Saturday, December 16, 2006

urb-vana

Today we took our first day off since arriving in Middleofnowhere. We went to Cleveland and it was a blast. We visited Sue at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Afterward, we got to have lunch at a middle eastern restaurant a few blocks away in downtown Cleveland and it was marvelous - hummus, falafels, gyros. Yum. (Most of Middleofnowhere is pretty much "white bread" - in every sense of the phrase.) Outside the eatery, S and I saw a city bus. I miss city buses and so does S. This nostalgia made me realize just how much I miss cities. I grew up in a "small town" (60,000) but I love big cities. I hope the fates smile fondly on my preference.

Then, we got to drive 10 miles across town to go to the Trader Joe's! (Yeah! Our cupboard is happy now too.) It took forever because Cleveland has traffic. Ok, I admit that I haven't missed the traffic but I loved the drive across town - all the discrete neighborhoods (I love to explore these places), and the specialty shops (ok, restaurants), the old buildings/houses and factories (this was textbook material - I wish I had my camera out), and all the people (I could live in Cleveland; diversity is comforting).

Now that we're back I can't decide if the great memory of our outing is due to the fact that we finally took some time completely away from work (at least I did), or the fact that I got to see R for more than two consecutive hours, or because I was in urban nirvana. Oh, well. I don't care. I'm happy with one or all.

1 comment:

kungfuramone said...

I share your love of big cities. The food, the drinks, the anonymity...good stuff. Glad to hear that you took a day off.