graduated I moved to Burns Lake, BC. WORST PLACE EVER. You had to make a freaking appoitment to go bowling. Worst 6 months of my life. I really couldn't wait to leave. I then moved to Maple Ridge, BC and totally fell in love living on the coast. I really miss my friends there.

I finally moved with my family to Edmonton where I've slowly started to fall in love with the place. Granted, I still hate the cold weather. I live on The South Side of Edmonton near Southgate Mall. It's a really nice area. I can catch 3 buses to get home which is always nice. We have a little mall called Petrolia Mall right beside our house but it has basically nothing anymore. I work at Save on Foods on Calgary Trail. It's a cool area. Lots and Lots of Shopping.

[kelli_blue]

I was born and raised in Michigan's upper peninsula (U.P. for short) and moved near Green Bay Wisconsin to the small town Shawano (Shaa-no) about 10 years ago to raise our children.

I will first and formost always be a *Yooper*.....I can't stand when people call me a *Cheesehead*!

[Hartless]

Born in Germany moved to Canada when I was about 2. Lived in Vancouver and later moved to Ottawa and have lived here since I was 4. I live pretty close to downtown it's a farily good location considering Ottawa has been getting bigger and bigger.

[beautiful frenchy]

suburb of Paris, france

[KBT]

I was born and raised just about 8-10 miles from downtown Nashville, a small town called Donelson. I LOVE Donelson and I have thought many times about never moving awy from Nashville, I just love it here.

Doneslon isnt a big city, but Doneslon has the largest airport in TN which is 3 miles from me. We are so close they installed strom windows or at least I think thats what they are called, so I never even notice the airplanes anymore. I don't know how many people have heard of the late theme park Opryland, but I grew up 2 miles from a huge theme park until I was 15 when Opryland was replaced with a huge ass mall, Opry Mills. I thought the mall was a bad idea, but now I am fine with it. A five star hotel Opryland which I think is well known is just 2 miles from my house. In the winter the hotel is a must see, lights are everywhere and the inside of the hotel is just gorgeous. The rooms are way too high, you mainly pay for the atmosphere because the rooms are not all that great IMO. Either the Ryman or Grand Ole Opry is right down the street and yet I have no idea which one, LOL. I dont like country music, I wear shoes, have never wore overalls, and I dont talk slow. I am a city boy, so its quite different than the country folks, trust me.

The reason I like Donelson so much is the fact everything is just a short drive away, all schools elementary-high school are all within 2 miles of each other and I live across the street from my elementary school. Down

town Nashville is just a short 10 minute drive, just far enough away to have a peaceful neighborhood.

All my family is here, about 80% of my family lives in or around Nashville and the other 20% live somewhere in Tennessee or North Carolina where my mom is from. Both sets of my grandparents live within 2 miles of my house, how unique is that? Although I am not close with any of the 4, but thats just a long sad story to be honest with you.

Nashville is supposedly suppose to become the next Atlanta or at least attempting to become a huge city in the next 5 years. There are plans that aren't finalized, but if it holds true Nashville will have the 3rd largest skyscraper, only shorter than the Empire State Building in NY and the Sears Tower in Chicago.