You can learn a lot of things about a city when doing research before you move. You can look at photos, read restaurant reviews, check out crime reports, look at rents, and find population statistics. There are innumerable cost of living calculators that tell you how far your current salary will go in a new city. But the one thing you can never find out without visiting a city multiple times is how it smells. And every place smells different at different times.
In the spring DC smells like flowers in just about any part of the city. Sweet, soft scents float on the warm wind and give the brain happy, happy thoughts. You can always tell when summer has finally arrived. Not by the calendar, not by the temperature, but by the change in smell: in the summer the city smells like sweat and warm tar; pavement and car exhaust and just a touch of bar-b-que (don’t ask me how, but it does; I wouldn’t want to be a vegetarian in a city that smells of roasting pork).
I went for a walk today and while the azaleas are already on the wane a couple of weeks early due to late cold and early heat, there are still plenty of flowers to be seen and appreciated. I was surprised by something at eye level and above that I think is a variety of honeysuckle but if it is the flowers are like nothing I’ve seen before in my life. No stems to pick and suck the juice from; just flat, white flowers on a vine. The scent, though, the scent was as sweet and surprising as that of a new lover.
Yes, it made me happy. It made today not a waste of time.