Happy Sunday! Zack and I spent the afternoon yesterday in a part of Minneapolis called Uptown. I view that area as more of a “small town feel” to the big city. Downtown is mostly sky-rises and hotels and fancy restaurants. Uptown has more of a smaller, historic feel — cute shops, smaller restaurants/cafes/bakeries, etc. It’s totally different and I love both parts of the city equally, but for different reasons. Oh my word, the houses that are in Uptown, they are gorgeous and huge and so old! Yesterday we saw a house with turquoise trim and there was a small statue over the front porch, the yard had a light post with gargoyles on each “branch” where the lights extended from. It’s an amazing area :]
This 7 pretty things on Sunday post was inspired by our afternoon spent in Uptown yesterday. We took the bus and then walked a little bit once we got to that part of the city. The sun was shining… it was a glorious day with my man! PS. photos 3 & 4 are of Minneapolis! PSS. I’m realllllly excited to share the photos we took for our magazine feature. They are so cute!! Eeekk :]
Living in a big city has really changed our lifestyle and our view on having a car {we actually don’t have one!!!}, how we order groceries, what we do on weekends, how we travel… I’m excited to share more of this in an upcoming post. xoxo.
Today’s question: Have you ever lived in a big city? If yes, where did you live & what part did you love the best? If no, where would you love to live? {even if this is just a dream}
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and took it for granted, but didn’t realize that until moving to Iowa. I love love love Kansas City and would move there in a heart beat if we could take everyone we love, here, with us! :)
Hi Gussy,
I live in a big city – Lagos, Nigeria. At least, it’s considered the ‘big city’ here in Nigeria :-) I’ve lived here all my life except when I went to university in a different state (which only made me appreciate Lagos more). Anyway, I would love to live in Sydney or Barcelona. Or maybe Sydney AND Barcelona. Either way, I hope I get the opportunity to do that one day :-) I really like your blog.
SO all my life i have lived in a small town. Heber City, UT actually..(population of maybe 11000) I hated it and wanted to move to a big ol’ city and leave this small town behind! I did leave that city behind and took off to Sunny St George which is a lot bigger than Heber but definitely small town. I now live in Spokane which is the second largest city in WA. I absolutely love it here! I love that I live only 5 min away from downtown but I don’t live in the Chaos of a big city. I live up on the South Hill away from all the craziness but i’m only a little drive away if i ever wanna participate in the craziness (which well isn’t really that crazy)! I love the faster paced lifestyle with the slower paced people! :D Which is exactly how Spokane feels. *if that makes any sense*
~I would love to live in an even bigger city though! I would love to live in Portland.. I’ve never been there but I hear its BEAUTIFUL! Or even Seattle.. never been there either.. not sure if i could handle so much rain though.
Okay well I’ve rambled on and on in this comment But i just loved your question! *made me think* I also LOVE your blog, I just ran into it (while blog stalking) yesterday! I fell in love! And you have inspired me to follow my dream! Well thanks for your post!! LOVED the pictures!!!!
I have never lived in a big city…and I don’t think I would ever want to! Sure it has it’s perks…but country living is by far the best. I would love to live on a quarter section of land in a beautiful house that my hubs and I designed our selves, with a swing on the porch, a cute little breakfast nook, a big red barn outside full of farm animals, and some tractors and stuff too!
p.s. order groceries? If this means what I think it does that’s pretty cool!
This is a very timely question for me, because we just moved to the NYC-area. So, I don’t know my favorite things yet; I’m in the process of discovering that. :-) But it’s fun and informative to hear about other people’s favorite things.
Two weeks after we were married, my husband and I packed our car and moved from our small hometown in Wisconsin to Seattle! We were young and didn’t know a soul out there but couldn’t have been more excited! It was a scary time but also one of the best times. I loved that everything was at my fingertips and there was always something going on. Pike Place Market was full of people watching, live musicians on every street and the food, oh the food!!! Once we decided to start a family, we moved back to Wisconsin. While I miss the city, I love raising our kids in the quaint town that I grew up in!
We live in a suburb of Dallas and totally take it for granted. It’s about 30 minutes to get into actual downtown for us and is on a tollway so we RARELY ever go. I would love to live either in a downtown area or right outside of one, especially if it were a place where we didn’t have to have a car, etc. You guys are so blessed to be able to do that!
I love the uptown area! I used to work in Uptown right off of lake Calhoun and all summer (weather permitting) I took my lunch out side and ate by the lake. I love the small town shops and places like that. A little south of the lake check out the hunt & gather antique store. It is AMAZING and I could spend hours in their, “hunting” for treasures! Also in the summer the band shell has concerts every week and just walking around all three of the lakes is wonderful. I can’t remember the name of the little cafe on Lake Calhoun, but it is near where you rent the boats and things, and they have awesome fish tacos! Well now that I professed my love for Uptown I hope you enjoy it too! It is a great place!
I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and loved having access to all that the city offered- the Chicago White Sox, shows, musicals, amazing food, and some of the best people watching I’ve ever experienced. Now I live in Nashville, which is a city but not as urban as Chicago is. Half the time I feel like I still live in a suburb! Still, it’s been fun to explore and figure my way around this city.
New York City is my favorite place in all the world! Until my dream becomes a reality, I create city experiences in my little central Illinois home by walking wherever and whenever I can.
i live in mpls & feel that this post captures the city beautifully… let’s hang out sometime? :) <3 EverRubyGirl.blogspot.com
We lived in Chicago for 6 years and I LOVED it! Then, we had twins and it posed many more challenges to stay in the city. I miss the restaurants and smell of a big city. My favorites were going for walks in the summer.
We now live in a small historic river town in a 100 year old cottage home. We are only here for two years, so here’s to our future town…may it be a great one. :)
I lived in Phoenix, AZ, and I loved how easy it was to get to where I wanted/needed to go, yet every suburb/part of the city as a whole has it’s own small town feel. I now live 2 hrs north of LA and love that I am close enough to take a day trip to the textile district down there. Although, I would never take back growing up in a small town in MI and going north every summer to camp. You can’t replace or replicate that.
i grew up in a suburb of detroit, mi. then i married my husband and i live in the town he grew up in. it’s the little town with one street light! there are villages with in the town. i love it! i know everyone, almost everyone. i work at the school my kids attend so i know all the ins and outs of it all. just googled the population, 13,700 people. i am about 40 minutes south of my childhood home. i go to the city for church and stores etc but i love coming back to my 2 lane country roads.
we go to chicago at least once a year and the boys love the big city feel. they love that you have to walk everywhere.
i can’t wait to hear how you order your groceries. is that a popular thing? i do order my fruit and veggies from door to door organics. i’m apporx 20 miles from the grocery store so it’s nice to get the deliver of fruits and veggies so i don’t have to go weekly. to me it’s worth it.
katy
I grew up in a very small town {1,200 people!} and moved the day after graduation to Vancouver, BC. There are so many AWESOME traits of that city … the seawall, Stanley Park, fresh fish from Granville Island. I loved how everything was so accessible. Many years forward = We live in a big city with a family, not downtown, of course. I still love the accessibility and the opportunities for our boys that the city has to offer.
However, I did love growing up in a small community and love going back to my roots.
we love love LOVE minneapolis! we live a bit west though, in grand forks, north dakota. we visit very frequently! philadelphia(fave) and chicago are both amazing, minneapolis is much cleaner though;)
great photos-love your blog! xo
I live in Vancouver, BC and love it! I’ve lived here for a couple years now, but the highlight was definitely the 2010 Olympics!
I lived in Nashville for 3 years and LOVED it. (I guess Nashville is a “big” city? It doesn’t *feel* that way, which is part of the appeal.) It’s hard to say what I loved most about it — probably that I never ever got bored. It’s a beautiful place and I’d go back in a heartbeat.
We currently live in Dorchester, a neighborhood of Boston. Most days I love to ease of access to public transportation and fun things to do in Boston. I’m a sports fan, so I love being able to get to a Red Sox game without driving. I also love all the great restaurant options we have to choose from! Other days, I get annoyed with parking (when I can’t find a spot close enough) and the way people drive…Bostonians live up to their rep ;-)
i live in new york city and i love it, everything about it actually! i live in one of the outer boroughs and i take the ferry every day past the statue of liberty to get into manhattan for work… sometimes i have to remind myself that it’s a really special experience and not just any old commute!
i also lived in rome, italy for a semester… the food, the history, the most beautiful churches i’ve ever seen! it was amazing, and being able to walk everywhere made it even better… i would love to go back :-)
I have lived in Baton Rouge, LA for about seven years. I started out here to go to LSU and then stayed. I do NOT want to stay here forever. I’m going to visit Boston in the fall & I hope it tickles my fancy. If not, Seattle or Portland is my next option. Don’t get me wrong, its a nice little place, but its definitly not for me in the long run.
Brandi
I live in Chicago with my husband, and we don’t have a car either! I actually love it, though (as I’m sure you know) sometimes it’s a bit inconvenient. It makes us walk more though and I love that. We also love all the great food in the city — so many great amazing restaurants, 99% of which are unique to Chicago and not chains!
great pics, as always. you know how to work weheartit.com, girlfriend. ;)
I have lived in Seattle my whole life except when I was in college and one year which I spent in some Seattle suburbs. I LOVE living in the city. Seattle has a lot of great little neightborhoods that are almost like towns unt themselves. We have great restaurants and theatres, lots of good farmers markets throughout the city. The neighborhood I live in has a small town kind of feel but I have an outstading view of the Space Needle, downtown and the port. I love sitting in my room at night overlooking the city (I’m on the very top of a tall hill). The city lights are so beautiful and I can watch ferries come and go. I love it here!!