Gainesville

One of my biggest hesitations to committing to five plus years of graduate school at the University of Florida was the location. I was not keen on moving to Gainesville, but now that I have been here for 10 months, I have found the town has been growing on me, especially now that I've relocated to a neighborhood I really like. I've been going to the Farmer's Market recently, dancing regularly, attending live performances on occasion, and recreating some. And today I went blueberry picking at an organic farm not too far out of town. I absolutely love blueberries, so this is another big plus for living here. (And as a side note, for those of you who were in the Peace Corps and know about neem trees, the owner said one of the ingredients of her organic fertilizer and pest deterrent is neem.) I plan to go again before I leave for Costa Rica in June, and next weekend, there is a blueberry festival south of here that I'm planning to check out.

This realization that Gainesville has its quaint aspects coincides with the recent release of the book Cities Ranked & Rated: More Than 400 Metropolitan Areas Evaluated in the U.S. & Canada. Guess what? Gainesville, FL is number one based on a formula evaluating nine different categories of rankings. Who would have thought?