Omaha Favorites

Favorite thing: Omaha is not going to blow you away. In all accounts, it is an average city. It has restaurants, shops, parks, museums, etc. It is not a big tourist stop. Most people are here because of business or they have family in the area. For one or two days, it's not a bad place to go, but you'll start getting bored after that.

Fondest memory: The day I moved away from it. It'll always be home and I'm glad to be from there, but I'm also glad to move on to new adventures in my life.

Favorite thing: Omaha is a working class town with many restaurants. That's what most peole do here often: go eat at a good restaurant, of which there are many. Hence the plethura of fatasses in this state. There aren't too many THINGS to do here if you're visiting, but living here affords you a wide variety of places to eat & ACTIVITIES. I've lived up & down the East Coast & a few places in between, and I've NEVER seen a non-oceanside town with more sand Volleyball courts than Omaha. Lots of people, some true A league players, some people in their 60's playing for fun, play on the sand Vball leagues from April through early October. There's even DIGZ (former McCormack's), which boasts 3 really good indoor sand Vball courts with good, almost ashy sand at the right depth. Fall & Winter leagues can be expensive ($160-200 compared with $120 in Spring & Summer) but the point is you could play sand Volleyball year 'round if it's your passion, like it is mine.

Visitors are always pointed to the Old Market downtown, a former meeting point for local farmers to sell their crops, which has now turned into a Manhattan-ish part of Omaha, with pricey places to eat, drink & buy that crap you buy when you go places. Sure there are fine eateries, SPAs, art galleries, playhouses and a nice park to stroll in the Old Market, but you'll get your fill of all that in less than 1 day. The rest of the city is far less exciting. Businesses, restaurants, houses & fast food joints make up the majority of the town. People have fun by getting together with others, usually for the 'Huskers games, at which time you can a month's worth of grocery shopping at lightening speed. Every local is hunkered around some TV somewhere watching dem Cornhuskers, so the shops don't do much business & streets are easily traversed. It's weird if you haven't lived here for a few years.

Fondest memory: The variety of places artound town to play sand Volleyball. It's what keeps me living here, but then, I AM a Volleyball slut.

Favorite thing: Omaha is known in the mid-west as the "Mississippi of the North" because of the way whites in this town treat blacks. Whites are very fixated on race and they try to make sure that they segregate themselves so they never see a black person. In this town you will never see a white associating with a black. One city council member said that he could not name a park after a black because he is white and catholic. Omaha will always be a hotbed of racist people (people in Omaha, love Jesse Helms and George Wallace, because thats all this town like to ignore the fact its boarded-up and boring

Fondest memory: I have lived in this town 2 years and this town has nothing good. It is filled with closed-minded, obese, racist, xenophobics with ten kids who shop at Wal-Mart. If you visit Omaha, you will remember the racist and devisive culture these people are into.

Favorite thing: I am suprised that Kansas City, MO has gotten more reviews than Omaha, NE they are both around a million people anyway id visit Omaha because they alot of amenities that much, much bigger cities done have.

I know there is like 15 colleges and universities in the city of Omaha and about 5 more in the Lincoln area....and they are fairly big as well and cheap (somebody said its less than 3,000 dollars a year at the University of Nebraska and its less than 1,000 dollars a year for a junior colleges and this state heavily subsidizes everything including education)

Omaha also has a gigantic convention center(Council Bluffs and Lincoln also have convention centers) and they have many old sokol halls and like 4 arts performance halls

Omaha is a very nice city and I would highly recommend it....My current place of residence on the other hand Columbus, OH is a very nasty city that is decaying so visit Omaha instead of the other side of the midwest

Favorite thing: Well, I have written before about how I think that Omaha is overall a nice place, some excellent aspects (cost of living, wages, health care, education) and negative aspects (filthy blue-collar looking in some areas) but here is a nice neighborhood in Omaha from when I lived there....
South 24th street from grover(3500S) to Q(5100S)...
There are alot of ethnic business along this area of south 24th primarily mexican and vietnamesse....this area has about 50 thrift stores that have interesting stuff "they claim they have more cheap dollar and thrift stores on 24th street then anywhere in the midwest".
They food along this strip is very fattening, but on every corner there is a cute mexican resturant with every thing made from scratch, the buildings are very interesting as well (most of the residents live in small apartments (mainly mexican, some central americans and some vietnamesse) but this area stays up late at night and gives you sense of culture probubly stronger than any midwestern city except Chicago and Milwaukee...

They have a really big mexican supermarket (like as big as a super targer almost) at the corner of 24th street and L next to walgreens

There is a place also on 33rd and L near the slaughterhouses (which originally brought tons of czechs and poles to omaha, now mexican and people from the less prosperous asian countries are moving in)
where you can see a movie for 50 cents and these are like new releases

Oh, the chinesse buffet at 36th and L is terrible dont go there, its all chicken

Fondest memory: Well, I lived at 32nd and X is Omaha which is close to 24th street and I use to get something to eat, see a movie and go to the thrift stores and look around, kind of ghetto I guess but Omaha (for the most part) is not full of arrogant, snobbish people like the other midwestern cities on the other side of board (Pittsburgh, Columbus)

Favorite thing: if youre on a greyhound lay-over I would go down to the old market(1000-1300 block of jackson) they have some interesting places to eat, the greyhound station is at 1601 jackson which is the(500 block south) and at 16th and farnam(350 block south) there is a small grocrey store and at 16th and douglas(200 block south) there is a wal-greens and just 6 or 7 blocks south jackson on 13th there is a good czech resturant(bohemian cafe) thats excellent and cheap.

Id like too add a few things about Omaha:
-Omaha is a very good city for people who ride bikes, has trails from one end of the city too the other
-Omaha has a great, great cheap and affordable education system (state universities cost around 1000 dollars a year, and junior colles are around 500 dollars a year full-time) also in the newspaper I read Omaha has the best K-12 education system in the country (much better than denver public education that I went too)
-Omaha is the inbound telemarketing, collections and life insurance capital of north america so it has a very,very,very low unemploment rate and wages are higher than in much larger cities, just look at the omaha world herald
-cost of living: TWO bedroom goes for less than 50,000 dollars in a decent area

bad aspects:
-Filthy, smelly, unsanitary and unsafe southside of Omaha

Favorite thing: Omaha is very, very filthy for beginners.
Dont visit Omaha there is not much to visit but consider living in visiting Omaha to see if you want to live there heres why...
-Lowest unemployment rate in the nation
-Lowest college tuition in the nation, I have heard the average ratio is 10 to 1
-1st in college funding and K-12 Funding
-No rush hour
-Easy to get around, tons of resturants with good food and hy-vee (des moines based) grocrey chain) has the best deli and salad bar I have tasted.
-Quite progressive for a mid-western city (much more liberal than kansas city or indianapolis for example)
-No irritating accents
-Nice, clean wholesome people
-Best jogging and bike system in the country
-Hospitals on every corner it seems like
-Cheap cost of living (you can get a house for 40,000 dollars)
-Ethnic diversity compared to similar sized cities

Some bad things:
High Pollution for metro area with just under a million people
Crime isnt the lowest
Southside (sarthside as locals say it) stinks very, very bad because of the slaughterhouses

Favorite thing: Visit the Henry Doorly Zoo. The photo to the left is a white alligator (yes, it's real, it was moving.) You've probably heard about the zoo countless times, but it's for a good reason. This place is incredible. I cannot fathom how a city of this size can support a zoo like this. In 2002, the Desert Dome opened to the public. The Desert Dome is the world's largest glass geodesic dome, and contains an indoor desertscape, and when complete will have an underground level where nocturnal animals will live on a 12-hour rotated schedule for people to view while active. The aquarium is world class, with a walk through tunnel where sharks and rays swim above your head, and an incredible natural-habitat penguin display. The HDZ is also home to the world's largest indoor rainforest, the USA's second largest aviary, etc... Be sure to bring comfortable shoes, as you will walk around for hours.

Fondest memory: When I'm not in Omaha, I miss the people. Omaha has a very unusual culture, not something you would notice at first, but when visiting other Midwestern cities, there is just something less genuine about the way people interact.