New Orleans!

I have always had a fascination with this town. I went once, as a child, and my only memory is of eating croissants in the French Quarter. New Orleans always seemed so un-American to me, much more like a European city than any other city I had been to in the states. Now that I am older, I realize that we hardly left the French Quarter on our vacation, and that the French Quarter is surely not representative of the rest of the city. Regardless, that is the memory I have, and for the time being it doesn't seem to bother me. I suppose I am also attracted to this city because of the food. I love anything spicy, but alas, the rest of my family deplores peppers and spices of any kind. I am fortunate to eat Cajun food once a year. The thought of having infinite numbers of Cajun restaurants at my very fingertips takes me away to a figurative food heaven. Mmm, I just convinced myself food will be one of the subjcets I cover tonight. Actually, it will be my first.

Food

Well, I didnt lie. If you deplore spicy food, the bad news is that this paragraph is dedicated to all things Cajun. A Google search of "Cajun food New Orleans" returns over 593,000 results. Hmm, where to start? Lacking a creative method to select a link from all these results, I chose the first one, Oliver's Creole Restaurant. A quick glance at the menu reveals many traditional Cajun delicacies such as crawfish etouffe, creole gumbo, catfish, and... Creole rabbit? Who knew? As indecisive as I am, I think the tasters platter at 21.95 is for me. It includes fish, shrimp, oysters, crab and salmon cakes, and creole gumbo; all battered and deep fried of course. The restaurant comes highly reviewed by Zagat and has even been featured on an episode of The Food Network. There's Mother Oliver to the right, whose recipes are still the foundation upon which this restaurant sits, so they claim. To the left is the main dining room. Nothing too fancy, but who wants to eat Cajun food in a pretentious atmosphere?

NASHVILLE

I have never been to Nashville, Tenessee nor have I really been interested in this city, but a friend moved there last year and has been praising the city ever since. With that in mind, I decided to do some research. There are 607,000 people living in Nashivlle, making it the second biggest city in Nashville just behind Memphis. Nashville has earned the reputation of being home to the country music indsustry and rightfully so, the four largest country music labels all have headquarters in this town. There is a lot more to the city than just country music, I was impressed by the art scene which I will go into further detail below, some have even gone so far to dub Nashville as the "Athens of the South" due to its impressive array of musems, galleries, and the like.

Recreation

I realize its cheezy and touristy, but if I ever make it to this city, I would want to tour their version of the Parthenon. This exact replication of the original sits in centennial park and is filled with replicas of famous Greek Gods and Godesses. I have always wanted to go to Greece and tour the ruins, but I think for now this building is as close as I am going to get. Now to make myself feel cooler, I think I need to profile a night club. This place is called the tin roof and looks like any bar we would find in Fort Collins. I realize the picture is small but if you look at it closely it really looks pretty similar to Tonys or Lucky Joes or any of the bars downtown in Fort Collins. Also, on certain nights they have live music. Here is a link to their myspace page: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=41692721

Miami

It is freezing in my house right now. My roommates have a strict no-heat in the house policy to save money on our heating bill so it is no wonder that I picked Miami for this week's city. Admittedly I have only been to Miami once, on a layover before going out of the country; although it made quite an impression. We were fortunate enough to stay the night in South Beach, one of the hipper areas in town. I was amazed by the art deco buildings and the abundance of neon lights. I believe it was a weekday night, yet the atmosphere was festive, I can only imagine what it must be like on the weekends. A large group of us went to dinner on famed street Ocean Drive. I remember seeing the most animated people I had ever seen, and I hail from LA where we have our fair share of the crazies. After dinner we walked around Ocean Dr. and it seemed that at almost every block there was a performer. The performances ranged from music and dancing to magic shows and everything in between. I hope to go back soon.

Some basics.

Miami is the second largest city in Florida, with a population just over 400,000. It definitely seems like a very international city. In my short stay, I remember hearing many different languages which attests to this fact. The city certainly holds many ties to Latin America. This is evident by the many Hispanic restaurants and clubs that line the city streets, which brings me to one of my favorite aspects of any city: FOOD. We ate at a Cuban restaurant on Ocean Avenue, here we are just outside the restaurant. While the name escapes me, it really is of little importance as there are hundreds of restaurants squeezed into a relatively small space. Make sure to sit outside if possible, the enjoyment of this dinner came from the people-watching almost as much as it did from the food. As we strolled the streets of South Beach after dinner, I could not help but feel like we had traveled back in time to 1950's Havana. The men wore linen pants and shirts and smoked the largest cigars I had ever seen. Also, those cool rounded cars from the 50's were out in full force that night adding to the sense of being back in time.

Residence

Miami compares favorably with other large cities in terms of rental rates. Before checking out apartments on craigslist, I assumed anything by the beach would be incredibly expensive, and well out of the reach of current college grads. Surprisingly, this is not the case. According to aparmentratings.com the average price for a 2 bedroom apartment in Miami as of 2007 was 1,274. http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/FL-Miami-Pricing.html I included the link because this website has information on different types of apartments so if you were truly interested, you could get a more personalized perception of what it would cost to actually live here. What is so great about Miami is that there truly is somewhere you would be happy to call home at every price level. This has not held true for many of the other large cities I have profiled in the past. Here we have a 2 bed/2 bath one the ocean that rents for 1800/month.

Split evenly, that's 900/month in rent, a lot of money! But, relative to LA or SF where 900/month will ( if your lucky) barely get you into a studio in a not-so-desirable part of town, that's not too bad. Fort the sake of getting a better perspective on the Miami apartment market I decided to look for apartments in the lower range.

Below is a 2 bedroom that rents for 1175/month. This unit is about 450 sf smaller than the previous apartment, and the pool is certainly not as chic. However, I refused to sacrifice location, as this unit is blocks away from the beach. At just around 585/month, I think this apartment is a good value. Last year I paid 515/month for my apartment in Fort Collins which really puts this Miami apartment at 585/month into perspective.

Well, I am sold; I'm moving to Miami! With its affordable housing, great food and beaches, and diverse group of inhabitants, Miami definitely moves to the top of my serious consideration list for cities to move to after graduation.