Steep learning curve

The bus system here is starting to make sense. But it took me 45 minutes of waiting for a bus at the wrong stop for me to really start to get it. Portland is based on a grid, with buses running along each major arterial and a few special buses to places like OHSU and the zoo. Rochester, on the other hand, is not a grid. It's more of a wagon wheel. Think Ladd's Addition on speed. But, the buses run along each spoke. And I am lucky enough to live on approximately one of the same spokes as my school.

From campus I can take buses around the rim of the wagon wheel (I haven't ventured beyond that yet, except via Zipcar) or downtown, which is the hub, or back home. Today I went from home to school to a cute area called Twelve Corners to downtown (past the best looking museum ever!) and back home. The bus between downtown and home goes through some of the sketchy part of town, but in the middle of the afternoon the bus itself felt perfectly safe. I won't be riding through there after dark, though. If only I had figured out that I could buy a day pass instead of paying my $1.25 each time I got on a bus (no transfers here) today would have been a complete success! As it was, I only wasted about $0.75 anyway. Not bad.

Beyond the buses, I've learned some more about Rochester. My neighborhood is to downtown Rochester what Tigard is to Portland. Pretty close to downtown, but still mostly suburban and not a lot of character. I did bus right through what is probably the Hawthorne District of Rochester today. It's called South Wedge, and it looks great. There's a swing dance in that area Wednesday night that I will hopefully be attending. Downtown looks like it'll be some fun to explore, but it's obvious that Rochester jumped the shark a few years ago and is in a bit of a slump. Lots of places out of business. Apparently this is mostly because the town relies entirely on Kodak. Imagine what it would do to Portland if people suddenly stopped using Intel's chips like they've stopped using film. Also, Portland is very very white. Replace every non-white person in Portland with a black person, then triple that population and you have an approximation of the racial distribution here. I kind of like the change. Oh, and New Yorkers know where their car horns are and aren't afraid to use them.

I'm sure there will be more observations on the difference between Rochester and Portland in the future, but for now let's move on. I found a bagel place with the best bagels I've ever had today. My next projects: find a coffee shop for studying, a weekly dance I like, and a bike shop. The bike shop will probably wait until I have an actual bike here. Which will probably be on Friday. Oh, and I have my first homework assignment. Because I got a Fuld Scholarship I will be doing a research project, probably involving real people. This means I have to read a book called "Protecting Study Volunteers in Research" and pass a test to prove that I'm not going to torture people. Having me read about the Nuremburg Doctor's Trial and Tuskegee syphilis study is a good way to make me appreciate all the hoops that I will have to jump through to get a study approved.

Tomorrow I'll be going to the Rochester Public Market and probably beginning my coffee shop hunt. This place looks like a good start. It might be a little too far away, but I'll find out how good or bad the bus ride is tomorrow.