OK, I'm a little late on reporting my exciting weekend of Biddeford excursions. I was being lazy in getting the pictures off the camera and onto the computer...but hey, better late than never right?
So, after my long day Friday, I swung through campus to pick up my friend and we headed to downtown Biddeford. For those of you who haven't lived in Biddeford your entire life (like Amanda and I) you may always feel like you have to go to Portland to do anything cool and exciting, but this is not the case!
You just have to think outside the box a bit...and you'll have a great time.
Main Street Biddeford is host to a handful of really cool, unique restaurants. Such as Bebe's Burritos
A few other places include Thai Siam, The French Quarter, the Jewel of India, Loose Moose Cafe, Happy Dragon, and Union Coffee House....and excuse me if I forgot anything else.
My friend Amanda and I at Bebe's! We are STARVING...but jamming out to some great jazzzzz.
A lot of the local places will have musical entertainment on the weekend nights. Although its not like heading to the Civic Center to see Barenaked Ladies, it is still awesome. Friday's music at Bebe's was a jam session featuring jazz vocalist Chris Humphrey Mexican food may not necessarily scream jazz music, but hey it works.
We had another hour after we finished dinner before Amanda's friend Kate rolled in on the AmTrak, so we headed down the street to the Loose Moose Cafe. There we had some hot coffee and sweet desert while listening to another musician. Loose Moose is a neat new place and is supporting our bad habit of coffee and sweets...but on Tuesdays they offer 1/2 all appetizers for UNE students! So we like to support them anyway.
After picking up Kate, I headed home because Saturday was a big day for me!
UNE Friends and Family weekend had arrived and UNE always has a craft fair during the day on Saturday. It is free to all faculty and staff who would like to display and sell their wears. This summer, I started making tote bags and decided to participate in this year's fair.
It was a great turn out of friends and family! I saw tons of people walking through the Campus Center lobby checking things out and supporting the artist. I was able to sell 3 totes, and the more I talk about them, the more people are wanting them!
That night for Friends and Family Weekend, Activities Programming Board was host to a Casino Night in the Campus Center. As fun as that sounds, I had a different agenda. In a brief history of Biddeford, I can tell you it was once a mill town, and now there is just a bunch of abandoned mill buildings between the cities of Biddeford and Saco. Well, there is one man who has proposed an idea to make use of those buildings. Saturday night, he and a group of citizens organized Milling About Again. It was to promote his idea as well as celebrate all the artists and businesses in the area. Local restaurants were there serving food, artists had their work up for sale, the few retail stores in the mill currently were open for business and people were sharing their thoughts on the wall of poetry...
The turn out of people made me so excited and proud of my little city. With any hope, the proposal will be approved and this vision will help Biddeford grow back into the bustling down town it really once was. If it goes through the now empty buildings will be host to businesses, art studios, restaurants, fitness facilities, grocery store and housing. All within walking distance from everything you would ever need and the train that connects our world to Boston. It was great to see all the citizens that were turning out for the cause. And if I were a rich grown up, not a poor college student, I would have happily supported the artists by buying their work! (I just stole some of their ideas instead!)
Yeah, it was an exciting weekend...and that didn't even include Sunday.
But Sunday God created for homework, so that is what I did.
Stay tuned for more exciting adventures!!!
