Today was a little frustrating again, because the doctors loaded my brother on a sleep-inducing drug, so we sat around the hospital lobby all day waiting for him to wake up--which he did once, for ten minutes. At least he has started treatment and the doctors are closely monitoring him.
I've kind of fallen for Philly. New Yorkers kind of look down on it as a wannabe city, but I love it. Though it has sprawling ghettos, the downtown part is gorgeous, with parts from the 1700s with gorgeous red brick townhouses and buildings. It's charming, yet completely unpretentious (unlike New York), and has a big restaurant culture which of course, makes me love it even more. It's clean and quiet and laid back for a Northeastern city, and the people, like the city, are pretty unpretentious. It's more of a Gap town than a Gucci one.
All I want to do is wander around the old town and take pictures of the stunning murals and mosaics everywhere, and the heart-breakingly beautiful tree-lined cobblestone streets. But alas, that is not why we are in Philly.
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about where I want to live when I come back from Brazil, and Philly has been tempting me, despite the fact that it's sunny and warm now but gets very cold in the winter. At this point, since I seem to have fallen completely off the career track, I just want to go to a liveable, fun city. But I fear that I may be too much of a city snob for this town.
I don't know Philly, but must be a beautiful place for sure. As a Brazilian, I must confess that one of my first concerns when I move to other place is the weather. I just can't stand snow. I really can't! It makes me so sad and lazy...
When we moved to Middle East I heard everybody complaining about the hot (really hot, believe me) weather, but I preffer this high temperature than cold ones.
My reason for this trauma was the extremely cold weather in Istanbul, where I lived before, and the lack of infrastructure to deal with it. Once I was trapped at home for 1 week, without even mineral water (I had to boil tap water), because there was so much snow outside that I couldn't open my gate to go out and do grocery shopping, or even find my car on the parking lot. Lol.
But I'm sure America deals much better with snow problems and people overthere may have a normal life when it occurs.
Posted by: Uma Brasileira nas Arábias... | August 12, 2008 at 07:46 PM
Hey Rach -
It's Arwen. Yes, I've been stalking.
Let me just throw this down for the record: don't move to Philly. I'm not saying this as an across-the-board thing. Some people would enjoy it. You are just most certainly NOT one of those people. All the things you enjoy about NY are hard to find there. There's night life... but it's kind of trashy. There are restaurants... but you could probably eat at all of them within a year. There are shows... but not the variety that you find in NY. The apartments are cheaper... sometimes. And if you're living in one that isn't over a storefront that's covered in graffiti and has a smashed window, it's going to be comparable to rent in DC. The people are unpretentious, but they're also kind of rude... and some of them are just downright racist. I love philly. I have ridiculous Philly pride. But I grew up around it without much of a choice. Don't get me wrong, you are one bad ass chick, but I think you'd get tired of it really fast.
Posted by: Arwen | August 17, 2008 at 01:38 PM