Here’s a look at how things turned out with Governor Bev Perdue’s participation in the Plant a Row for the Hungry program. These beauties were harvested shortly before the holidays.
Update on the Governor’s Cabbage Patch
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Raleigh is decked out in holiday finery and ready for company.
The weekend of December 12-13 was a big one in the Downtown Raleigh area featuring beautiful holiday decorations and live music by local performers. There was the annual Historic Oakwood Candlelight Tour, the holiday open house at the Governor’s Mansion, and the holiday open house at the N.C. Capitol Building.
The elaborate decorations at the Governor’s Mansion take six months of planning, and it takes 15 people four days to put them up! One of the Christmas trees is a tree decorated with items special to North Carolina and its people. It’s covered in dogwood flowers, pine cones, cardinals, seashells, acorns, and sanddollars. Another special tree is decorated with more than 650 ornaments made by the sons and daughters of N.C. military service personnel.
Walking around and taking in the sights this time of year is always a satisfying family activity. And a chill in the air just seems to add the finishing touch.
That’s Life in Raleigh.
Picture This: The North Carolina Capitol at Christmas
Picture This: The N.C. Governor’s Mansion
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.
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.
