Philadelphia

Before starting my trip, I picked Philadelphia as one of the cities that I would spend time in with an eye towards moving there.  Unlike the other cities on my list, I'd been to Philly before.  Twice in fact, once for a long weekend downtown and once for a weekend split between downtown and the northern suburbs.  So on this stop I felt less pressure to see everything because I already knew I basically liked the city.

Downtown Philadelphia

I'll cut to the chase and say that, I still liked Philadelphia, and if life forced me to live there, I could do so and I think it would be fine.  But it didn't call to me the way some other places have/do.  Here's the rundown:

Like with Des Moines, I had a vague plan about how I'd see the city.  I started at the main branch of the public library to read local papers and browse housing and job ads.  I avoided touristy stuff, or any place I wouldn't attend on a more than infrequent basis (like the symphony, the art museum, etc.)  (Besides, I've seen those already.)  I spent several hours wandering around downtown (where I'd most likely want to live) and driving around more distant residential neighborhoods.

On this visit, I split my nights between the New Jersey suburbs, where I stayed with a friend's family, and downtown, where I stayed at a hotel.  The suburbs were nicer than I expected (I didn't expect anything terrible, just less interesting than what I actually got) and they gave me a chance to ride some of Philly's public transportation.  I took some sort of suburban light rail, then a Camden subway into the city.  Neither is connected to Philly's main subway system (that I could tell, at least) so Philly has some integration to do to make commutes faster and easier.  (Philly is not the only city that needs to better blend its various public transportation systems, so I'm not specifically knocking Philly.  *cough* DC *cough*)

Philly's newest building (I think).

I already knew Philly had good food -- one of the reasons I liked it -- but I tried a few more places in various parts of town and liked them all.  Sushi, pizza, a dingy bar that offered reasonably priced beer, and some healthy-leaning cafe.  Oh, and I had my first cheesesteak sandwich.  I still don't know what cheese is supposed to be on cheesesteaks (I've been told different things) but I discovered I like mine with Cheese Wiz.  If this is the wrong preference, you can let me have it in the comments section.  :P

So what else did I like about Philly?  It has character.  Like the interesting architecture, and the city's love of Ben Franklin and William Penn.  I think most people who live there grew up there.  And drivers who yell "stoopit!" when cars pause in front of them for too long.  (To me, that would be charming while I felt like a visitor, then would feel ugly once I felt like Philadelphia was my home.)  Philly is old and has a lot of history, and there is a lot of culture.  Art, live music of all varieties, dance, museums.  There are colleges.  There are sports teams, which are of minor importance to me, but I count them as a plus.  (Although from what I gather, Philly sports fans have a very bad reputation.)  Living downtown would probably be really cool, and there are several neighborhoods to choose from.  Philly's not as stuck-up or pretentious as some cities, which are vibes that annoy me about some other places I've been.

A fantastic mural on a building in downtown Philly.

What didn't I like?  Living anywhere other than downtown would stink.  Either because the home would be in the inner ring, which is affordable but is pretty much one giant hood that completely circles downtown (I drove through a random selection of neighborhoods, and indeed the entire ring around the city center was run down and shabby).  Or I'd be way out in a suburb, and that would slowly kill me from the commute to work (assuming my job would be downtown, of course, but it probably would) and possibly from frustration with not being able to walk anywhere.  Philly is cheaper than DC, but not that much cheaper, especially for the nice parts of town.  And it's neither as big or as crowded/traffic'd as DC, but it's still a big city with too many people in it.  So if I'm going to deal with big city crowds and expense anyway, I might as well stick to a city that already has my friends in it, right?

I would gladly visit Philadelphia again.  All of the museums and bars and cultural events make it a fun place to be for a few days.  And like I said, if live took me there for some reason, I think I would fit in OK.  But when the time comes for me to choose where to look for a job and a place to live, I doubt Philly will be on my short list.  Sorry Philly!  I still like you, I just don't like you like you.

A colonial-era cemetery.  Its gravestones are not like those in the  northern cemeteries from the same era.

More New England

Does New York outside of New York City count as New England?  Well, for purposes of my blog post it will.

So... after Nantucket, I spent a couple of nights visiting my godparents Grace and Jerry in Duxbury, Massachusetts.  It's about 10 miles north of Plymouth and is one of the oldest towns in the country.  Much to my delight, it is home to one of the oldest cemeteries in the country, too.  The oldest maintained cemetery at that, meaning no one ever let it fall to ruin before fixing it back up.

Its most famous member (is that the right word?  body?  /scratches head) is Miles Standish.  I'm embarrassed to admit that while I knew the name, I didn't know who that was, so for the equally ignorant, he was the military leader of the Plymouth Colony.  He wasn't very nice to the indians, apparently.  :(  Then again, who was back then?

Much of my time in Duxbury was spent just hanging out with Grace and Jerry.  Eating at local places, strolling around their beautiful garden, etc.  My first time in their house was about 30 years ago when my family drove there for a visit.  I really liked that it was very much as I remembered it.  They have updated furniture and stuff, but it smelled the same and had the same warm and suburban feel.  Very cozy.

After leaving Duxbury, I drove to Connecticut, which is the only U.S. state I've been to on this trip that I hadn't spent any time in before (unless you count a 3 hour visit to a technology center for a work project, which I don't).  So I was determined to spend some substantive time in the state.

Turns out, Connecticut isn't one of those states that is chock-full of things to do (for example, this top-10 list of things to do includes 3 places to eat and 2 casinos).  I did make a few stops and formed some impressions, though.

First, Connecticut is a really pretty state.  There are probably crappy parts, but every place I drove through had beautiful homes and lots of trees.  I stopped in Mystic (of Mystic Pizza movie fame) and it was very nice.  And yes, I stopped for a piece of pizza and it was good.  And the restaurant wasn't overrun with people as I feared it might be.

Downtown Mystic

 A pretty (and pretty typical) house in Mystic.

Second, Connecticut has at least a few things (besides casinos) worth stopping to see.  I visited the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.  I'd hoped to take a tour, like I did of the U.S. Naval Academy a few years earlier, but it's a small place and doesn't offer tours every day.  The guard desk does have pamphlets for self-guided walking tours, so I did that instead.  School hadn't started yet, so the campus was pretty empty, but I did see some of the newest students jogging across campus while being yelled at by older students.  It looked like of like sorority rush.

Inside the old astronomy observatory, which is now abandoned and spooky (and unlocked).

I also stopped at this really interesting home, the Gillette Castle, which was the private home of American Actor William Gillette (late 19th/early 20th century era).  He designed it himself, and it's heavy on wood and stone.  Lots of built-in storage and some secret passageways so he could avoid unwanted guests.  I've probably written this before, but the United States is short on ancient ruins, so I tend to gravitate towards unusual or famous architecture instead.  I like to imagine living in unusual places, and this castle would have been really cool.

The Gillette Castle

Inside the Castle.

One of many cool light fixtures.

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My final stop in New England -- well, New York -- was a night in Poughkeepsie.  I didn't have as long there as I'd have liked because I had places to be!  But it looked like it could be a nice town to live in.  Not too big, lots of old and interesting homes, greenery, etc.  The reality of it could be totally different, of course, since I really didn't get out much.  I did get to a town just north of Poughkeepsie, though, to Hyde Park, to see FDR's home and presidential library.

FDR's home.

FDR grew up there (apparently under the thumb of a very domineering mother) and lived his adult life there as well (still with his mother, even after getting married).  The house itself is still as it was when FDR lived there, and the presidential library and museum have been built on the grounds.  To be honest, I wasn't really longing to go see the place, but I figured I probably wouldn't be in Hyde Park again, and I'd feel lame passing up an opportunity to see it just because I wanted to be lazy.

On the grounds of FDR's home.

A little bit that is true with a lot of things on this North American trip of mine.  Unlike, say... the Pyramids or an African safari or Angkor Wat, there are not that many things in the U.S. and Canada that I really want to see.  It's been more like, if I am nearby, I will stop and see things.  And most things turn out to be either interesting or educational or both, and I'm certainly not sorry I stopped and saw them.  But it's definitely a different feel to my sightseeing than when I was abroad.

Coming soon:  My review of Philadelphia, where I spent five nights.  Would I want to live there?  Find out in the next installment!

Ugh

What the hell is wrong with me?  I'm two weeks behind, and still have to write about New England, Philadelphia, and a few days in Washington, D.C.

/acknowledges laziness

Nantucket

And thus these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from their anthill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like so many Alexanders.

--Herman Melville

I friend I made while working at the CFTC, Rich (he worked and still works elsewhere), lives full time on Nantucket, an island off the south coast of Cape Cod.  I'd never been there, so I let him know I was coming.  I flew there on a 9-seat airplane (a bit scary!) and took a ferry back to the mainland at the end of the day.  He and his family spent the day hosting me, showing me around the island and treating to me to a few nice places to eat, including one of the best restaurants I've ever been to (more on that later).

Rich's wife a bit wryly noted that many people think Nantucket is sort of "too cute" and I understood what she meant.  All the building are made of those wooden shingles, so everything is matchy-matchy.  But I appreciate that everyone makes the effort at architectural uniformity.  I hate that in new housing developments, but that's because those are completely devoid of personality or any real reason for looking exactly the same.  On Nantucket, it's historically consistent and there are enough individual variations that the homes are not exactly the same.  Not to mention, it sounds like those wooden shingles can withstand the really harsh weather in a way many other building materials can't.

Too cute, or just cute enough?

Much of the day was spent putzing around, chatting, strolling, etc.  Another friend of Rich's (and mine, really) were also visiting Nantucket for a few days, so they were with us for much of the time.  We visited the museum on the island (er... the Whaling Museum?  The Nantucket Museum?  That's what I get for waiting over two weeks to write about it!) and it was pretty neat.  It felt like a continuation of what I'd started learning around other parts of New England and the Canadian Atlantic Provinces.  I mean, I hadn't learned about whaling before, but I'd learned about the general history of the area and boats, etc.  And I like it when the "themes" of places flow from one place to the next.

The place we went to for dinner was really great.  It's what anyone would call "fine dining," but it's on the beach.  And I mean, the tables are literally in the sand (except for a few on the deck) and it's normal for people to dine or to serve in their bare feet.

The grown-ups.

Maybe the neatest part of the place is, being right on the water and the beach, is that kids can go play while their parents eat.  Well, not just kids... anyone, really, but a lot of adults outgrow the desire to be buried up to their necks, so the kids probably appreciate the sand more than the grown-ups.

Here was the view from a few feet away from our table.  I couldn't catch the sun touching the horizon because of the clouds, but I like this photo anyway.  It's not every day that the sun gives off a "cool" glow (as in, color palette) like it does here.

So that was my day in Nantucket.  Not a whole lot was done, but it was really relaxing and I had a really nice time building my friendship with Rich and Nolan and getting to know their families too.

Back through New Brunswick

This post is chronologically out of order.  After leaving Nova Scotia to meet Nicky in Maine, I had to return to the States via New Brunswick (around July 29).  Until last year, a ferry went directly between the northwest of Nova Scotia and Portland, Maine, which would have been super convenient for me.  But it stopped operating due to lack of use.  It turned out to be OK, though, as I really liked New Brunswick.

I stopped for the afternoon in the city of Saint John, which is on the coast of the bay.  I would have liked to stay there longer, as it looked like a pretty cool old town with some character, but I had a date in the States the next day so I couldn't dawdle.  So I limited myself to visiting Saint John's Jewish Historical Museum, which also houses St. John's only (I believe) synagogue.

The Hebrew School

Apparently, Saint John used to have a jewish population of about 1,500 people, but it's dwindled to about 85, mostly because the young people go off to college and don't come home.  But people at the museum told me that 11 families from Israel were about to emigrate to Canada and settle in St. John, so that ought to help boost the population a bit (until their kids go off to college...).

The museum itself was small; mostly I went because I didn't realize there were any jews in the area (not that I gave it much thought before) and I wanted to learn more.  And it turned out the museum and synagogue were in a really cool old mansion.  The building was larger than most of the homes I saw in Saint John, but it gives you an idea of what the older parts of town looked like.  Mildly ornate, and lots of character.

After St. John's I headed towards the U.S. border and stopped to camp for the night.  I did not know it was the start of the three-day weekend celebrating New Brunswick Day, but apparently the entire province was out camping that weekend because I got the very last spot at a 150-site campground.  It turned out to be a lot of fun for a few reasons.  First, I met a couple a few sites down from mine that were from St. John, and they were really nice and fun to talk to and invited me to join them for conversation and coffee a couple of times.  They had a RV, too, which was nice to sit in in a cool and rainy morning (better than my tent, that's for sure!).  I'd never been in an RV before; it was pretty nice, and theirs was not particularly new or particularly fancy.

I also went to my first game of bingo (which was really maybe 18 variations on the game, all in a row), and won $20.  Yay me!

Beginners get one grid; the pros like the girl next to me get six.

Lots of people at campgrounds will rent a spot for the entire summer, and set up semi-permanent structures like decks outside their campers, and decorate their areas with lights and classy lawn ornaments.  Like:

Not the property of my new friends from Saint John.

If you're wondering how much RVs cost, this website has some basic information.  Apparently, a lot of people buy RVs like they buy houses.  They start off small, then trade up as their income rises, and no one pays for it all at once, but they usually get 30-year loans.

Lots of rules in Philadelphia

Still permitted:  Urinating, fornicating, gambling, intravenous drug use, and loitering.

More shitty parking

This time from Portland, Maine.  I consider this a more egregious parking job because unlike the bad parkers on PEI, this car will actually interfere with people driving on the street and parking in front and behind:

Two thumbs way down!  (The other thumb is attached to the person holding the camera.)

Notice how far Nicky has to stretch between the car and the curb.

Nova Scotia: Halifax

After Cape Breton, I spent two nights and a full day in Halifax.  The city was a little bigger than I might have liked, but maybe it just seemed that way because so many of the streets were too narrow for the amount of traffic on them.  Overall, I liked the city.  There seemed to be a lot to do and lots of different places to live, once you include the suburbs.

The Historic Properties

An old church.  The first Anglican cathedral in the Americas. 

The Queen's Pew

I spent the early part of the day just walking around town.  Some of it is quite old, and is even referred to as the "Historic Properties."  Some of those are buildings that have been preserved from a couple hundred years ago, and are now modern offices or shops, but retain their old character at least on the outside.

Other parts of downtown Halifax are just old without being specifically dedicated as such.  It's pretty hilly there, a big like San Francisco, and of course it's on the water like that town.

A highlight for me was the Old Burying Ground, with gravestones dating to the mid-1700s.  If you read the previous entry about the cemetery in Portland, Maine, you'll know what I'm talking about when I say the two locales are very similar.  The dates, the shape of the gravestones, the art carved on the stones, the kind of stone used, etc.  The Old Burying Ground was the first of the old cemeteries that I got to see, so I was extra excited about that one.  (Huh, I just learned from spellcheck that there is no "a" in cemetery.  And that spellcheck flags the word "spellcheck" as being misspelled.)

Carving commonly found on mid-18th century east coast headstones.

A very unusual copper plate in the middle of the headstone. 

In later years, copper covers and backs were added to many stones that were deteriorating in the weather and pollution.

One of the city's biggest draws is the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.  It's most noteworthy collections are a couple of old boats you can tour, some remnants of the Titanic, and lots of treasures recovered from shipwrecks.  I don't know if the museum houses the largest collection of shipwrecked items in the world, but the collection is big.

Not part of the museum -- it just happened to be sailing past.

Is that real?!?!

The museum's special exhibit this year is about gays and lesbians in the navy and on other sea-going vessels.  Most of the exhibit was about gay life on cruise ships, but a significant chunk was about gays in the military too.  Being gay-friendly, it pleased me to see an exhibit like that.  And of course the photos of men in drag aboard ships made me chuckle.

More than one person told me I had to see all the lighthouses along the coast.  Sadly, I didn't have time to travel around the southern coast of NS, but I did make it to see one of the more famous lighthouses, about 45 minutes outside of Halifax.  The Peggy's Cove Lighthouse, which is perched on top of some rocks and looks really cool.

Unbeknownst to me, Peggy's Cove was celebrating its 200th birthday that day, so it was crawling with people and with far more cars than real spaces to park them.  I call it a "city" but it really was more like the town of Sweet Haven, from Popeye, except a little more modern, than a city.  Overall, too many other people there that day, but worth the trip to see the lighthouse on its unusual setting.

The next day on my way out of NS, I stopped at the Springhill Miner's Museum.  It's not in Halifax, or even nearby, but it was my last stop in that province and was pretty cool.  It's a museum housed in the old buildings of a coal mine and in the mines themselves -- at least the parts that haven't filled up with water.  So the visit began with a tour of where all the miners prepare for their days (dressing, equipping their stuff, etc.) then moved to the mechanical items that hauled the coal bins out of the mine, and finally into the mine itself.  Until this visit, I didn't know that any mines just went right down into the ground.  I thought they all went into mountains, but apparently, veins of coal can be found under flat ground too.

Dressed to impress.

Inside the mine.

Nova Scotia: Cape Breton

I am so far behind.  It's August 5th -- almost August 6th -- and I left Nova Scotia on July 29th.  :(  I even had Nicky write my last two entries for me and I'm still behind.  :(  Anyway...

After leaving PEI, I explored two parts of Nova Scotia:  Cape Breton, which is the northeast corner, and Halifax, which is the capital and along the southern coast of the province.  I apparently became really accustomed to how small PEI was, because when I got to NS, I was surprised to discover how big the province was and how far apart everything was!  That damn road atlas keeps fooling me.  On the paper, all the states and provinces look like they are the same size!  But they're not!

So my time in Cape Breton was shorter than I would have liked.  The good news about that, though, is that I would gladly go back to see more.  More of Cape Breton and all of NS, for that matter.

I spent the bulk of my day in and near Cheticamp, which, like much of PEI, is an Acadian refuge.  I'm sure not sure if Cape Breton is more folksy or less folksy than PEI, but suffice to say, one of the main attractions in the area is this dude's giant collection of really ugly scarecrows.  They just hang out on the side of the road, wearing clothes that Goodwill rejects.

"The Wedding Party."

I also stopped at a local museum, half of which was dedicated to the history of the area and its people (mostly old fishing villages) and half of which was dedicated to ... hook rugs.  Apparently, hook rugs are a respectable art form, and indeed some of the rugs on display (both old and new) were quite intricate and attractive.

A young artist, practicing hooking.

A few more:

A traditional fishwife.

I know all about art; I just don't know what I like.

While camping on PEI, a fellow camper gave me some tips about Cape Breton, notably that it is an area well-known for its live local music.  So I headed out that evening to an inn about 40 minutes away (nothing is close by up there) for a pretty nice (but expensive!) dinner and some music.  It was kind of celtic, I guess.  I wish I'd written down my impression of the music at the time, so I could better describe it now.  Quite pleasant, without fading into the background.

And for those who like to know what I eat, I had something new here.  A risotto made of barley.  Yes.  It was a tad salty for my tastes, but otherwise was quite good and seemed pretty healthy too.  The gingerbread cake after dinner was perfection, and extremely healthy.