Photograph by Jessica Wicks

Dinkytown

Pros

McDonald’s and Mesa Pizza guarantee 5-star people watching after 2 a.m.

The Library Bar has surprisingly good tacos, and always seems to close down with Build Me Up Buttercup

Dinkytown Liquors has reliably cheap booze/ laid back hippie staff

The lady who runs House of Hanson is the nicest and the cashier is usually in one of your classes

A night on the Kitty Cat Klub patio is like social mecca

Cheap drinks = people you know everywhere, acting skanky and embarrassing

Loring Pasta Bar’s lunch menu

Every show at The Varsity is one of the best nights you’ve had in awhile

Bookstores you could get lost in on mushrooms

Cons

Most of the bars are so full of frat bros and sorority girls that you absolutely can’t show up sober without ending up confused about your life

You will frequently hear people pre-gaming for sports games at 6 a.m.

Dinkytown landlord = slum landlord

There are zero grocery stores or gas stations

If you have a car, you will indeed get several parking tickets

Chances of running into your ex while stopping at Subway are high. Also your professor

The people who work at the post office are particularly mean

Spring Jam

Uptown

Pros

Liquor Lyle’s

There is an abundance of sophisticated patios on which you can eat edgy food

Independently-owned stores everywhere, like Majors & Quinn and Design Collective

You can actually park without getting a ticket

It is possible to meet someone of the opposite sex while out and about and know they’re not a frat boy, a friend’s ex or in your journalism class

Adult necessities like grocery stores, gas stations and places to buy your dog yuppy treats are easy to find

Lakes!

Affordable rent and landlords that do not try to sell a closet as a $500 bedroom

Cons

Somewhat hilly, making floods a bitch

For some reason you miss the cheap college bars, but not enough to go to Cowboy Slims

The Red Dragon’s infamous Wondrous Punch is now expensive and not the drunkwave it used to be

Farther territory to walk/bike in sub-zero temperatures

Feeling embarrassed for becoming such a yuppy Wedge shopper

–Becky Lang, you guessed it, moved from Dinkytown to Uptown this year