A Law Student’s View of Spending the Weekend as a tourist in Nebraska
08 Oct, 2012
As a new writer here, allow me to tell you a little about myself by taking you through my weekend as a tourist in the great city of Omaha, and a resident of the smaller city of Lincoln.
First, I’m a born and raised Nebraskan. I grew up in the splendid city of Omaha and am accustomed to all its wonders of being the biggest city in this great state. But allow me to fast forward to today. Currently I reside in Lincoln as I finish out my final year of law school. This weekend my boyfriend of about 4.5 years came into town for a visit. Kevin and I met in undergrad at a small school outside of Oklahoma City. Upon graduation, he moved back home to Denver until I finish up my law degree here and we can decide where the next step of our journey will take us.
Back to the present.
This weekend, Kevin’s visit included a bike ride through Lincoln ending at the Haymarket farmers market As an Omaha native, I was less than thrilled about moving to Lincoln for school. The two things that really won me over were the amazing bike paths here, and the farmers market. I even had my own booth there a year ago, but that is for another day. We took the bike path by the children’s zoo, all the way down to the haymarket.
You haven’t really experienced Lincoln until you’ve been downtown on a game day. Kevin laughed every time a fan chanted “Go BIg Red” on the streets, which was then followed by a return chorus of “Go Big Red” by the strangers passing by. The sea of red will bring out any native Nebraskan’s pride.
Our next tourist stop was the Sunken Gardens. In my opinion, it may be one of the most unique things about Lincoln. It is an absolutely breathtaking garden, which you would barely notice driving by if you weren’t looking for it. To think that the city of Lincoln took so much pride in their garden, even during this summer’s drought, it gave me a new respect for the city.
For our next stop, we ended up back in my Omaha. You just cannot be a tourist in Omaha without stopping by the Zoo. Since I’m not much of an Omaha tourist, it had been about 2 years since I’d been to the zoo. If you haven’t been there in a while, I highly suggest you go. I can’t believe the renovations they’ve made (especially to my favorite exhibit- the jellyfish) And during this summer heat, you can’t go to the zoo without catching an Imax.
For our final stop before taking Kevin back to the airport, we went to the old market. We spoke of our dreams of renting a small loft apartment in the farmers market, only to have them crushed by the high prices of such a small place. Maybe someday we will be moving into one of those cozy little spaces, but not this year.
What is your favorite tourist stop in Nebraska? I realize I only covered small portions of the tourist stops in only two of the cities in Nebraska, so this is just a small taste of my favorite tourist stops!
We have a new writer this morning. Meet Kitty, a student in Lincoln studying to become an attorney! ~Heather