This entry is primarily directed toward our exchange student-to-be, Nina, but for others out there, it gives some views of Perinton and Fairport village - suburbs of Rochester, NY.
Although this is a a photo essay, it does not pretend to be "deep photography". Indeed, this entire gallery was taken on a somewhat delayed trip to buy some chocolate at Wegmans!
OK - Perinton. 40,000 people live in Perinton. Let's start here:
Perinton is a township. What is a township, you ask? Well, at least in this part of the country, you start with hamlets (smallest), then villages, then cities. These are shaped whatever they are shaped like (often sort of roundish), and pretty much match up with the similarly named things in Europe. Multiple villages and cities in turn sit inside of townships - which are generally rectangular shaped areas, each with its own local set of officials and local government. Multiple townships are divided into counties, and then multiple counties are divided into states, of which there are fifty (although it would be OK with me if Texas were to split off into a country by itself).
OK, glad we got that straight! Well, the best place to start is home - so here is the front and back of the house to give you a feel for it:
No, the dog Anya is not trying to eat anyone, it was hot out and she was panting! The only thing she eats is tennis balls (or at least she tries), dog food, and carrots.
The house was too messy to take pictures of inside, but here is the living room - a very cool room with lots of light. Sort of like a treehouse!
We pretty much live in the woods, but on a road with other houses. This is a picture of our street (our house is to the left),
And this is the end of the road where the school bus stop is. I wish it was warm, green and lush like this all year - but I'm sure it feels differently when the sun is rising over the newly fallen snow in the middle of the winter (while waiting for the bus...)... Oh well.... back to summer...
Speaking of school, here is Fairport High School. I won't lie -- it is way bigger than the picture shows, but far too scary if I show the whole thing!
Now just a few pictures of the Fairport. I know this gets confusing, because Fairport is a village located inside the town of Perinton. So think "little city of 5,000 people". This village lies on the famous Erie canal. Here is a shot of the canal to give you the general idea. Less than 80 years ago I think there were still horses pulling barges of goods down this canal.
Although much of Perinton is quite modern, Fairport has a bit of an older, more intimate feel to it. Less than 100 meters from where I took the picture above, here was someone's back yard - OK, not everyone's back yard looks this pretty and rustic (often the are just mowed lawn with a wooden deck and chairs), but I just liked the juxtaposition of this next to the canal:
But back to the Canal. You can't have a canal without boats. I thought this one looked kind of cool -- it is a real "work boat" that was being used to perform repairs to a bridge in downtown Fairport:
Next (again, remember I was taking this while driving to the grocery store), I thought I should take a picture of a typical suburban neighborhood. Suburbs are a pretty foreign concept to anyone who has not been in the US. In Europe, if you exclude the largest cities, you pretty much have a large, densely populated city, and then at the edge suddenly the houses thin out until you have country again.
In the US, it works somewhat differently. Since everyone lives around their cars, distance is not a major problem. As a result, you have a city, which although it has quite a few people, more and more it is where all the businesses and some shops are. But often the people with more money don't actually live there. You have a large road system going into this city, and then smaller towns and villages pop up within about 30 km of the city. But in some cases you don't even have a village - instead you have a large area of houses and shopping centers and schools to support them. They become small, independent communities with no real "need" for a city. THIS is a suburb, and a good percentage of Americans live in one.
Our house itself is really in the country, not in a classic suburb. However, here is a typical upper-middle class suburban street and houses just to get an idea on what they are:
Well, here my trip ends. I have arrived at one of the most common destinations in the Rochester area, Wegmans food markets. These don't look very impressive from the outside, but they are great markets, and they started here in Rochester. They have also been voted in the past as the "#1 Best place to work in the United States". But, I will save this for another story!
All done!
