Dusk Through Narrow Streets

I think I mentioned before that I miss Norwich and in many ways it’s Anchorage that is making me miss it. Anchorage is fine, don’t get me wrong, and I like living here; it’s big enough to have reasonable opportunities (for entertainment, employment, friends, outdoor stuff, whatever), small enough to not be overwhelming. But it’s…very new, and very small as cities go. We just hit 300,000 last year and we’re the biggest city in Alaska, so as cities go…we don’t have much soul.

Maybe that’s a weird way to put it, but when I’ve visited cities before that I’ve fallen in love with, it was because I got a sense for the soul of the city. That usually rules out any city whose buildings were constructed mostly in the last fifty years, so Anchorage is definitely out, as was London in this case (I know London has old parts, I just couldn’t find any of them–I saw stuff like the Tower and Big Ben and Trafalgar Square, but virtually everything was so modern it was just boring). Katowice and Marseille had grafitti everywhere and odd courtyards and alleys and cobbled streets. They were kind of exciting and very different. Edinburgh was old, really old, and full of history…plus more cobblestones and alleys. Same for Norwich. And I just eat that stuff up. I love that sense of magic and mystery to a place when you know it’s really seen things. To some extent you can get that even in cities with predominantly modern architecture, at least if you find parts with grafitti on subway tunnels or something. There’s a beauty in the grit and ugliness.

Anchorage is fine, and it’s got mountains and trees and all, but as a city–it doesn’t have enough beauty and history to give it a soul, and it doesn’t have the right kind of ugliness.

Neither did Norwich, for the most part, but despite being roughly the same size as Anchorage if you included the surrounding area, it felt much…cozier. And it sure had a lot more history. (And cobblestone streets and little dark alleyways. Have you got the idea yet that I love those?) I miss that. But the specific thing I’m missing right now, which seems to show up a lot more often in Europe?

Outdoor bare-bulb light displays. I don’t even entirely know how to describe it. Particularly when they criss-cross over a street–this picture I took my last week in Norwich isn’t great (click to enlarge), but it gives you an idea. And I’m sure that sort of thing is done in the US, but I sure haven’t seen it in Anchorage, in part because…well, none of our streets are set up right for it. And I miss it, because it’s pretty, and I don’t see it here.