Adjusting to downtown

While I don’t like commuting to and from downtown, I actually do like being downtown. However, a few things that I didn’t expect have bothered me a bit over the past week as I’ve walked around downtown.

First, it’s incredibly noisy. We live out in the sticks, and it’s very quiet in our back yard. I’m pretty shocked at the ambient noise level while just walking around downtown. All the cars, buses, people talking, huge HVAC systems, etc. generate a lot of noise. Add to that all the hard surfaces that are reflecting the sound and creating echos, and you’ve got one loud environment. My ears have adjusted, but I still notice it on occasion, especially when trying to make a phone call. I notice myself practically yelling into my phone, and saying “what?” a lot. Of course, by doing so, I’m adding to the ambient noise level.

Second, it’s dark. Ok, not dark like night, but darker than at our house. It bothered me a lot yesterday, because it was a very bright and sunny day. At least, it was at our house. The buildings are so huge and so close together that no sunlight seems to penetrate the city. We don’t have that out in the sticks. Our closest neighbors are a good fifty feet away, and certainly aren’t fifty stories tall. Sunlight was streaming in our windows at home yesterday shortly after 7am, and I’m sure it stayed that way for most of the day. It always looks like dawn or dusk to me downtown, and never like the daytime I've grown accustomed to at home.

Third, it’s cold. It’s been really cold in Pittsburgh lately, but I’d swear there is a 10 degree temperature difference between our front yard and the streets of downtown. The fact that there’s no sunlight makes a big difference, and I can practically feel the cold concrete and steel buildings sucking the heat out of me.

That sounded a bit like a rant, and I suppose it is, but I really do like downtown. I just have to adjust.