2 or 3 things I know about Pennsylvania

So I’ve been at this thing of being in Pennsylvania on a semi-permanent basis for a bit over a month, and there are a few things I’m learning about my soon-to-be-adopted state:

• The roads are in crazy good shape, but they are narrow and shoulderless, and this is going to be a problem for this road cyclist.
• Gas prices are about 20 cents a gallon cheaper than in New York (and yet more expensive than New Jersey), but a new gas tax is going to ruin that for me.
• It took me five minutes to set up my electric account. I set up my water account entirely online. Verizon took a single phone call. Everyone showed up when they said they would. I’m wildly confused by this experience.
• As a friend warned me, people talk to you in elevators. This is insanely unnerving to a New Yorker.
• To what I hope is the annoyance of Albanians who pine for such things, I’m a short drive from both an IKEA and a Wegman’s, and my internet is Verizon FIOS. I hope it makes it even more annoying that I really don’t care.
• Well, maybe I care about the IKEA more than I wanted to. My first week here, it was pretty much all I saw of the area. Much was assembled that week, I can tell you.
• People have NO IDEA how to drive in snow. Or even rain, apparently. I know that the 20 inches a year they get in this area isn’t the 60 inches we get in Albany (and nothing like the 120 inches we used to get in Syracuse), but still … it’s not like it doesn’t snow all the time. There’s a dusting on the ground and suddenly we’re DC? Seriously, Philly, we’re going to have to have a talk.