My first impression of the city was pretty bad, both because it took us over twelve hours of traveling and the use of every type of transportation (excepting ferry, bicycle, and donkey) to finally get to our hotel. I was exhausted and a bit grumpy and the city looked really, really scary. Of course, the train from Boston down to Providence doesn't get anywhere near the nice parts of either state, so despite all the pretty trees (there are so many pretty trees!), the only residential areas I saw looked depressing and unpleasant.
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After arriving at the Providence train station, we hiked to Kennedy Plaza--the primary bus station downtown, which is actually a huge area that seems devoted only to buses and the city hall. (Note: These pictures were taken two days after we arrived, after the sun decided to join us. Upon our arrival, the city was dark, cold, drizzly, and frankly unwelcoming. It also seemed filled with unfriendly and questionable characters. I wasn't exactly in the mood to look past all this and appreciate the city's natural beauty, I'm sorry to say.)
(Standing in front of the city hall, looking toward the seven different bus lanes.)
(Standing in front of city hall, looking left. I love the contrast between old-ish buildings and new-ish buildings.)
(Obligatory tall building shot. More old/new dichotomy.)
(The statues framing city hall mean business.)
(Standing in front of city hall, looking right. The train station is back that way a few blocks.)
(I'd be reading if I were stuck there, too.)
After waiting in the drizzle for forty-five minutes, we finally caught a city bus down to the rental car place. Unfortunately, this particular bus followed the All The Shady Parts Of Providence route, causing my impression of the area to shift from depressing and unpleasant to run-down outskirts of Houston.
The conversation between two of our fellow bus-riders didn't help that impression. Yikes. But my bad impression was not to last for long!
Because Ashers was able to help show us that the city is not as ugly and depressing as it first seemed! In fact, both the land around Providence (read: Rhode Island) and specific parts of Providence itself are gorgeous. The trees, the harbor, the ocean, the fog, the tons of strange-looking (to me) flowering bushes, the parks. And the houses are adorable! Primarily Victorian-ish (er, I know nothing about New England architecture, fyi), they range from shabby but cute to jaw-droppingly beautiful. Even in the really ghetto parts of town (we found a congregation of young men wearing gang colors a few nights ago! Super exciting!), the houses are just so cool. And in the nice neighborhoods, the streets are lined with trees and flowering bushes and tall black iron streetlights, and occasionally dotted with little park benches. I think I nearly ran straight into disaster (pole, tree, pothole, oncoming car) a dozen times just this afternoon because I was staring everywhere except for directly in front of me. So pretty.
(A flowering bush! Do we even have these in Texas?)
And the RISD campus is just as beautiful, and just as full of lovely architecture.
(Walking from the car to the admissions office.)
(Whatever that is, it's beautiful.)
(Leaving the admissions office through its front courtyard.)
(Clock tower! Flowering trees!)
(Andrewface!)
RISD is located on College Hill--which would lead you to believe that the campus is on a hill instead of a mountain. Don't be fooled. College Hill puts Texas State's hills to shame. Andrew will have thighs of steel before the first semester's over.
The people on campus are so nice. Andrew, Ashers and I stopped by the admissions building (which looked like an old mansion) so he could pay his matriculation fees, and the lady who took his money had a lot of friendly advice for us--including insider's info on vets in the area--and told us to call her whenever we like if we have more questions.
(Pretty tree outside of the admissions office's entrance!)
We stopped by the student housing office next, and the lady there not only said the same thing, but called the security officer at the RISD library and told him that he should let us in to explore the building; you need a student ID to get in otherwise. Everyone we've met has been very helpful and kind.
(As a side note, the library is tiny but filled with cool architectural features. It takes up a little less than half of the first floor of the building pictured below. Also on the first floor is a cafeteria; everything above the first floor are dorms. Despite the library's tiny size, I can't wait to steal Andrew's ID card to get in whenever I want!)
(City hall and Kennedy Plaza are about two or three blocks away from this building, if you take the street alongside it to the right...)
(...and if you took a left instead, you'd end up swimming. College Hill is off to the left even further!)
True, the crime rate is quite high here. True, the drivers should all have their licenses revoked. True, the civil engineers who designed the roads and road signs should be taken out back and shot.* But I'm already becoming fond of the place.
*Highway lanes merge without any warning whatsoever. Or the warning is posted exactly above where the lanes merge, so it's not actually a warning, just a "Hey, welcome to this newly-merged lane!" Sometimes the sign tells you the lanes are about to merge, and then they don't merge. Often, two on-ramps will merge together without any kind of yield sign between them and then that merged lane will merge onto the highway. In fact, yield signs seem to be pretty sparse around these parts. Which is incredibly scary, especially when you and fifty other cars are speeding up onto a merged on-ramp. Oh, speaking of speeding. Highway speed limits range from 50 to 55, although I think I've seen a 60 several miles south of Providence. But these are more guidelines than limits. No self-respecting Rhode Islander will drive any less than ten miles above the speed limit. Including the cops. In fact, cops don't seem to pull anyone over even when they're flying by at fifteen over the speed limit. This would be all well and good, except that the roads are riddled with bumps and potholes and poorly-marked lanes, resulting in a pretty exhilarating experience every time we get in the car.
But we've already figured out how these crazy roads tend to work, and we're both careful drivers. I think we'll be okay.
In all: I had a bad impression of the area at first, but now I've decided it's really quite charming. Especially if you don't take the city bus through the wrong parts of town.
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