Thursday, August 23, 2007

Weather and Resteraunts

The other day, a restaurant owner informed me that there were 500 restaurants in Charlottesville? Really? How are they all supported? Do people just eat out constantly? This is insane.

The other thing is most of these places aren’t chains. They’re little individual restaurants scattered throughout the town. Where I’m from, there are approximately 3 restaurants that aren’t chains or at least local chains. And there is no way that there are 500 restaurants in a comparable area to Charlottesville in my home state.

This came up because we were talking about the drought conditions in Charlottesville and how restaurants were ordered not to run their dishwashers a couple of years ago. Meaning, you could go out to eat, pay $28’s for a meal, and get to eat it on a paper plate with a plastic fork. PICNIC!

Luckily, it decided to pour down rain that night, making for a lovely evening to sit outside and just listen to the rain fall (and hope to not get struck by lightning).

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Driving

One of the things you notice when you come to Charlottesville is that none of the roads keep the same name. Honestly people, how hard is it to have streets maintain the same names for the entire length of their run.

You’re driving along, minding your own business, and all of a sudden, Emmet Street turns into Seminole Trail. Now, this isn’t that bad, because this is a huge, straight street. But it’s a symptom of the disease.

Anywhere you go, there’s a possibility of the street changing names on you when you cross an intersection (or at random if it feels like it). Often, this is at one of those 5-road crossing, where there are 3 roads coming together, one dead ending, and the other two leaving. How’re you ever supposed to figure this out on the fly if you’re unfamiliar?

Also, hurray for designing your roads based around paths that wildlife took. Those grid pattern streets just make it too easy to find your way around and don’t let tourists get lost in experience the culture of your town