I have been visiting Washington, D.C. for nearly my entire life. Since I’m only an hour away, my family made the occasional trips to explore the nation’s capital. Though I live just an hour away, my hometown is a different world. It is full of farms and only has one stoplight. So when I was accepted at American University in the NW quadrant of D.C., I had my reservations about moving into the city full time. Living here has turned out to be one of the best choices I ever made.

As with all big cities, there is a large amount of public transportation, which I love. The metro is a grand and wonderful thing. I can be downtown from campus in less than forty minutes for the price of a few dollars. My lacrosse team can have bonding events all over the city thanks to the metro. I can easily go grocery shopping without a car. As a girl from a small town where a car was needed to go anywhere and everywhere, the metro fascinates me.

There is culture around every corner. Where I am from, about 90% of the population has some similarity in heritage. In D.C., people are from around the world. When I get into the back of my Uber and say hello to my driver, he might be a D.C. native, or she might be from Kenya. I never know. There are also countless restaurants that serve authentic cuisine from all around the world. There are streets of museums that hold ancient artifacts of every culture and also show the newest technologies.

D.C. is not one of the biggest cities in size or population, but it does have neat little areas. Tenleytown is full of fun little restaurants that agree with my college budget. Dupont hosts some of the most delicious places for brunch. Adams Morgan boasts multitudes of clubs. Downtown carries with it much of the culture, and of course the White House and monuments. The suburbs of D.C., accessible by metro, are full of shopping, such as Friendship Heights and Bethesda Row.

Living here, I feel like the world is at my fingertips. With everything being only a short metro ride away, I can be nearly anywhere and doing anything I want at a moment’s notice. I can eat cuisine from countless countries. I can attend events for all different cultures. And let’s not forget about the politics. As the nation’s capital, it is the hub for politics, policy and interest group organizations.

For a college student, D.C. offers opportunities found nowhere else. The big city definitely has its perks. Even though it’s so different from home, and has more stoplights in Ward Circle than there are in my entire town, D.C. has truly become a second home to me.