Albany seems alright

Wowow. Albany Law School!
Today, I took my first official tour of Albany via my house-hunting route.
The city is peculiar. The Village Voice stand-in, Metroland, promotes a lot of art and culture. Parks and lakes are oft-encountered. The Hudson is a familiar presence, a a symbolic and direct route to New York City. Internships are promised to be numerous.

The city was quiet on this hot summer day. Every now and then, I saw a jogger or a biker. Men sitting on stoops, cars traversing deserted streets. Many buildings are ancient and grand, others more contemporary, but just as gigantic. The suits walking around downtown remind me of the importance of the city center.Everything is neat, and tidy, and beautiful, and regal, and well-maintained. And the more I see of it, the more I suspect that the whole of Albany is a mask: a firm, trimmed and airbrushed face, posing in its role as the capital of New York. I will have to pay close attention to this phenomena. What exactly is this city?

I have a room now. It's extremely roomy. It has a balcony. It's probably the best room in the house. However, it's on a second floor of a second rate house, 'lorded by what appears to be a second rate politician/chatterbox/gossip-monger. The only other room occupied on my floor is our "floor team leader", the designated utility bill collector. Out of the four neighbors living on the first floor, two are married, two might be illegal immigrants, one is a computer genius and one has a baby cat who is "her life", according to gossip.* And of course, according to the same source, we have a physician's assistant as our neighbor, just "in case you want to marry a doctor" or something.

My landlord gave me my room at a discount of over $100. However, I can see that he is going to use me get other hard-working, bill-paying, "charming", non-drug addicts. Just like he touted the horn on my neighbor, the future doctor, I can see the words "ah, yes, future lawyer, always at the library, quiet, blah blah blah" forming on the tip of his lips.

He also would love for me to have my girlfriends and study buddies over in our little "community within a community". I have to check in with him and the house when I want my boyfriend to sleep over though.

This place might be nuts.
The rent is month to month, thank the lord.


*Groups can be mutually inclusive.