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Residential real estate in Raleigh, N.C.

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Inside the N.C. Governor’s Mansion at Christmas

While the North Carolina Governor’s Mansion is a beautiful place every day of the year, it is spectacular when it’s dressed up for the holidays and full of visitors with live music performed by school groups from across the region. There’s always a Christmas tree decorated with artwork made by children of active-duty servicemen and servicewomen and another tree adorned with decorations important to our state such as cotton, cardinals, seashells, pine cones, dogwood flowers, and tobacco leaves. The mansion docents add so much extra detail, and the doormen give the experience an extra-special touch.

N.C. Governor’s Mansion
December 2012

 

 

 

2012 North Carolina Main Street Fire Parade

While the skies may have been gray, the faces in the crowd watching the North Carolina Main Street Fire Parade Saturday in Downtown Raleigh were happy and excited.  Bagpipes, flashing lights, and sirens on all types of fire trucks, new and old, made their way down Fayetteville Street in a very short parade as part of the 2012 South Atlantic Fire Rescue Expo.

That’s Life in Raleigh.

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St. Patty’s Run Green 8K

This was not just another wacky race in Raleigh.  Well, yeah, there were some…ahem…unusual outfits, shall we say, but there were no doughnuts involved.  Just things like green hair, tutus, striped kneesocks, green mustaches, kilts, and plenty of weird head ornaments.

The route of this race was through the heart of my neighborhood, Historic Oakwood.  The amazing sound of 2,000 runners running by my house is a hard one to describe.  My shoes, however, did not join in that pounding noise on the street.  I admit to sitting in a chair on my front porch watching the runners go by and providing encouragement from my couch potato position. Of course I was cheering on the St. Patty’s runners.  My name is Callahan, after all.

That’s Life in Raleigh.

The view from my porch
The view from my porch
pot of gold
Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

International Festival 2009

Were you at the International Festival in Raleigh’s new convention center this past weekend?  Thought so.  Judging by the size of the crowd, I don’t think anyone in town missed it.  And it was definitely an event not to be missed!

There were three stages of entertainment, with attentive audiences at each stage.  Hundreds of appreciative spectators filled the seats at the dance demonstration stage.  There were booths offering information and booths selling items from countries around the world,  even henna tattoos and belly dancing lessons!

And the smells!  The whole place smelled so delicious that it was difficult to decide which country’s menu to order from.  Fortunately for us, most of the menus at the food stands offered a selection of  inexpensive items, so that we didn’t have to choose after all, but instead enjoyed food from Bagladesh, China, Turkey, and Nepal.  What a treat to be able to sample authentic foods from so many different countries all in one place!

While I expected to see a diverse group taking part in the International Festival,  I was amazed by the incredible diversity of the festival-goers.  Raleigh has truly become a melting pot.

That’s Life in Raleigh.

Our Sir Walter Raleigh decked out for the 2009 International Festival.
Our Sir Walter Raleigh decked out for the 2009 International Festival.

SPARKcon……..wow!

SPARKcon 2009 transformed Raleigh into an amazingly cool place to be on a weekend in September.

SPARKcon is a grassroots event celebrating the creativity in our area –  the “creative hub of the south.”  And if you think Raleigh can’t possibly live up to such a weighty description, you obviously missed SPARKcon this year.  For four days, Downtown Raleigh was spilling over with proof of this creativity.  Music, art, dance, ideas, film, poetry…….

….fashion.  Did I mention fashion?  The fashion show on the stage in the middle of Fayetteville Street had to be a turning point for our fair city.  The loud, thumping beat, the large, appreciative crowd, the models whose hair and makeup were  closer to “Night of the Living Dead” than “Night in Raleigh, N.C.,” plus the designs being showcased had me murmuring that famous line about Toto and not being in Kansas anymore! Raleigh has graduated to the big time.

That’s Life in Raleigh…a big, happening city.

SPARKcon 2009
SPARKcon 2009

North Carolina Literary Festival

The N.C. Literary Festival was the place to be September 10-13, 2009, on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill, featuring 102 authors, including poets, crime writers, children’s authors, big names like John Grisham and R. L. Stine, and several Pulitzer-Prize winners.  The N.C. Literary Festival is held biennially and is organized and sponsored by the libraries of UNC, N.C. State, and Duke, with additional support from N.C. Central University.  The universities also take turns hosting the event.

This year’s host was UNC.  Wow, did they do a fantastic job.  While it goes without saying that the setting was beautiful, the whole event was also very well-organized, well-marked, and well-staffed by a large volunteer force.  There were even ice-filled tubs of bottled water free for the taking and, of course, plentiful recycling bins for the empties.

The 2009 Literary Festival billed itself as “a celebration of reading and writing,”  and a celebration it was.  The sessions were actually more like performances.  Authors were paired up for discussions that were engaging and entertaining, as well as educational and thought-provoking.  The  question-and-answer periods with the audience were a delightful part of the sessions, too.  Books were for sale onsite and the authors were signing books after each session.

Children had their own scene at this year’s Literary Festival.  It was easy to find kids excited about reading and writing in the special area for kids under 12, where there were tons of fun activities and many authors lined up to perform for this younger audience.  Local team mascots were roaming the venue, as well as book characters such as Clifford and at least one of the “Wild Things.”  Waving at them seems natural, doesn’t it, even when you’re not accompanied by a young child?

You could find something at the 2009 N.C. Literary Festival to make you laugh, make you cry, make you think, make your mouth water, and make your mouth hang open.  All of this, and it’s free and open to the public and will come around again in 2011.  Don’t miss it!

That’s Life in Raleigh.

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