Albany

My best friend lives here. I want to see her new house. It’s weird having her live in place where I’ve never been.

Its close to the city, and we stopped by to play a show here, also stopped by when we were in Athens. I want to get back and see more of the town.

About renting an apartment:

Don’t rent from Empire Property Management or any listing with the phone number: 518-432-RENT. You will never get your security deposit back unless you go to court. They’re not the landlords, just a business who “handles” the tenants so that landlords don’t have to speak to you. If the landlords knew half of what went on, they’d take their business elsewhere. They also lie about stuff that’s in the lease and have all kinds of tactics to keep your money. A really nasty bunch.

I hope that this helps apartment hunters.

I live about 30 minutes away and have been going there pretty frequently for the past 20 years of my life. New York State Museum is great. There’s a lot of really good pizza places, and Madison/Quail is full of college kids and frat parties. There’s a show at Valentine’s practically every night. There used to be a lot of cool venues but they all closed down.
Albany is basically awesome when you think about it, a lot of people don’t give it the credit it deserves.

of course I am going to like it. Albany is small enough that people care, but big enough that if you piss of one friend, you can easily make another. Not that I do that, often. Visiting Albany must include downtown weekdays to people watch (free wi-fi hotspots so you won’t look like a stalker), iEAR at RPI, Lark Street (cool but I HATE that ‘we’ call it Albany’s Greenwich Village), Albany Institute of History and Art, Last Vestige Music Shop, Professors Java’s Coffee Shop, The Bookhouse, NYS Museum. In summer Park Playhouse-Washington Park, Central Park, Riverfront, Empire State Plaza, Central Park-lots of free music shows. in winter-ice skating at Swinburne, Capitol Rep, UAlbany Museum, aforementioned museums. Plus with a quick drive you can visit Olana, Yaddo, Saratoga and many, many more. Contact me for better info if you plan on a visit.