(no subject)
So it's a Friday morning and I find myself listening to NPR and drinking coffee, which has become my morning routine. The morning routine then sort of dissolves into nothing since I have no responsibilities at this time. I mostly just sit around and wait for information from the RITF program on whether or not they've found more jobs to which I can apply. I'm opening up more and more to outside jobs that I can just do for a year and then possibly leave.
I really adore Providence, but more and more it's becoming clear that it's just too small of a city for me and Justin. I fell in love with Providence and Rhode Island very quickly. There's a lot to love here an excellent, unique regional culture. Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design are the driving youth force in the area, so there are a ton of creative and eclectic businesses around. I live a comfortable walking distance to the ocean. As a Western Pennsylvanian who was previously separated from the ocean by the Allegheny Mountains and at least a 6.5 hour drive, this is a huge change for me. I love the proximity of the Narragansett Bay and I love that when there's a strong breeze, the scent of ocean air flows through my second floor apartment. I have a balcony in my apartment, too, which is something I've been dying to have again since I left my room in Rennes that had one. This place really reminds me of living in Brittany, actually.
I really enjoy my proximity to Boston and I've made frequent trips up there since it's a short drive and the Boston T has a commuter rail stop in Providence. I can hop on that, get off at South Station or Back Bay and use my charlie card to get anywhere in the city. New England has pretty solid public transit and as someone without a car, that's really important to me. The fact that I can walk 5-10 minutes from my house to the train station, hop on a train, and get off anywhere in Boston is really excellent.
Local tourism has been the main source of my entertainment since moving up here. I'm a total urbanophile and geography & architecture nerd, so I'm constantly reading about cities and buildings and how they relate to American history in terms of population growth, cultural influence, and industry. I find it all so fascinating and New England is particularly interesting for having been the first area in America to populate rapidly and serve as a cultural and industrial hub. I must say: New England urban decay is so much classier than Rust Belt decay, though. (Which is a little disappointing.) In the Rust Belt people really just abandoned very visible things leaving empty warehouses, housing developments, stores, mines to turn into oxidized steel frames in the middle of new forests. Here, everything is much older. When they say "industrial revolution" they aren't talking about coal and steel but about mills and textiles. At the same time, everything up here is much older and considered worth of historic preservation. So about half of the old mills on the Blackstone River are decaying wood and the rest of them are staffed by people dressed in faux colonial costumes giving tours of the death of local industry which they pass off as uplifting Americana.
Anyway, since moving here my interest in cities and architecture has taken me to Boston, MA; Hartford,CT; and Portland, ME. We went to Hartford to see the Connecticut State House because we saw it on the internet the night before and thought it was cool. Hartford was a very nice city to visit, but I would definitely not want to live there. They had an excellent art museum, but that's where the local creativity ended. It was very business focused and had almost no youth presence. You could likely blame that on both white flight and the lack of a major university in the city. Portland, ME was very different. It was extremely hip and young and was bleeding with creativity, arts, and local culture. There were parts that were a bit touristy, but it's so naturally gorgeous along the granite cliffs of the Atlantic that I can't blame tourists for wanting to go there. I highly recommend Portland to anyone. Next on my list are New Bedford and Fall River Massachusetts. New Bedford was an old whaling town from the days when America ran on whale oil and Fall River is where Lizzie Borden killed her parents! They're both very nearby and were at one point important American cities.
Hmm...I'm not clear on what the point of this entry was so I'll just end it here.
I really adore Providence, but more and more it's becoming clear that it's just too small of a city for me and Justin. I fell in love with Providence and Rhode Island very quickly. There's a lot to love here an excellent, unique regional culture. Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design are the driving youth force in the area, so there are a ton of creative and eclectic businesses around. I live a comfortable walking distance to the ocean. As a Western Pennsylvanian who was previously separated from the ocean by the Allegheny Mountains and at least a 6.5 hour drive, this is a huge change for me. I love the proximity of the Narragansett Bay and I love that when there's a strong breeze, the scent of ocean air flows through my second floor apartment. I have a balcony in my apartment, too, which is something I've been dying to have again since I left my room in Rennes that had one. This place really reminds me of living in Brittany, actually.
I really enjoy my proximity to Boston and I've made frequent trips up there since it's a short drive and the Boston T has a commuter rail stop in Providence. I can hop on that, get off at South Station or Back Bay and use my charlie card to get anywhere in the city. New England has pretty solid public transit and as someone without a car, that's really important to me. The fact that I can walk 5-10 minutes from my house to the train station, hop on a train, and get off anywhere in Boston is really excellent.
Local tourism has been the main source of my entertainment since moving up here. I'm a total urbanophile and geography & architecture nerd, so I'm constantly reading about cities and buildings and how they relate to American history in terms of population growth, cultural influence, and industry. I find it all so fascinating and New England is particularly interesting for having been the first area in America to populate rapidly and serve as a cultural and industrial hub. I must say: New England urban decay is so much classier than Rust Belt decay, though. (Which is a little disappointing.) In the Rust Belt people really just abandoned very visible things leaving empty warehouses, housing developments, stores, mines to turn into oxidized steel frames in the middle of new forests. Here, everything is much older. When they say "industrial revolution" they aren't talking about coal and steel but about mills and textiles. At the same time, everything up here is much older and considered worth of historic preservation. So about half of the old mills on the Blackstone River are decaying wood and the rest of them are staffed by people dressed in faux colonial costumes giving tours of the death of local industry which they pass off as uplifting Americana.
Anyway, since moving here my interest in cities and architecture has taken me to Boston, MA; Hartford,CT; and Portland, ME. We went to Hartford to see the Connecticut State House because we saw it on the internet the night before and thought it was cool. Hartford was a very nice city to visit, but I would definitely not want to live there. They had an excellent art museum, but that's where the local creativity ended. It was very business focused and had almost no youth presence. You could likely blame that on both white flight and the lack of a major university in the city. Portland, ME was very different. It was extremely hip and young and was bleeding with creativity, arts, and local culture. There were parts that were a bit touristy, but it's so naturally gorgeous along the granite cliffs of the Atlantic that I can't blame tourists for wanting to go there. I highly recommend Portland to anyone. Next on my list are New Bedford and Fall River Massachusetts. New Bedford was an old whaling town from the days when America ran on whale oil and Fall River is where Lizzie Borden killed her parents! They're both very nearby and were at one point important American cities.
Hmm...I'm not clear on what the point of this entry was so I'll just end it here.