Reston

I came to Reston for a few days for a computer programming studio. I didn’t really get out on the town much. Still, I don’t see much reason to visit Reston for it’s own sake. Not that the place is a dive or anything, but I don’t see it as a tourist destination.

I’ve lived in the Reston Town Center for a little over a year now. Coming from Richmond, it took some time for me to warm up to it. There is lot here that you will not find in the rest of Fairfax County. For one, I RARELY drive. I think I fill up my gas tank once a month. My office is a ten minute walk, as is the grocery store. The movie theater (which is terrible need of renovation), clothing stores, and restuarants are even closer! There’s also a bus stop, so I don’t even need to drive into the district.

There are some downsides though. Everything here is expensive, so if you’re watching your wallet, you may want to find somewhere else. Housing is especially pricey and will probably get worse once the metro stop is finally completed. Plus, most of the people that hang out in the bars here are the douche bag frat dude types.

there’s not much here. it’s really more of just suburban sprawl.

This is such a fun city! It’s a smaller town but you can walk to most things in it or take a cab if you want. It’s hard to describe this place but it’s just a really cute little town.

bleh

I come here for work as one of our US offices is here. This place weirds me out. If you look out of our office window you can see trees for miles and then another little town like this sticking up above the canopy. It feels really lonely in this town like it has the sole surviving populus after a nuclear war.

Freaky.

Reston is a wonderful place. It’s rich in things to do, shopping, lush with trees, a well planned town, great schools, lots of employers, ethnically and economically diverse. I can’t say enough good things about it.

I lived here for most of the 1980s.

It was fun to have an apartment with a sliding glass door opening onto a balcony that faces onto woods. I used to look out it and watch birds, squirrels, and such. I would see them flitter and scurry about while I ate my breakfast – and sometimes lunches too.

In the 1980s, there was not much night life to speak of in Reston. Not nearly as many nice, upscale restaurants and bars there then as there are now.

I have worked in and near Reston a few times since I moved from there. It is a handy place to run over to if you need to pick up a book at a bookstore, grab a delicious meal, or go for a walk.

Lake Anne there is very beautiful. It is rung by a walkway which in turn is bordered by condominiums. If the weather is nice, you should go walking there and check it out. When I was super young my parents took me there one day and I got a balloon. When I worked in Reston, I used to get my hair cut there by Chanez, a hair dresser who used to live in Paris.

While my first impression of Reston was a good one, I became quickly tired of the identical condos and well-planned shopping plazas that make up 80% of the community. There is also a strangely high amount of gang activity for an area as well-off as this is. Not a bad place to stop for coffee (there are at least four Starbucks that I know of within Reston) but not the best place to live.

I like to refer to the entire Northern Virginia area as the Capital of Suburbia. There’s nothing to do except go to the mall. Everyone looks the same, dresses the same, drives the same, and decorates the same.