Like a tumor

When I moved out to PA, I pretty much hated it. I was living out in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, the single whitest place I've ever lived, and I hated it. I hated the looks I got at the grocery store, the relative lack of any type of authentic ethnic cuisine or ingredients (beyond Italian), the cold, and the way people were so unfriendly. Oh, and have I mentioned the TERRIBLE DRIVERS? And the INABILITY TO MERGE? And the INVASION OF LANES?
But, it's where I was going to school, and I had to be there. And then I graduated, and could have gone back down South to NoVA - Northern Virginia - or DC and worked and lived where my foreignness blends in, where I could find authentic Ethiopian, Salvadoran, Pakistani, Greek, Peruvian, Indian, Afghan, etc. restaurants and/or grocery stores in a five mile radius; where the winters aren't so bad, and where our traffic sucks, but dammit, we can MERGE. (And STAY IN OUR OWN LANES!) But B. was here, and he still had to finish school, and so I came back. To Philly.
So now I'm in the city itself, way out in West Philadelphia (go ahead and sing it, because I know you want to) and I work in North Philly, and I'm starting to like it. Or if not like it, warm up to it. To be fair, I still prefer our Southern hospitality to the cool Northern way of interacting, and I still think Philly drivers are the worst, but, it's growing on me.
I don't want to think about winter, because that might have me cursing the geography again (not so much the city, just its location), but for right now, in this lovely illusion of fall, Philly is growing on me. It's filthy, the drivers suck, and the roads are a disaster, but there's something about it that I'm warming up to.
Maybe it's the fact that I can find little pieces of Puerto Rico here: the bars on porches to create a marquesina, the Puerto Rican bakery that sells quesitos, pan sobao, and pastelillos, the passion fruit popsicle that I got from a man who called it una paleta, because that's what it's called, thank you very much. Maybe it's the fact that I'm finally settling in.
I don't know.
I can't say that I love it like I love NoVA and DC, but I must admit it's growing on me. Even if folks can't drive.