Moving to Cleveland: The Good The Bad, and The Ugly Winters
I moved to Cleveland three years ago, the summer before my freshman year of high school. Coming from Atlanta, I hadn’t really heard much about Cleveland or known anyone who had lived there. My expectations were low. On my first flight in I was pleasantly surprised to see large buildings and a beautiful lake and not farms covered with cows. The most positive thing about moving to Cleveland for me was being able to discover all the different fun places and activities that were going on all around. Although I haven’t seen it all, it has been a blast finding out about all of the things our city has to offer. However, no matter how amazing the place your moving to is, if anyone ever says the process of packing up your life, transporting it, and then unpacking it is pleasant, they are lying. Especially as a new high school student, having to figure out the new social customs and the hot trends in Cleveland was beyond stressful. Thankfully, I can now look back and smile about how much I love this city, my school, and the people I’ve met, but it wasn’t always easy. Of course, since I am writing about Cleveland as a whole, it is almost necessary for me to mention our “beautiful” weather. Coming from the South where two inches of snow would shut down a whole city, the winters here were quite brutal. My number one piece of advice is to remember vitamin D is your friend. If it is sunny out at all in the winter, no matter how cold, get out and find a way to soak it in. There is something quite unsettling about looking out the window and seeing a wall of the same greyish, white color from the ground to the sky. Even though the chilling temperatures and deep snow aren’t always convenient, because of them I have been able to try activities like cross country skiing and snow shoeing, things that I didn’t even know I ever wanted to try.
After moving to a new city, our family found it difficult to find simple things like delivery food (when our kitchen was all still in boxes) and where to get our nails done (Atlanta had stand alone nail salons on every corner, but in Cleveland they were either inside beauty salons or large franchises).
Here are some of my favorites that took us some time to discover but now are our favorite places:
Best for Family Grocery Shopping: Heinens
Nail Salon: Prive at Eton
Mall Shopping: Beachwood Place Mall
Delivery Food: Delivermefood
Best Pancakes: The Original Pancake House
Best Place for a Hike: North Chagrin Reservation
Best Ice Cream: Mitchell’s Ice Cream
Car Wash: Waterway
Author: EA Guest blogger, Madi Brady, the daughter of a KeyBank transplant who came through EA’s services in 2012 as a rising freshman in high school.
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