City Places and High-Rise Spaces

I'll admit it wholeheartedly and without shame: I'm a city girl.

Despite my country girl tendencies to want to constantly have dirt under my finger nails from gardening, enjoying growing my own food, loving walking through fields and forests, loving hiking through miles of mountains, and wanting to live in a cottage in the middle of a pine forest, I have far more city tendencies than country tendencies.

I live in a lovely city, however it isn't the kind of city that I so much prefer. I love big cities. Flashing lights and skyscrapers, eclectic people groups and styles, museums and history on every corner; indeed, cities are my favorite and always will be.

I don't get to go to real big cities very often; perhaps two to four times a year. But I will spring at any chance I can possibly get to see the city skyline of some lovely place like Chicago. In April, I got the chance to go to a big city. The big city of the South: Atlanta. I go to Atlanta relatively frequently, but its almost never just to hang out and have fun. However, this time it was. My cousin, Macy, is a senior in high school this year and she wanted to have a senior trip. The destination: Atlanta.

Macy discovered a month or so ago that The Fox Theatre would soon be presenting Les Miserables, so she bought tickets for four, and we planned a trip up to Atlanta.

We arrived in Atlanta late in the afternoon on a day in late April, and went up to our hotel, which was right across the street from the Fox. Macy and I, admittedly, are not exactly used to acting upscale, high class, and rich. Trying to pull it off when walking in and seeing this was difficult:

As neat as I suppose it would be to be truly swanky, I don't think it would be nearly as much fun. When you're rich and often exposed to fancy architecture and cool big city adventures, I suppose things like this wouldn't take your breath away as much. You wouldn't take as much pleasure in it. So although I may want to act swanky, I don't think I ever would want to be that way.

We walked into the hotel, dressed up for our night at the Fox. I always greatly appreciate going into places like this, because I get to see those truly big city people. Somehow I think I've always had a fantasy about being the wife of a big-business, big-city guy and being that woman who walks around in her business skirt and black pumps in fancy hotels. And in this kind of hotel, you see those kinds of women. I've always loved how neat and professional they look, and imagined that I myself might be that schnazzy one day.

These nice, lovely men carried our bags upstairs for us (so nice to not have to drag my hundred pound bag stuffed with half of my belongings up 14 floors), and we got to look around our hotel room a bit before heading out to dinner.

{this was just the living room. we also had a kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms!}

After examining our room, we went downstairs to go find a restaurant. Once outside, we walked in a big circle only to come back around to the front of our hotel, when we saw an Italian restaurant diagonally across from our hotel, and decided to head in there since we had almost no time to eat before the show. Once we got in, we had to wait for a while, but once we got our seat, everything was super quick. Our waiter was a nice young man who was very professional and quick to make sure we got our meal and got out the door before the show started. I ordered the best salad I've ever had in my life. Most restaurants? Hello cheap iceberg salad. This restaurant? I got the fanciest salad made entirely of arugula with this awesome lemon dressing on top with cheese and some other fancy toppings. It was delish, and I have to admit, I felt pretty schmancy eating an arugula salad. 

After we finished eating, we walked up half a block at the most to the Fox theatre, and sat down probably 20 seconds after the show had started - we barely made it in time. It was absolutely excellent! Despite the fact that we were sitting in nearly the back of the theatre, it was a wonderful show. The singers were incredibly talented and the props and movement were wonderful. Eponine was definitely my favorite, tho  Jean Valjean can hardly be ignored. Everyone was absolutely wonderful!

However, after a three hour long show, I was quite ready to be headed back to the hotel, which thankfully was right across the street. We headed upstairs and Macy and I got some pictures outside on our three inch wide balcony that we could barely fit on.

The next morning Macy and I had planned on going up to the roof top pool and swimming for a while, but we had gotten to bed so late after the show we just slept late. After we got up we headed downstairs to a restaurant they have in the hotel, whose fruit, I might add, was delicious but ridiculously overpriced. Despite their overpriced fruit, everything was amazing; I had the most delicious french toast I've ever had in my life, and I even tried a raspberry for the first time. (and yes, I hated it. seriously, who eats those things?)

We sat outside for a bit and then we went up to the rooftop pool. It was quite lovely: there was a pool in the lower part, and then you could walk up a few stairs for a spectacular view of midtown Atlanta. We were quite close to the tallest building in Atlanta which excited me profusely. I do love skyscrapers quite a lot. Macy and I proceeded to take several pictures up there as well:

After our adventures up on the rooftop (and as Macy and I will both attest, there were indeed some adventures ;), we went back down to our room to pack up and head out. I must say I'll miss that hotel more than almost any hotel I've had the pleasure of staying in. Especially considering the fact that one of my favorite authors, F. Scott Fitzgerald, had stayed in it once. I do love old, swanky hotels.

After heading out of the hotel, we proceeded over to The World of Coke, where we tried a ridiculous amount of flavors of Coke products from around the world, most of which, I must add, were absolutely repulsive. I think I'll stick with my every day bottle of Coke.

We grabbed lunch (and got to watch a bunch of people learning how to ride a segway.... and as Macy so astutely put it, they looked like rolly pollies) and then went to Dillards to shop a bit. I found a really cute dress in the junior's dress department which I got for eighteen bucks. My thrifty mother has taught me well. I know a deal when I see one, and getting a dance dress for eighteen bucks is most *definitely* a deal.

After our outing at Dillards, we decided it was about time to head back. But before we did, we stopped at a Midtown Starbucks (um. can we say dream work place?) to grab a snack and some coffee. I got my usual iced chai tea latte, and my mom and I split our usual old fashioned doughnut. We sat outside and snagged a few more pictures before heading out:

 {I think at this point I was catching on to the whole swanky thing.

Don't you think?

really?

No?

okay...}

After our adventure to Starbucks and getting wind blown into our face, coffee, and food, we headed back out. We had had a lovely time, and I'm not sorry to admit that I pined away for at least fifteen minutes about wanting to live in a high rise apartment.

In fact, I determined after leaving that once I finish college, I'm going to live in a high rise apartment in Atlanta, get a cat and name it Cashmere, work in a Starbucks, and go to art museums all the time. Good? Good.

As strange as I might sound when I refer to Atlanta and any big city, it really can be explained. I lived the majority of my life in two ugly little towns. However, when I was seven or eight, a love for big cities and travel entered my brain, and ever since it has grown. Going to Chicago when I was eight didn't help anything. I remember that vacation as the best one I ever had. From a young age my love for travel has grown, and my love for travel includes big cities. 

Big cities have some kind of a hold on me. Like I said previously, although I do have some country girl tendencies, the big city has some sort of grasp on me. I can't explain what it is exactly. I've always loved different cultures, ideas, and fashion, so I know that that is part of it. But there seems some kind of mystery of a big city: how everything and everyone fits together in some ridiculous yet artful conglomeration. How history, art, culture, ideas, businesses, celebrities, average Joes, music, and life somehow mix into this great place where skyscrapers abound and there is never a moment when there isn't some movement of life. 

I suppose that is part of why I love a big city so much. Everything and everyone is always on the move. It's in a constant state of change. And although I don't like some change, I do love other kinds. The kinds you see in cities. New ideas, new faces, new opportunities springing up on every corner of the sidewalk. Inspiration galore. It's a lovely place for an aspiring writer, photographer, and art historian to be. 

A big city, to me, is a piece of art in and of itself. Art tends to revolve around a story, history, an idea, a person. A big city revolves around all of those things and then some. It's abounding with all of them, and coming up with new ones every day.

Big cities are lovely places. They will always have a hold on me. They will always catch my eye. They will always make me want to hold on to them a little bit longer, explore them a little bit more, and watch the movement pass by. Those movements pass every moment and if you don't catch them at that exact second, they'll be gone forever. Oh the moments of a big city: they're entrancing and beautiful. Elegant and mysterious. And if no one else misses them, I will. I'll wish I had seen them before they passed. I'll wish I had been there before they were gone. But I'll imagine them. Wish for them. And perhaps one day, I'll create some of those little moments that make up a big city. 

Every city is a living body.
{st. augustine} 

I haven't been everywhere but it's on my list

Travel.
The exhilaration of flying to a different country and speaking a different language and being in a different culture and just having everything be absolutely, utterly, beautifully, magnificently different.
It's something that I've dreamed of since I was a very small girl. I believe the first spark of my imaginations of traveling began when I was about 7 or 8 years old. My dad and one of his best friends went over to Europe during the 80s, and one day this friend of my dad's came over and showed us a slide show of all the pictures they took while they were on their 10 week trip. When I sat down, I was expecting to be very bored (as I expressed later to Mr. Wade, much to his amusement and my mother's chagrin). But once we were done, I was filled with the beautiful, old pictures of a picturesque land, somewhere way across the ocean. As I got older, the idea of travel grew heavier and heavier on my mind. Within the past year, it has definitely been in the top ten things that I think about on a regular basis.
Travel seems to have some sort of a mysterious hold over me. There is something so exorbitantly beautiful about traveling to different places. Honestly, so far I haven't been to that many different places. I've been to Chicago, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Atlanta, Panama City, Annapolis, several different large cities in Virginia, Gatlinburg... but that is about the extent of my traveling experience.
But rest assured, that will change. My dad has always told me to be sure to take some risks in life. Do something daring. Be a little crazy. Don't settle for being your mediocre person. And I don't intend to. My plan at the moment is to finish college and once out of there, immediately go into at least half a year of traveling all over the world to different places that I've always dreamed about going to. Money, you ask? Saving. For years and years. Starting now. Trust me, if I want something, I will stop at absolutely nothing to attain it. When I want something, it's already mine. I'm determined. I'm stubborn. And under no circumstances do I back down.
Also, I'm not your usual "I want to tour the world" type person. In some ways, yes, that's a true statement. But in other ways? All I seek is the simplicity and true nature and culture of the different countries. This one story (of the many, many stories I have been told) my dad told me about his trip to Europe kind of sums up my reason for desiring to go and travel the world. He told me one time, I believe he was in England, possibly Scotland, he got up one morning and just went for a walk. He was out in the middle of no where, with nothing terribly exciting to see. Or so he thought. As he was walking down the simple path out in the simple beauty of Britain, he stopped in his tracks. He looked. Was it really...? On this completely random path, he walked straight up to the worn down remains of a castle. Now I ask you, how often do you go for a random walk on a random path out in the middle of no where and come across a castle? The reason that story really sums up my reasons for traveling is I want to see the heart of a country. The little secrets they hide that really no one knows about except for a few people who live in the area. Of course I want to see the big cities of the countries I visit. They're part of the country. Just like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, and places like that are part of America. But still, I live in a little town that almost nobody would just plan on visiting if they were coming to America. That's the kind of place I want to go to.
I have so many places I want to go to. This is one of the times I'm feeling the use of school work coming into play. Geography has taught me about so many different places that I never would have imagined going to, but now have every intention of going to. I plan to find the most unexpected remains of castles in England, I plan on climbing to the top of the Wudang Mountains, I plan on going to the Atacama desert, I plan on crawling through the wilds of the Amazon River, I plan on going to the picturesque nearly fairy tale-like villages of Austria and Switzerland, I plan on drinking champagne on the London Eye, I plan on walking around Machu Picchu and exploring every rotten cranny of the old beautiful place, I plan on walking the streets of Chicago and New York decked out in the most fabulous and eccentric clothes, I plan on perambulating the Highlands of Scotland, I plan on ascending the wild peaks of the mountains in New Zealand, I plan on seeing the blond headed children of Norway, I plan on viewing all the pyramids of Egypt, I plan on standing on a glacier in Greenland, and I plan on viewing every piece of history, art, and magic that each country holds all to itself.
I suppose you could say I have itchy feet. I sort of do. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love living where I live, and I love home, and I love familiarity. But something in my soul is wild. Untamed. It constantly wants to do something or go somewhere on the spur of the moment and do something completely unexpected. I feel like packing my bags right now, driving up to the nearest air port, and catching a flight to London or perhaps Santiago or Beijing.
Even now, probably three or four years before I'll be able to go to any of these places, I'm already planning out everything. Places to do photography, places to eat, places to hike, places to meet new people, places to do something a little crazy, places to spin in a circle and squeal about the fact that I'm actually in a different country living a life so few people have. Crazy? Maybe a little. Fantastic? Big time.

It is not down in any map; true places never are.
{herman melville}

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees
what he has come
to see.
{g.k. chesterton}

Once you have traveled, the journey
never ends,
but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers.
The mind can never break off
from the journey.
{pat conroy}

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things
you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines,
sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore.
Dream.
Discover.

{mark twain}

(picture credit-Google images)