Birmingham Views
If a picture is worth a thousand words, consider this a 5,000-word post.
Behind the convention center (this area is called Convention Quarter) is a canal that has been restored to rather nice conditions. It's lined with cafes and shops. Some restored canal boats had put in alongside the canal. Some were of the pleasure-boat/houseboat variety. The big building straight ahead is the indoor sports arena where I mentioned they hold a major indoor track meet next year. In front of that, this canal intersects with another than goes to Wolverhampton (left) or Worcester (right)--at least I think it goes to Worcester.
To the left, the path parallels some luxury apartments for a couple of hundred yards. Then, it goes through a stile, and then there's a dirt path on the other side. You enter the abandoned warehouse/council housing/railyard zone at that point.
A floating coffee company? Count me in!
The view up the canal. A couple of hundred yards past the bridge, the canal forms a basin. At the top of the basin is a shopping center they call the Mailbox. Again, more cafes, including a delightful sushi bar that serves its fare on a conveyer belt. While the meal isn't necessarily the entertainment like Benihaha, as Homer Simpson might say, it is oddly hypnotic.
The view from inside the floating coffee company. I never got my sea legs while I was on board.
If you didn't know better, you'd think you were in London.
The city has grown on me a little. I think it's clear that there is a civic commitment to bringing the city back from what was probably a low point when manufacturing went into a tailspin. It seems like a much more manageable city than London to live in. It's probably like David Byrne wrote in "The Big Country": "I guess its healthy/I guess the air is clean?I guess those people have fun/with their neighbors and friends/Look at that kitchen/and all of that food/Look at them eat it/guess it tastes real good." And yet, I'd probably come to same conclusion Byrne came to: "I wouldn't live there if you paid me to."
Behind the convention center (this area is called Convention Quarter) is a canal that has been restored to rather nice conditions. It's lined with cafes and shops. Some restored canal boats had put in alongside the canal. Some were of the pleasure-boat/houseboat variety. The big building straight ahead is the indoor sports arena where I mentioned they hold a major indoor track meet next year. In front of that, this canal intersects with another than goes to Wolverhampton (left) or Worcester (right)--at least I think it goes to Worcester.
To the left, the path parallels some luxury apartments for a couple of hundred yards. Then, it goes through a stile, and then there's a dirt path on the other side. You enter the abandoned warehouse/council housing/railyard zone at that point.
A floating coffee company? Count me in!
The view up the canal. A couple of hundred yards past the bridge, the canal forms a basin. At the top of the basin is a shopping center they call the Mailbox. Again, more cafes, including a delightful sushi bar that serves its fare on a conveyer belt. While the meal isn't necessarily the entertainment like Benihaha, as Homer Simpson might say, it is oddly hypnotic.
The view from inside the floating coffee company. I never got my sea legs while I was on board.
If you didn't know better, you'd think you were in London.
The city has grown on me a little. I think it's clear that there is a civic commitment to bringing the city back from what was probably a low point when manufacturing went into a tailspin. It seems like a much more manageable city than London to live in. It's probably like David Byrne wrote in "The Big Country": "I guess its healthy/I guess the air is clean?I guess those people have fun/with their neighbors and friends/Look at that kitchen/and all of that food/Look at them eat it/guess it tastes real good." And yet, I'd probably come to same conclusion Byrne came to: "I wouldn't live there if you paid me to."
posted by Smitty Werbenmanjensen at 9:08 PM
3 Comments:
Yo, I didn't realize you had a blog, I just blogrolled you.
Cool.
Wish I were living in London.
I think it looks like a very nice city! Many of us end up living in places we wouldn't necessarily have chosen, for other reasons, like jobs and families. Then you find out that even if it's not the place you would have picked, it's a great place to live!
Both Black Sabbath and ELO came from Birmingham (Birmingham Blues is not about a city in Alabama). While you are in the UK you should think about taking a canal boat holiday and travel the English countryside visiting various pubs (of course you can do the same thing by road but its not as much fun).
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