Marco and Polo Say Goodbye... To Flint

Marco and Polo here,

   This week we say goodbye to our city, a place we have lived for the last four and a half years.  For those of you who haven't solved the great mystery of where this friendship and this blog was born and have managed to completely miss the extremely subtle hints,  we say goodbye to Flint.  For our readers out there who have never been here Flint is an old city with a lot of history and though in recent years it has taken hits, and trust us those hits show all over the city, this city has character, a personality.  As we thought of just how to express the soul of a city and better yet how to say goodbye to a home we decided to let the city speak for itself.  After all a picture's worth a thousand words:

Flint has a very rich history,  history whose roots are entangled in the very heart of General Motors (GM)

A stones throw from campus stands this
memorial reminding people of this history

Welcome to Flint, Vehicle City

A city where downtown still has a red brick road

Where the churches are masterpieces in their own right 

Where ads are a part of the city itself

Where a giant glowing ball in the sky
can predict the weather, using a rhyme of course:
When the weather ball is red, higher temperatures ahead.
When the weather ball is blue, lower temperatures are due.
Yellow light in weather ball means they’ll be no change at all.
When colors blink in agitation, there’s going to be precipitation.

And where despite everything the people have seen,
trust can still be found

A city is not built solely on its history and landmarks, a city is nothing without the places that bring people together.  Places that for us, and our stomachs, were a comfort and break from the insanity of college.

Westside Diner is something you can only find in Flint, Marco and Polo have spent many a lunches, or breakfasts, or dinners, in their fifties style booths

Of course what is a city without its people?  The people in Flint are what give this city its character, its soul.  While Marco and Polo do in no way condone graffiti as a form of vandalism (or any type of vandalism) there is no way to live in Flint and not see how graffiti can express the soul of a city and bring buildings to life. 

The Flint Block, an icon in Flint always covered in different paint designs and messages

This is our city, a city of history, of art, of flavor, a city of people.  It is all of these things that you must remember when you hear all the dark things about Flint because hidden beneath the shadows this city has soul.  After all "happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light"  (thank you J.K.Rowling for teaching us all the important lessons in life).

Stay Nerdy,
Marco and Polo