Now before all you ‘real Philadelphians’ get all mad at me because I’m ‘not from Philadelphia’, please, take a breather. I know I’m not from center city. I know I don’t wake up to the skyline. You have to understand that most people outside the Philadelphia area have no idea what Montgomery County is let alone where it is located. So as far as my friends from the rest of the world know, I am from Philadelphia, I clarify when people ask more questions, don’t worry.

Now, with all of that over with, I being to you a list of things that I learned when I left the Philadelphia area to go to school in South-Western PA.

1. Water Ice is not a thing.

So the first week I was at school I was talking to a native New Yorker (Bronx) about Rita’s. Being me, I was calling it Water Ice. Needless to say this girl was all kinds of confused, the conversation went all over the place, from Slushies, to Shave Ice, to Custard. Let me tell you, it was a weird conversation. Now I didn’t know I was the weird one, mostly because the one next to me was from Pittsburgh, so she made me feel sane. Why does she know what water ice is, you ask? Her father was from Philly. A few months later I learned that I was weird one, and had a slight mental breakdown when I realized people didn’t know what water ice is.

2. Tomato Pie isn’t a thing either.

Yes, you are reading this right, apparently all of our food is a lie. Because when you try to explain a cold cheese-less pizza people get very confused.

3. Apparently we say things weird.

I have gotten called out for the ways I say water, forest, orange, strawberry, and a bunch of other words. Apparently I don’t know how to talk when I leave the Philly area.

4. We make up words a lot.

Jawn, ‘down the shore’, water ice (as I said before). Might I recommend checking out this list so you know what is common and what is uncommon when you leave our city; I wish I had been smart enough to check out one of these lists.

http://phillytalk.com/philly-slang

5. Our area is just that.

That header was probably clear as mud, but what I mean is that unless you are from the city or the area, no one knows the city. So naming the Squares, Reading Terminal, KOP, Dorney Park and the rest of the general South-Eastern PA/ Philadelphia area, people are probably clueless.

6. Everyone hates Philly...

I really don’t know why, but people to tend to dislike our city…

7. ...Unless they have been there.

…After my first year living in Pittsburgh I have heard endless sassy comments towards Philadelphia. Calling it names, people telling me that they are sorry for my location, the comments are endless. But then this past summer I had a friend spend her summer in Philly, she came back telling me how much she loved the city. So I learned that people only dislike Philly when they’ve never been there.

I could talk forever about the little parts that make Philadelphia so special, growing up at The Franklin Institute, stopping for food at Reading Terminal, walking through the terror of Eastern State. The city is a place of memories and history. And I gotta tell you, it’s hard to leave (maybe just because we live in a world all our own).