Monday, June 1, 2009

Scenes from... Bloomington, Indiana

Love the symmetry of the strawberries at the farmers' market:

The farmers' market was sprawling:


We were really disappointed that the Chocolate Moose was closed:


We had a great time at the library's book store:


Here's the haul of books we got there for under $7!


We didn't eat there but we liked how it looks like Samira restaurant has been there for awhile:



The wonderful Book Corner store:





Buskirk-Chumley theater:



We haven't been to Bloomington very many times but we sure love it every time that we go. How can you not love a town that is small but still manages to be eclectic (and have so many of those ethnic restaurants that we love)? We had a fun Saturday there that started off at their very big and busy Bloomington Community Farmers' Market. Not only was there a ton of produce, herbs, and flowers but high caliber things to eat right away like the delicious tamale we had. It is obviously the place to be on spring and summer Saturdays. We enviously gawked at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater which has a showing of The Maltese Falcon coming up AND a Steve Earle concert. If only we had known about that Steve Earle concert a little earlier, darn it! We also really enjoyed browsing at The Book Corner (100 N. Walnut 812.339-1522). They just seemed to have a selection of magazines and books that really appealed to us including lots of Indiana-centric books, cute little Dover sticker and tattoo books (we got a travel sticker book and a classic movie posters one). Thee had a great selection of pop-up books too including The Pop-Up Book of Nightmares and various Marvel pop-up books.



We then completely lucked into a sale at the Monroe County Public library. We once went to a sale that the Marion County library had but, honestly, it was way to zany for us to ever repeat the experience. This one was smaller but saner and Mrs. WYA! completely scored on some classics to help her with her goal of reading more. They also had a paperback of Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness which we were glad to find. This isn't the kind of book Mrs. WYA! would normally be drawn to (she actually would never even look in the sci-fi section) but it was mentioned in the recently viewed movie The Jane Austen Book Club so she was curious about it. To top it off, it had a broken spine (but was still in one piece) so it was FREE! You can click the above picture of the library's book store information for details on their sales and/or check out the Friends of The Library's webpage.



All in all, a lovely day in Bloomington. As we continue to try to figure out where exactly we belong (another neighborhood, another city) we are going to keep this cool town in mind. We'd love to hear thoughts from anyone who has lived there or is living there currently.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read The Left Hand of Darkness ages ago...I was on a sci-fi binge and was using a book called The 100 Greatest Science Fiction Novels ever. LHD was on it. Quite good if I remember correctly.

Enjoy!

WYA! said...

Cool- it is next up on my reading list.

R. said...

I went to college at IU and loved living in Bloomington. Great restaurants, plenty of cultural events, and proximity to both Brown County and Lake Monroe. Pretty much perfect!

Unknown said...

Very cool. My wife and I took a weekend down there a few months ago. A lot of good food and we enjoy walking about... This post was a nice reminder of the city I called home for....5 years!!

Anonymous said...

You might enjoy Taste of Bloomington coming up on 6/20
http://www.visitbloomington.com/microsites/index.cfm?action=Cover&meetingid=20