Your city/hometown

[bikerz]

I've bounced around a bunch - born in NYC, lived outsude DC until I was 3, then my parents, baby brother and I all moved to Kampala, Uganda for 5+ years (my parents were in the US Public Health Service). That was a wonderful place to grow up, and my two youngest sibs were born there. Thankfully my parents sent us to the public school, not the American embassy school, so we didn't have to live in a little American bubble! I remember Kampala and our travels all around East Africa very well. I was 8 when we were forced to leave because Idi Amin getting ready to expel Americans and Europeans, having already expelled the Asians, and there were tanks going up and down our street. That guy was an evil evil man, and did so much damage to a beautiful country and its people.

We lived in Rockville in suburban Maryland (which I didn't enjoy so much) and then I went to high school in Bath, Maine (another place I really loved), and finally landed out here at UC Santa Cruz for college. I moved to Oakland after college and I've been in the Bay Area ever since.

San Francisco gets all the press, but I really love living in the East Bay - especially Oakland. Oakland gets a bad rap, but it is a very tolerant and open city - and all the neighborhoods have such specific identities. And the weather is generally better than SF, and if you live in SF, you don't get to see the beaufiful views of SF! Plus there's great cycling - loads of good hills!

[allabouteva]

Wow, Bikerz what an exotic upbringing in Uganda! And I so hear ya in terms of being located in Oakland and SF getting all the glory.

My story runs along parallel lines...

Born and raised until my teenage years in Karachi Pakistan, to a migrant Chinese family, came to Sydney Australia when I was 15. I've lived all over Sydney, which is of course a very famous iconic sort of a place, almost a bit of a cliche.



Home to the 2000 Olympics



But I live in an outerlying town called Penrith, which due to urban sprawl is now considered as an outer suburb of Sydney.

Penrith is not a glamourous sort of place, but our claim to fame is:

1) We're at the bottom of the Blue Mountains where you can see the Three Sisters:



2) Home of the Penrith Panthers and the largest Football Club in Australia (rugby league version)



3) and has a beautiful river (Nepean River) running right through it.



It's a great place to live. Plenty of cycling opportunities both MTB and road. So come on down!!!

e

[uk elephant]

Time to get some more European cities on the map....

I grew up in Trondheim, Norway. Back in the middle ages it was the capital of Norway and the third largest catholic pilgrimage site in Europe. I grew up thinking I was living in a large city. I now realize it really is just a little village and I would love to move back. A great university town with easy access to the outdoors. And only a few miles from Hell where my dad was born....

Since leaving high school, I have lived in a variety of places: College in Madison (WI), fieldwork near Gaborone (Botswana), graduate school in Urbana (IL).

I am now living in Colchester (UK), which claims to be the oldest recorded town in England. It was established as the Roman capital of England before they moved on to London as the capital. It should be an interesting place to live, but really isn't. Far too busy, full of people, garbage and dust. Just too far away from London to have any exciting culture going on but close enough to be a commuter town. And it is in the flattest part of England. Proper mountains are many hours away. But I do live in an interesting house. Built in the early 16th century.