Bloomington, Indiana

Although it devolves quickly into the usual ILE stream-of-consciousness.

College town sounds reasonable. That might mean it's more expensive than the places around it, but we'll see -- and "great local library" are good words to hear.

I hate the midwest.

Good luck.

My only experience with the midwest, really, is six weeks in Kansas City (KS) and two weeks in Denver. But if Bloomington is less midwestern than most of the midwest, that's probably a good thing.

Search: the art museum, Kinsey institute, cheep beer at the Video Saloon, dancing at gay bar Bullwinkles. Hang out with the townies and avoid fraternity places. There are a lot of ethnic restaurants (many quite good) that you wouldn't expect in a town that size. There's also a Ben & Jerry's. If you like basketball, you'll be in heaven; there is always a game of some sort on the television, usually pre-empting your favorite show.

Public transportation is the bus. I think there's a city bus and a campus bus. Oh, watch Breaking Away (the movie), it's great and set in b'ton.

I suspect it is more midwestern than most of the midwest, kind of like Indiana as a whole. Madison WI and Iowa City are midwestern college towns with a lot more going on IMO, but then I only passed through bloomington or knew people who went to IU.

Tep it sounds just like "The Valley"

This is now the thread where I ramble about Bloomington.

We did get lucky on rent ... I think. I have no real sense for what decent rent is, cause New Orleans is cheap and Amherst was very much not. We got a townhouse which sounds like it's slightly smaller than the one I had in Amherst (which cost two and a half times as much) and a good deal larger than my current apartment, which is too large for me anyway (there's a whole room I only use to keep books in). Tennis courts and sauna on site. Bus stop on block. Mile walk from campus (but this is a large school, so for all I know that's "two miles to class.") No dishwasher, goddammit.

Christ, I hope the apartment complex isn't filled with college students. My secret shame: I tend to really not like college students. And yet I've been one, off and on, for ten years now. They're loud and constantly rediscovering McLuhan. No good comes of that.

If there's a decent pizza place that delivers, a place I can fish without having to bring the fish back on the bus, and a place I can rent movies, I'm gonna be fine.

Our package from the apartment manager with details on who to call about setting up phone, electric, cable, DSL (first time for me) still isn't here yet, though, and Monday's a holiday. Dammit.

We don't have employment (thank God for graduation money and a convenient birthday). The girlfriend keeps saying "it's fine, I have bookstore experience," and I keep trying to explain that in a college town of 35,000 kids whose income is disposable, that means she'll be lucky to get a clerk job at six-fifty an hour. So I'm moving there with, well, no idea how I'm going to pay the bills for the summer. Luckily all the parents realize this and have said they'll help make ends meet until the fall, when financial aid arrives.

The Hoosiers have no mascot! I've contemplated showing up and just declaring myself the mascot. "Yep, the school mascot is a Tep. You didn't know that? Tsk."

On the agenda for the fall: Italian, Old Icelandic, Turkish history and culture, ancient Mediterranean religion, and Christianity in the middle ages. Wooyah. My fake thesis title (i.e., if an advisor asks, "Wait, you're taking this why?" this is the thesis I claim to be working on) is "Cross-Cultural Definitions of 'Grace' in Christianity," which is a darn good fake thesis.

This'll be my first time taking classes on a regular basis in two years. Someone remind me to buy a pen.

What makes it genius is that they put the cheese on before the sauce. In fact they put the sauce on last. So the crust is hot and pillowy and covered with cheese...there's not a chance of it being soggy. If you get toppings they're mixed in with the cheese. It's cut into squares and then a fat dollop of sauce is placed on each piece. It's really good sauce, flavorful and spicy. Really reasonable prices too, and they deliver into late night/early morning.

You are heading into the best part of the year in B-ton as a mass of students take off and the town is less crowded, yet there is as much to do.

Bear's Place is also a good place to check out a movie on the Ryder Film Series and kick back with a beer.

Take away the students and the town is around 20-25 thousand people, keeping that it mind, you won't find many towns of its size with as great a variety of things to do.

If you are wanting to take a trip, you can be in downtown Indianapolis in 40-45 minutes, provided that the traffic isn't crazy.

(brg30, you're right, it sounds a lot like the Pioneer Valley; it's even a similar distance to Indianapolis as it was to Boston).

To push up the surreal nature of B-ton, the Dali Lama ate at the Red Lobster when I was working there in the early 90s. There was a picture of him and the manager in the office and I used to think it was flat out strange.

I also delivered a pizza to Flavor Flav in Bloomington a year or so before that.

(Well, not right now, I may not pack the computer up until Friday.)

I have cable modem, wahoo (I've been on dial-up since ... 1985.)

There's no chance I'll get caught up on ILX, so: hello again!

If you are looking for a CD shop, check out TDCDsLPs. The place is stacked to the gills with records and discs and the proprietor Tom Donahue is a great guy. It is in the basement of the coffeeshop (don't know the name as it was a bookstore up until I left town).

Other cool places:

Irish Lion
Uptown Cafe
Encore Cafe
Lake Monroe & Hoosier National Forrest (if so inclined)

Went to the Trojan Horse. Excellent neighborhood Greek place -- good appetizers, single-serving and therefore cheap, and the best Italian beef sandwich I've had (I know, I know, I ordered Italian beef at a Greek place ... fuck me, they had a breaded pork sandwich, too, at least I kept it Mediterranean).

As far as I can tell (I suppose I could look it up), there's no longer a Ben and Jerry's here -- but there is a good deal of it in the stores, more than my adopted-Creole ass is used to. The ice cream parlors are all Maggie Moo's and Jiffy Treat (which is great, because you can get pretzels and malt powder as mix-ins, fuck a doo.)

I keep meaning to, though.

Pie, also. Dammit, I'm really hungry now.

At least you don't have to change your clock anymore. Time is time in Indiana, they don't give a fuxxk about "day-light savings time". I grew up in Indiana and this changing the clock thing seems really weird and screws up my sleep, even after three years.

I will look for PE&R.

(why is this my second post tonight on time zones?)

What'll screw me up more than the cable, I guess, is that there are only two people I talk to on the phone: one in Eastern time, and one in Central. I have actually marked the various months on my calendar "Mom Time" and "Kathy Time," so I don't forget.

Oh, yeah, the other weird thing, timezone/TV-wise. Right now we're in Central time (I know, we're not, whatever: our clocks say the same as those in the Central time zone). The television stations follow the Eastern time convention of starting primetime at 8:00, not 7:00 -- which means that we get our shows an hour after both Central time and Eastern time (when an 8:00 show is on here, it was on an hour ago during Eastern's 8:00 and Central's 7:00).

It's like this weird little bubble. Like Biodome. But with Steak and Shake.

Friends from New Orleans -- the ones getting married in November -- are visiting in two weeks (which I'm incredibly happy about), and they might arrive the day before L gets back from Spokane, which means I will have the power and responsibility of deciding where to take them out to dinner. They will have just been to St Louis, so the novelty and thrill of Steak and Shake will be tarnished. I'm thinking the Trojan Horse, cause I think I can remember how to get there (my sense of direction is legendarily bad, I will probably get lost trying to find campus on Friday). Unless anyone has any other suggestions?

Plus the sinuses will keep me from hanging around if it turns out crappy.

Save up and come live in Berkeley!!!!

Seriously tho, Anthony- I am often passing through that way, as I have probably said upthread and on ILX. I foresee a future Bloomington FAP in the Evil! Vegan! Cafe!

I dunno, I've spent the last 9+ years in an ENGINEERING college town (more like Purdue). The arts aspect of Bloomington would be change of scenery enough. I'm not even sure if I'll buy a car actually (probably will have to but echhh...). I don't really have to decide this anytime soon but right now Bloomington's a front runner.

Berkeley was goddamn awesome when I visited it a couple years ago (I think I fainted when I saw Ameoba's). But I can't imagine being able to afford living there.

Due to really bad luck/poor decision-making/horrible traffic/etc. I didn't get to Bloomington until late in the evening, so I didn't get to see much of the town (fortunately my mom and her friend - who came up from Louisville to see me - made it to the show) until the next day. I kinda liked it! But really didn't see much except a decent health food grocery store on the outskirts (near the hotel we stayed in - which was really fucking weird btw) and a brief drive-through of downtown.

(of course I may have anticipated all this many years earlier when I wrote a song for a band I was in during high school titled "There's a Hoosier at the Root of All My Traffic Problems.")

She grew up in Winchester and Indianapolis.

If you're comfortable with the area and the college-town-osity, you could certainly do worse. I like it a lot more than Amherst Mass, the other college town I've lived in (the one responsible for my being sick of college towns before I moved here). It's very ... white and twentysomething, though.

Is it cold?

Did you know that we have two threads called "Bloomington, Indiana"?

Where did teeny go?

Where is a good area to hang out with parents in Bloomington?

Is there just a "downtown area" with stuff to do?

Kirkwood Ave. area

Thanks. We're here now.

I loved B-town but haven't been there in nearly 20 years. Used to go to Spaceport, Roscoe's Discount Den Records, the Daily Grind Coffeeshop.

Saw Stevie Ray Vaughn play at I.U. Auditorium. Was maybe 13 or so. Smoked a bunch of cigarettes at the concert and threw up in my friend's driveway after.

I still have records I bought at Discount Den, that gal who did their buying in the mid-80's was on fire.

Wait, so how many people here have lived in Bloomington? It seems like every week I come across an old post from yet another ILXor who resided there at some point.