3Cs weblog

Well there are many thing we miss about Chapel Hill & NC (mostly you folks and other friends of course) or about the US, but there are some things that just can’t compare! Its our first time back in a big city after a while- and phew!! What a change in scale- and like ecologies of space or something like that- just a totally different way to inhabit an area.  We miss all the trees, but instead of having to walk 40 minutes to get our bread we have like 3 fresh bakeries within two blocks walking distance form our house!!  We can walk to the doctors and pediatrician! 

There are cool places to get coffee all over- on EVERY STREET!!! Plus the streets are windy- so you can randomly pick one and just get taken along…you can get lost or find yourself at home by accident!  We have great food nearby, bookstores, nearby- and what do you know…protests & pickets!! Instead of car pooling to a meeting in one place and then getting into a car again to go to an action or something…here there are marches just passing by our window. For example just this past month and only including those that passed by/near our house or that we ran into while taking the baby for a stroll or something:  Union pickets At two different stores over working conditions, back pay, etc.; an anarcho-syndicalist march against labor accidents;  a migrant rights/anti-racist march organized by immigrant organizations; the two large unions marching for better public services- this is all stuff we had little (or no) idea of. Or another example: this weekend- just within our neighborhood or immediately adjacent: a  two-day event/ encounter on precarity issues and struggles (two block from house); protest march against parking meters in poorer neighborhoods (??-apparently an issues that has blown up in the past year- a few blocks away);  urban eco-agriculture and CSA fest at a squatted social center; another social center that is moving locations with a bunch of activities around that; and of course people getting together to get ready for march 8^th- international women’s day. That’s all just in the neighborhood..! 

Anyway- no need to over idealize- nothing is ever as it sounds and this neighborhood might just be a quite special one- but anyway we thought it kind of interesting and cool.  You’ll all have to come visit soon!