Getting acquainted - Bloomington, June 24-26

As Kitty and I began planning this move last year, I scoured the Internet not only for graduate school information but also for polls, reviews, forums, surveys...anything I could find related to America's "Best Cities." Anyone who uses MSN to any degree will probably recall the sidebar news items with titles like "Best Cities for Singles," "Best Cities for Dog Owners," "Best Cities for Microbreweries." Well, I started clicking on those...and digging for more--anything that I felt could lead me to that ever-elusive "perfect place." By the way, congratulations to anyone reading this in Austin, Texas or Portland, Oregon--your fair cities always rank very high on these "Best..." lists.

With the monumental challenge of finding the right graduate school in the right city, I arrived at the choice of Bloomington, Indiana. (Milwaukee was a respectable second, but Kitty weighed in to express her distaste for very cold weather. Oh right, I'd forgotten about that!) Below on this very blog page, many of you may have already read the entry featuring the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and you then know my affection for big university towns. Bloomington, from what I could gather, would be a similar place...and this gave me encouragement. After I'd been accepted to grad school and had started setting my sights on "B-Town," my parents had their ears to the ground, and it seemed that almost every week during our phone conversations, they were telling me about another friend-of-a-friend who had lived there and loved it. I was really hearing only positives, it seemed.


Kitty and I made a very quick visit 24-hour to Bloomington at the beginning of January. As luck would have it, the temperatures were brutally cold (0 degrees F or -18C overnight) and we couldn't even stand to be outside to look around too much. We visited again, however, this past Tuesday to Thursday, and while not quite a full-on Taipei summer, it was quite hot enough...but at least it allowed us to get out and around.


These first two pictures give you the extremes...

This time, it was nice to see the gorgeous campus in the lush height of summer...

Kitty poses with a former university president. Creepy how they bronzed him...


Speaking of creepiness, there is even an on-campus cemetary...


And the city of Bloomington is a fairly pleasant place...

But we were primarily there to find a place to live. I was told we were actually getting into the apartment-hunting game a bit late, but we still had a number of leads to check out. Pouring over apartment ads, brochures, and websites was unnerving, but as we finally got out to see places, we started to develop a persective on what was available, where it was located, and how much it should cost. We'd almost decided on an apartment complex that was friendly, quiet, and surrounded by green, but we both felt it was a bit too far from campus and gave us no opportunities to walk much of anywhere. The second morning, we saw the place that sealed it for both of us--a 1000-sq foot place (how many pings is that?) with a bit of green around but within walking distance to heaps of stores...and, I report to you proudly...we'll be about 100 meters from a Taco Bell! Baby, I've been waiting for a place like this! The inside of the Taco Bell... I mean, the inside our apartment is great--high "vaulted" ceilings (we're on the top floor of three floors,) two big bedrooms, kitchen, balcony... I have pics from the outside, but not the inside yet. And check out the goofy video...

First, ours will be the unit on the top, far to the left end...




These shots are not our building--just other views of the complex. (Yes, we have a pool...)

As for that video...

So, after getting the apartment search sorted out AND doing a few school-related things and even getting new cell phone accounts, I think we could call the trip a success! Just five hours to drive home...