Getting Lost
My first city experience was when I interned for a TV production company in Boston for a summer in college. I knew nothing of Boston except for a few stops on the Red Line. Suddenly I found myself being sent to all ends of the city on foot, by car, driving the company van, and even by borrowed bicycle.
At first I was overwhelmed and terrified of not knowing my exact route. But then I discovered that getting lost was no big deal and learned to embrace it. I loved having an adventure.
Now that I mostly bike around the city, I try not to get intimidated by unfamiliar places and keep the same sense of adventure. I just take each street it as it comes.
And I skip the ones I really don’t want to take. After all, on a bike I can just hop off onto the sidewalk.
Sometimes when I get lost I discover things that I would miss entirely in a car…
…And I then I stop and eat them.
Finding a coffeeshop that isn’t a $tarbuck$ in my town requires a bicycle, and a sense of humor. We have a sign ordinance that is biased against operations that don’t have nationally-recognized logos, and most through streets have a 45 MPH speed limit which limits your ability to look for signs that are set back from streets as much as 100 feet and limited in size (except for those chain stores that somehow get a variance for larger signs closer to the street).
We are trying to get buildings placed next to the sidewalk with parking in back, so that locally-based businesses can compete with the chains, as well as reducing parking so that stores are not so far from each other and everything else.
You sounds like great adventurous person and that’s why I like you. Keep it up dude. 🙂
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