So I live in Orange County now. I didn't fully realize, before coming to Irvine, that Irvine is not only located in Orange County, but is often considered the heart of Orange. It hasn't been entirely unenjoyable.
Aside from the obvious benefits of the Irvine Company's largesse (read: free tuition,) Irvine's planned nature has turned out to be kind of nice. There are two strip malls right next to campus, with a brewery, Trader Joe's, Albertson's if you're nasty, and an In N' Out.
I live in graduate student housing, which is massively subsidized, so I'm paying 500 a month for my own room. I shared a room this size with 2 other people for 300 a month at UCSB.
The grad student housing community is spacious and liberally sprinkled with bunnies. I don't know where they came from, but I would still categorize them as cute, with great potential to become annoying.
