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explore my city


 

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AMGL wonders if staying here is a good idea.

I would say I have done this 1 month ago

Particularly art resources—Philly has a crazy amount of stuff for artists. No joke. Some of these are:

Philadelphia Sketch Club

Plastic Club

These are two places where you can sketch for three hours for 5-9 dollars a pop. That is cheap—especially if you have a professional nude model!

Fleisher Art Memorial
I know of no other place that will give you a 75% discount on a 300 dollar professional art course. And the facilities are great.

And First Friday’s truly rock.

I really love this city.



Untitled 4 months ago

Yes, yes I would love to explore all that the city has to offer and be an afficianado of my own town..who knows how long i’ll be here but i want to enjoy it while i am!



Untitled 4 months ago

Yes, yes I would love to explore all that the city has to offer and be an afficianado of my own town..who knows how long i’ll be here but i want to enjoy it while i am!



AMGL wonders if staying here is a good idea.

Bloomsday at the Rosenbach 5 months ago

I loved it. I did not know the Rosenbach at all. Great way to explore the city.

And I am just loving Philly. Could see myself living here in the long term, or at least for a few years. I love knowing I am in an interesting city I can also handle.



AMGL wonders if staying here is a good idea.

First Friday 6 months ago

Went out on May Day to Old City. Not exactly new in terms of exploring, but at least new since I got here. Got drenched, but loved it. I love Old City.



The Angel of Venice sometimes thinks he may just be miserable for the rest of his life.

Adventure number 1 7 months ago

Very spontaneous and wonderfully multifaceted. I’d stopped by the White Russian’s house to give her a birthday card – her car was outside, but she wasn’t home, so I left it by the door. Meanwhile I was already planning on a quick beach jaunt so I went down the street and started peering off the cliff (yeah, she lives that close to the ocean, lucky little duck). I noticed a little hollow in a huge wall of rock that interested me and I felt like going down to give it a look-see. Then things took a pleasant little social turn – I turned to walk that way and who did I see? The White Russian walking with a friend of hers.

We all talked for a few minutes – I’d met him a couple of times before; he’s a close childhood friend who still lives in their hometown and visits her a couple of times a year. It was a really nice little interaction – the White Russian tends to bring out both my humor and my competitive streak, and before long we were all doing a mass round of comedic sparring – ridiculous imaginary scenarios, physical comedy, wordplay, a little of everything. I hugged her goodbye and walked away smiling. I admire the quality of people the White Russian attracts to herself; they’re profoundly decent, wonderfully gracious young folks, but also hilariously funny and usually very adventurous outdoors types. I think that set the tone for the rest of my own adventure.

I walked down to the beach to the rock formation that had caught my eye and turned out it wasn’t just a little notch – the gap in the rock went all the way through. There was a part of me that didn’t really want to walk under it – a supposedly stable geographic feature a few miles away caved in recently and killed somebody – but I thought, “this is a comparatively tiny gap in a massive wall of solid rock. It’s been here for God only knows how many centuries. If after all this time it chooses the exact ten seconds you’re underneath it to cave in, consider that God’s way of bringing you home!”

Beautiful discovery number 1

I walked through and was rewarded richly. I’d long wanted to explore a particular strip of land on the far side of a nearby stream but couldn’t do it without wading through what I’m told is heavily polluted water…well guess what that opening in the rock led to? Yes, the far side of the stream!

I walked along the sand, up several thin, water-worn layers of rock to a place where I’d only ever seen seals and seabirds go; I’d seen a handful of humans on this side of the stream before but they always seemed to stick pretty close by the sandy parts. I considered doing the same but thought, “what fun is that? There’s sand all over the place. I could’ve stayed on the other side of the rock if I’d wanted to see sand. Besides, I want to see what’s in that doorway formation on this side of the rock.”

Indeed I had apparently hit a place where few humans go regularly; the green scum on the rocks indicated little sign of foot-traffic; it was likely that the main thing that touched them was water, and this only at high tide. This was when I also learned…

Cautionary note number 1

Watery rocks are slippery, but scum-encrusted rocks are more so.

It was interesting – I literally haven’t fallen in years, and this was quite likely the silliest fall of my life. I landed in this odd-looking but very broad-based shape resting primarily on the insides of my thighs and calves. I remember my grandparents seeing me sit that way on the floor as a child and telling me to stop without giving me any particular reason why. I continued to sit that way periodically most of my life, just not when they were looking, and now I’m glad I did…this is probably an uncommon measure of flexibility for a guy my age, and I have a feeling it prevented me from becoming rather badly injured. As it is, one knee feels slightly “wrong” but not at all painful. (I’ve since put ice on it as a precaution just in case it’s considering becoming inflamed at all, which I doubt it will.)

I pressed on to the doorway formation, now being much more careful not to fall on the scum, and the mystery was revealed! The doorway formation housed…a drainage pipe from the streets about 40 feet up the cliff. LOL. Well, I never had any idea that it was a pristine natural sanctuary I was exploring. This is, after all, the city; it’s a ten-minute drive from my own downtown office, and five of those minutes are due to maddening traffic patterns.

I cautiously walked back down the “scum slope,” as I dubbed it, down the less treacherous layers of rock, along the sand, and back through the magic portal that had led me there. On the way back I noticed some utterly AMAZING purple flowers on the other side of the rock wall…got as close as I felt safe going considering that bees were enjoying the scene too…walked out toward the sea to bathe my hands in the edges of the surf, and went home.

So it was a lovely adventure. Absolutely lovely. Can’t wait for more.



AMGL wonders if staying here is a good idea.

New city! 7 months ago

Now I am in Philadelphia. I used to live here before, so the city is not precisely new. But, for the first time ever, I went walking by the Schuykill river, which I never did the four years I was here. It is pretty amazing! I really loved it. I feel exercising (walking and hopefully biking) will make me explore the city more.



The Angel of Venice sometimes thinks he may just be miserable for the rest of his life.

Really it's not the city... 8 months ago

Cities don’t interest me anymore for the most part. Building, building, building…more buildings…you can only live so long before you realize that most cities have that in common. It’s been almost 20 years since I last saw a building that really impressed me.

What interests me is the profusion of natural or at least semi-natural places along the coast and scattered throughout the city limits. I was showing a friend of a friend around the parts I know and it reminded me how little I actually know compared to what I’ve never tried to explore. Yes, there are reasons why I haven’t but having good reasons not to have done what you want in life still doesn’t leave you very happy on your deathbed, so I think it’s time to start doing what interests me a bit more.

Some ideas hit me as to how to make this happen…

-see nice days as a chance to get out and explore more so than days to do errands without getting rained on

-bring a nicely filled backpack including…

changes of socks and shoes to accommodate beach journeys better

a towel

a camera with well-charged batteries

a pair of binoculars

water

snacks

band-aids, antiseptic, and arnica just in case

-in the future I could expand my backpack to include…

one of those Whisper 2000 sort of things to boost your hearing

field guides about the wildlife

maps

compass

-one adventure I think I’d like to do would be starting out over on the east side of town at the coast, identifying some point toward the west that intrigues me, and trying to find it on foot and figure out what it is

-just figuring out what some of the odd birds are that live around here would be great – head on out with a field guide and start looking

-starting out somewhere and walking along the coast all day would make an interesting adventure

-climbing the rocks at the beach on the west side of town would be good when my feet don’t feel like garbage from being stuck in shoes at work for two weeks straight



calypte partied out

Micro scale 9 months ago

Today I spent some time walking through Princes Street Gardens with the lovely Gertie. The point (other than just meeting her!) was a photography outing – well, she was going to take photos ;)

As we wandered along, with the lovely Ms G giving me plenty of hints and tips, I realised how little we ever stop and look around us – REALLY look. But slow the pace down, actually notice things… the flowers that turned out to be iris and mini daffodils, rather than the crocuses I assumed from the purple/yellow; the way-early cherry blossom; just how pretty that is, or how stunning the contrast in colour…

So, two things occur to me: (1) exploring my city doesn’t have to be about the new places – it can also be about paying more attention and learning more about places I already think I know. And (2) this opens whole new ‘reasons’ to be places – that is, I don’t need to be heading to a library, or a restaurant or gallery – not only can I explore for the sake of it, but I can also just be paying more attention to the little details around me, finding something worth looking at somewhere new. Maybe that’s one of the reasons photography appeals so much: it makes you look at things a bit differently!



calypte partied out

Some progress 9 months ago

Ouch, has it really been two years since I last wrote about this goal!? O.o

My urge to explore Edinburgh more has had two big boosts of late. First, learning about flickr’s meet up groups, and seeing some of the amazing photos of places I didn’t even know existed a spit away from me! I guess as well – let’s be honest about this! – the fact that these are group ‘tours’ (and with added purpose, at that) takes away the getting lost aspect.

T’other thing has been a couple of nights out with work. Both were in semi-familiar areas; the first was ‘around a corner’ from somewhere I know well, and yet didn’t know about at all! And the second was somewhere I’ve been loads of times, and yet finally I feel like the slightly confusing street layout is less confusing. More, it wasn’t just the restaurant, but other things around the area – totally see myself going back. Hurrah!

So – little by little, and obviously VERY slowly, but hoping eventually to feel this goal could be (semi) complete! :)

(pic totally pinched from ‘chris_malcolm’ on flickr, ‘cos it’s utterly utterly inspiring me! :)



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