I moved to Florida from California back in 2015. I
had just recently graduated with my Master’s in Creative Writing. Rents were too high, the
job market was awful, and it was only getting worse as the entire state became
gentrified. I followed my then-fiancé to Florida, to live with her mother and step-father. We lived in St. Petersburg,
over on the west coast of Florida, until last summer, when we moved to the east
coast of Florida. I still haven’t been everywhere in the state (I really haven’t
been much further north than Orlando, but I’ve been down to the Florida Keys), but
I think five years has still given me a decent idea of what this state is all
about. The urge struck me earlier this morning to write about it. If you are thinking of coming to Florida, here’s
a little idea of what it’s like from the point of view of someone who has been
here for five years.
The Weather
I hate the weather here. My idea of
ideal weather is between 50-70 degrees Fahrenheit, cloudy, rainy or foggy. I
rarely get my way in Florida. Florida is a tropical peninsula. The weather here
is in its natural state most of the year: hot, humid, occasional afternoon
thunderstorms. But thanks to how flat the state is, it is susceptible to the influence of weather elsewhere,
either cold fronts from the north, or worse, hurricanes from the south. To be
fair the thunderstorms are pretty awesome, and are the only positive thing
about the summers. A temporary reprieve; of course. Better for it to be just humid than both hot and humid. Be warned Californians, as
you’ve probably never experienced a humid storm. I always associated rain
with cold weather before leaving California. I didn’t realize it could be rainy
and still hot. Cold storms are rare here. Anyway, during the winter, Florida
itself is never cold on its own, but if it’s cold up north and the winds blow
that cold air south, it can get cold here. If you’re lucky. The coldness that
does happen here isn’t native, basically. Here’s the seasons of Florida as I’ve
come to understand them.
The Alleged “Winter” – November-February
The
weather during these months is basically a roulette wheel. It can be hot, or it
can be cold, or it can be in-between. Sometimes it rains, but not as often as
in summer. At least it cools down at night. Like I said earlier, Florida’s natural weather is hot and humid, and
if it isn’t influenced by coldness from up north, that’s how it will be, even
if it’s late December. But at least it can get cold. Since moving to Brevard County on the East coast I’ve noticed the winters get just a little bit colder here than back in the Tampa Bay Area. Which is good for me. Florida cold snaps tend to last two or three days; it might randomly get cold one night, usually after a storm rolls in from the north, resulting in one day in the 50s Fahrenheit. Then it will gradually warm up a little each day until it’s back to the 70s, or 80s if we’re unlucky. January is the
coldest month, you can usually rely on it at least being somewhat chilly every day. But don’t ever take it for granted. As for the rest of the “winter” months, don’t get your hopes up. And as for
snow, HA! Yeah, not happening.
Spring – March and April
Be prepared
for the Great Pollening. Your car will be caked in pollen during these months.
I’m luckily not allergic to Florida’s pollen, but if you are, it sucks to be
you. The weather can still be a little bit of a roulette wheel, you might get a
random cold front if it’s cold enough up north, but by this point it’s generally going to be settling on hot
and dry.
“Welcome to Hell” – May
This in
my opinion is the worst time of the year. It isn’t rainy season yet, but the
blistering summer heat has arrived. It hurts just to be outside. It’s as close
as Earth’s climate gets to that of planet Venus. It can get this bad in the
ensuing summer months, but the one thing that Florida summers have going for
them is the rain. Even if the rain doesn’t stop the humidity, it will bring the
temperatures down a little. That doesn’t happen much in May. Unless the rainy
season decides to start early.
Ah, the Sunshine Sta-...wait what's happening?
Rainy Season (aka Summer) – June-September
It’s hot
and humid, you’ll need to shower at least twice a day if you plan on setting foot
outdoors, but hey, at least the daily afternoon thunderstorms are pretty cool. Not
literally cool, but fun to look at through the window, in the
climate-controlled comfort of your own home. You’re going to get cabin fever
often this time of the year. At night it’s maybe only a couple degrees cooler than it was during the day. You’ll be sweating even at night. Ah, but there’s a sub-season during these months.
Hurricane season, August through October. Where you get to live in constant fear
of being washed away in an apocalyptic superstorm. Or be strangely disappointed
after you’ve stocked up on food, shuttered your windows, and made all the
preparations, only for the storm to make a sudden turn away from you and out into the ocean. Or you find out the media was greatly exaggerating the storm for
ratings and the storm is little worse than the daily thunderstorms. Which is
what usually happens, more often than not. But you can’t afford to let it
become one of those “Boy who Cried Wolf” situations, because what if it is
an actual big hurricane? They do hit Florida every few years, after all. You’re
at the mercy of The Weather Channel and their quest for ratings.
Fall but Still Hot – October-November
The rain happens less often, and the temperature begins to drop at night instead of remaining almost exactly as hot as the day. The
weather during this time can sometimes get as bad as that in May, because the
rain is mostly gone but the high temperatures are not. But it gradually gets
cooler, particularly at night, as we transition into the Alleged “Winter” again. I should add that
throughout the year you won’t see many changes in the landscape. You could look
out the window and not know if it’s July or December if you had no idea what
month it was. Instead of the leaves changing color, you’ll see the license
plates on cars change color as the snow birds from the northern US and Canada
begin to flee to Florida to get away from actual winter (more on them later).
The Land
So flat...
There’s the beaches, which Florida
is famous for, and there’s the endless mosquito-infested swampland that takes
up the majority of the state. Or at least did before the Europeans got here and
destroyed the environment. I’ve found that the beaches on the west coast of
Florida are a bit more mucky and gross in general, because the Gulf of Mexico
is basically stagnant. The beaches on the east coast are nicer, but can be
crowded. Coming from Califonia, my ideal beach is cold, windy, with sand dunes
and cliffs, and refreshing sea air. You’ll see none of that here. Another thing
about Florida is that it’s completely flat. I miss mountains and hills. If you
happen to see a hill in Florida, it’s probably a garbage hill; a landfill that
was buried in soil and made to look like a hill. That’s a thing here.
There's probably an alligator beneath those lily pads.
Despite miles of forests and swamps being destroyed
to make way for shopping centers and condos, there’s still a lot of wildlife
trying to make some kind of an existence in suburbia. Animals that in
California I would only expect to see at a zoo roam the streets freely. Big
cranes and storks, turtles, occasional alligators. Florida is like the
Australia of America. Then there are the less pleasant creatures, mosquitos and
cockroaches. I’ve had an admittedly illogical but deep-rooted phobia of
cockroaches since I was a child. Living here has done that phobia no favors.
The roaches are everywhere. It’s not even really an indicator of how sanitary a
building is, they’ll get in eventually no matter how clean the building is. And they’re huge. And disgusting. I
really don’t get why the Europeans were so desperate to colonize this place.
The People and Culture
Ah yes, there will be a little bit
of culture shock if you move here from California. It’s almost like being in
another country. Florida is a mixture of many different cultures, subcultures,
nationalities and races. But it’s still the South. If you live in the city you can
almost forget you’re in the South until some enormous pickup truck tailgates
you on the highway covered in Trump bumper stickers and flying both an American
and Confederate flag, forgetting that there was a war fought about this once
upon a time and the two flags kind of contradict one another. But I digress. It
also depends on where in Florida you are. It gets progressively more white,
redneck and conservative the further you get from the big cities. This is where
the mythical figure Florida Man lives, who we’ve all read about in the news. Away
from the cities you also have the proud Florida Crackers (the term “cracker”
predates any racial connotations it’s developed since the 1960’s), the old
cattle ranching families who also run the farms and orchards, as kind of a
sub-culture. There are also Cubans further south.
And yes, the stereotypes are true,
at least in part. There are lots of old people in Florida. See for about half the year, the roads will be
more congested as the “snow birds” arrive. These are generally wealthy, middle-aged
or elderly people from the northern states or Canada, fleeing the snowy winters
of their home. If they hate winter that much, they should probably live
somewhere else permanently and save money, but whatever floats their boats, I
guess. Some of them eventually decide to stay here year-round, and become part
of the elderly retirees that make up so much of the population. And these
non-natives are usually terrible at navigating the roads here. Which admittedly
are confusing (why, oh why do some of the roads have two names?!).
My Sub-Cultures
Florida is such a cultural hodge-podge
that I’ve even been able to find members of my personal subcultures here too.
For instance, there is a Goth community, which is centralized in Ybor City, an
area of Tampa with the famous Gothic night club The Castle, and also in Orlando.
When I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area I felt like the only Goth in
the world sometimes, so it was really a pleasant surprise when I discovered The
Castle not too far from where I was living, and they played music I actually
like on the dancefloor. Not to mention, a lot of my favorite goth bands often
go to Florida to perform, while most of them skip California, or only go to Los
Angeles or rarely San Francisco. It’s interesting to find so many Goths in a
place like Florida, where most of the year trying to dress like a Goth is pure
torture due to the heat and humidity. I’m not exactly sure how it happened. Granted, it’s only around Tampa Bay, with some limited goth presence in Orlando, and maybe Miami.
Also present are Armenians, in small
numbers. There’s actually an Armenian church in Largo, near St. Petersburg, and
another community in Boca Raton which I have yet to visit. For half of 2015 I
was actually in Armenia, so when I returned to Florida and tried to mingle with
some Armenians, they struck me as very Americanized. They’re generally snow
birds from the Armenian communities in Boston, Detroit or Chicago that decided
to stay here, from families that have been in America for several generations
now. In short, it’s not much compared to the diaspora communities in
California. And I rarely get to have any good Armenian food. There was a really
nice Armenian restaurant and deli in Orlando, but as soon as I finally moved
closer to Orlando and could go more often, they relocated to Miami. Sigh. Where I’m living now though, in Brevard County, I feel like the only Armenian on Earth sometimes. Not even a big Middle Eastern or Greek community with restaurants and delis that are sort of like Armenian food around here.
Floridian Views on California
“Oh, you’re from California? What part?”
they ask.
“Near San Francisco,” I reply,
knowing that they’ll have never heard of Martinez, Concord, Monterey or Fresno.
“I visited my cousin in San Diego
once, is that near where you lived?”
Basically, Floridians who haven’t
been to Califonia don’t know much about it, and think of it like Los Angeles/San
Diego is how the entire state is, or think San Francisco and Los Angeles are like an hour’s drive apart, not realizing how big the state is or that
Southern California has a radically different climate and culture from Northern
Califonia, and both are different from Central Califonia. It’s really quite
amusing. Before I came to Florida I suppose I didn’t realize how far apart and
different from one another Tampa, Orlando and Miami were. (Also, this conversation
was even more fun when I was in Armenia).
The Food
Believe it or not there are foods
here that I had never even heard of when I lived in California. Like boiled
peanuts. Then you have Southern foods that are hard to come by in California
like gumbo, grits, collard greens, cornbread. You have restaurants that
specialize in Southern cuisine like Cracker Barrel, which simply couldn’t catch
on in California because everyone hates the South there (just as California is
hated in the South). Also available are Cuban and Jamaican cuisine, which I
never had in California. Jamaican curry is amazing! Cuban sandwiches are nice
too. There are plenty of good local restaurants to choose from of basically any
type of cuisine, at least in the cities. One thing I miss from California that
is one of my favorite foods is clam chowder. I’ve never been able to find a really
good clam chowder in Florida. You’re also not going to find as much Mexican food,
due to the lack of a significant Mexican diaspora in Florida compared to California.
But besides what I’ve talked about, the food isn’t too different here.
You can still find most of the same foods as in California. But there are
slight differences.
Stuff to Do
When I lived in the Tampa Bay Area,
I finally realized how boring Contra Costa County had been in California. Now
obviously you have the theme parks in Orlando, of which I most prefer Universal
Studios. But, they’re expensive, and all the way in Orlando. The theme parks are just the tip of the iceberg. In the Tampa Bay Area you have a zoo, an
aquarium, the beaches, a few parks, some museums, and the nightclubs of Ybor
City. As I mentioned a lot of great bands tour in Orlando and Tampa. Another
discovery for me living in that area was the kratom/kava community. This is mostly
something unique to Pinellas County in the St. Petersburg area, but it is
catching on elsewhere: bars where no alcohol is served but instead botanical
teas made with kava or kratom. These often have an artsy vibe, in contrast to
the typical sports bar filled with bloated, burping rednecks watching football.
Kratom is particularly nice, an herb in the coffee family which can work as a
pain relief and anti-depressant, boosts your mood and gives you mild euphoria,
and is at least for the moment legal. It’s helped people wean themselves off
stronger drugs, and alcohol. Since drinking it I very rarely have an urge for a
beer. Kava is similar, although I feel that all it really does for me is make
my tongue numb and maybe improve my mood a slight bit. The type of people who
frequent these bars are mainly young artistic types like myself. They might
have karaoke nights or poetry nights. A few are open 24 hours if you’re
suffering insomnia and need a place to hang out. I’d go to these bars with my
wife and just draw, write, or socialize.
However, now I live over in Brevard County
on the east coast. The pluses is that it’s quieter and there’s not as much
traffic. But there’s less to do here. There’s a zoo in Melbourne, Nd the bars and restaurants of Cocoa Beach. Cocoa Village has a charming downtown, One thing both Tampa and Cocoa Village have
are historic theaters that occasionally show silent films, which is something I
never saw in California. Or, you can drive to Orlando if you really want
something to do. Besides that, it’s sadly kind of boring on this side of
Florida. But I haven’t lived here long, maybe I’m missing something. But living
around Tampa Bay got mentally exhausting after a while. There’s a nice side to
living someplace quieter and less heavily populated too. Another added bonus is I regularly get to watch rockets launch from Cape Canaveral from my backyard. Something I never got to see anywhere else. They’re always the coolest looking at night.
Besides these areas you have Miami,
the Florida Keys, the historic city of St. Augustine, and plenty of other
little tourist traps. I’ve been to Miami and the Keys briefly. Miami kind of
makes me think of the Los Angeles of Florida, with its traffic and crazy
drivers. The Keys are a nice place to vacation. Everything is very tropical and
you feel like you’re in the Caribbean. As I said I really haven’t seen
everything in Florida yet.
One thing I should probably mention
again though is that you really don’t want to be outside for maybe two-thirds
of the year because the weather is so unbearable. So that will always cut down
on any fun things you want to do.
Conclusion
The sky is probably the prettiest part of Florida.
Florida isn’t a horrible place to
live, but in the five years I’ve lived here I never really felt like I belonged
here. I don’t feel like a Floridian. I’ve had that feeling of home in California
and Armenia, but never here. I don’t like too much sunlight, heat, humidity,
and I miss the cold, and mountains. I don’t feel like a part of the culture
here (with the exception of the Goth community). But I’ve always been a bit of
a misfit no matter where I’ve lived. It’s cheaper than California, but it’s
certainly not for everyone. There are pros and cons to Florida, like everywhere else. I still don't think I'll be here forever. But as I've said, there are plenty of positive aspects to Florida as well. Can't beat those sunsets I have to admit.
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