A Girl With a Sword

finding the essential Omaha

The search continues. I walked around the Old Market/downtown area for forty-five minutes this morning before finally finding a decent coffee place--13th St. Coffee Company. It was a nice homey place, most of the customers between thirty and fifty, but some young professionals stopped in on their way to work. There was a nice loft area with beaten up, but comfortable chairs. The most promising place I've found yet. The rest of the downtown/Old Market area seems aimed mainly at tourists and is not trying to invite regular customers. Also, the buildings are low and many are empty. It's not well organized for pedestrians, either. I guess I can't ask Omaha to stop being Omaha and become Chicago or something . . . but it would be nice.

I discovered in my early morning wanderings that most places, including the library, don't open until around ten. I probably should have known that. I guess I've lived on a college campus too long.I also discovered that Omaha has two main music venues, The Ranch Bowl and Sokol Auditorium/Underground, both of which have mainly young bands with pictures of blood and/or skeletons on their posters.

After my coffee I wandered around a bit more and found a nice used bookstore with piles of books in odd corners and comfortable chairs placed in strange, but aesthetically pleasing places. I also discovered a couple of decent record stores. They mainly sell vinyl. Makes me think we should get a turntable for our Boston house. I felt kind of out of place browsing through the CD's. The prices for used CD's were rather exorbitant, though. The atmospheres were encouraging. The better of the two seemed to be The Antiquarium, which is also a used bookstore and an art gallery. The other one (I forgot its name) seemed to have the younger, hipper clientele.

So that was discovering Omaha this morning. I came home at lunchtime and watched Sideways, to make the experience of Omaha's cultural side complete.