First impressions...

I arrived in Louisville in the early hours of Monday morning, following a moderately horrendous journey. Technical difficulties with our intended aircraft led to a 3 hours delay in departure, which led to a 4 hour delayed arrival in Chicago, which meant too many flights arriving at the same time for immigration, which took 2 horus to clear, which led to comedy half running through Chicago airport to get to the last flight to Louisville, which was then of course ... delayed. I won't go on too much about then flying into a storm in a small plane which had so much turbulence it left the woman next to me crying and praying. But needless to say, after my total 27 hours journey time, I have been taking it gently and giving all my joints a good rest and chance to acclimatise.

That said, I had a pootle around the downtown area of Louisville yesterday, and found it to have a very gentle elegance and style all of its own. There are some fine civic buildings and wide open boulevards, that give it the feel (at least to my cultchie eye) of a much larger city. There is a great selection of museum and galleries all clustered on Main Street that agian, seem luxurious for a city of this size. On the other hand for a city that stands so proudly on the banks of the Ohio river, there seems to be very little made of the waterfront. As I discovered when following what semed like to logical route on the map from Main Street to the Belle of Louisville, and ended up practically wading through the muddy underpass - much to the amusement of passing motorists. (Those sandals will never be right again!)

Today I have a little more sightseeing, before starting interviews and observations in earnest on Wednesday. Have a good day y'all y'hear.