Travel | Saint Andrews Hall | Detroit, Michigan

I love living in Michigan, being from Michigan and pretty much everything about my home state. My husband and I love to explore all the outdoor things along with some really cool cities. Obviously, Detroit is one of them. Don't listen to what people say about Detroit - Detroit is great. The city is full of people who are fighters and who are not giving up and it shows. There are SO many cool things happening in Detroit now, so you should probably give it a whirl.

photo courtesy of detroityes.com

Anyway, one of the things we love to do as a couple is attend concerts. One of our favorite venues to do this at is Saint Andrews Hall in Detroit. Built in 1907, Saint Andrews was originally the meeting place for the St. Andrew's Scottish Society of Detroit. This venue has three different meeting sites in one building; the Main Ballroom, The Shelter and The Burns Room.



The Main Ballroom, photo credit to saintandrewsdetroit.com

The Main Ballroom features a hardwood dance floor, a large bar and in-house sound and lighting. The Shelter has a private bar area, a stage, cabaret seating, DJ booth, red curtains and private rooms. The Burns Room includes hardwood floors, chandeliers, lounge furniture, a small raised stage and floor to ceiling windows overlooking Congress Street and the RenCen.

We absolutely love this site and it's one of Detroit's many historic buildings. If you ever get the chance to check it out, we couldn't recommend it more. Go Detroit!

Saint Andrews Hall has no idea who I am. I just love the historic building and genuinely enjoy attending concerts there. All thoughts and opinions are my own and I was not compensated in any way for writing this post.

High Five for Friday (link-up)

Greetings from Jacksonville, Florida! I am here visiting my sister and her family for the next two(ish) weeks! Let's get down to why we are all here, okay?

1. I live about an hour and a half away from Detroit, but love to go down and explore all that it has to offer. My fiancé and I went the Detroit Institute of Arts on Sunday and explored about 1/4 of what it had to offer. I wrote a whole blog post about it so if you want to learn more, check it out!

2. I am a huge library nerd. I try to get my picture taken outside of every library I encounter. As it turns out, the DIA is directly across the street from the main branch of the Detroit Public Library!

3. Along with our Detroit Adventure, we went to a film festival called Cinetopia. We viewed a documentary called Rich Hill and it was about rural poverty. We viewed the film at Detroits ONLY independent theatre, Cinema Detroit. When you pull into the parking lot it looks like an abandoned building but it is a fully operational (including concessions!) two screen cinema. Read more about this experience in the previous blog. 

4.

I flew down to Jacksonville and am staying for two weeks! The flights were uneventful and the clouds were looking marvelous!

5. Reunited with my nieces! I am so excited to spend the next two weeks w them, hanging out and experiencing life in the sunshine state!

Experience | Cinetopia & Cinema Detroit

Cinema Detroit is Detroit's ONLY independent movie theatre, and over the weekend they were participating in a film festival, Cinetopia. It is located on Cass Ave in the former Burton International School building. It looks like an abandoned building on the outside, but once you pull into the parking lot you will see a flashing sign that says "Theater."

You will follow the theater signs through a cement courtyard with hanging lights, and you will imagine how idyllic and peaceful that probably looks at night. Then you will turn another corner and find this Cinema Detroit sign awaiting you.

Cinema Detroit is open 7 days a week, with a schedule that varies depending on movie start times. There is a full service concession stand, with pop, popcorn and candy. Doors open 30 minutes before the scheduled start time, and there are 2 screens that show films. You can visit the website (posted below) or call 313.281.8301 for daily show times. I have only been in the downstairs theater room, and it does not have stadium seating. That is not a deal breaker for me, but if it is something that concerns you just make sure you get there with enough time to snag a front row seat. The seats do not go right up to the screen, they are back quite a bit which is great -- especially if you need one of those front row seats. There is nothing worse than having to look UP at the screen to watch the film.


Now the reason we were even at Cinema Detroit at 4:30 on a Sunday afternoon is because of Cinetopia. Cinetopia is a film festival in southeastern Michigan that shows films that were selected because of the high acclaims made at more prestigious film festivals (sundance, SXSW, cannes, etc).  This year Cinetopia launched off with a fancy, invite only, party at DIA with Spike Lee. Films were showing in Detroit and Ann Arbor all weekend long -- 110 screenings, 50 films and at 10 different venues. If you want to learn more about Cinetopia you can visit the website (link below).

 At a lot of the screenings, the cast/crew were available for a q/a session and there were discussions to be had after the film. At our particular one, a professor of Social Work from the University of Michigan was present and led us in a talk that was interesting, to say the least.We were there to see the film Rich Hill, which I will write an entire different blog post about, including the talk after -- so be on the lookout for that.

I believe Clarence and I want to purchase weekend passes for next year, and we definitely plan on going to see more films at Cinema Detroit. It is awesome to see some of those stunning buildings downtown being put to good use!

Learn more about Cinema Detroit!

Learn more about Cinetopia!

Review | Rich Hill Film (Documentary)

Rich Hill is a documentary about rural poverty. It follows three boys, who live in Rich Hill, Missouri -- about 70 miles outside of Kansas City. The boys vary in age; Appachey is a middle schooler and Andrew and Harley are high schoolers. 

This documentary follows them for over a year, documenting the trials and tribulations they face. Appachey is a very discontent young boy, he appears to have lots of siblings and a mom who is overwhelmed. He often is alone, and states that he has no hope for his future. Andrew and his family move around a lot. During the duration of the film, they move three times. His mom has a "condition" and she is often taking sleeping pills and the film shows Andrew having to care for her. Harley's mom is in prison for attempting to kill her husband when it came out that he had raped Harley. Harley lives with his grandmother and is often truant from school.

We had a discussion after the viewing of the film, which we saw during Cinetopia in Detroit. The discussion was led by a professor of social work from university of michigan. After watching the film, I felt sad. Sad at the cycle these families are stuck in, sad at the system that fails them, sad for the children who feel so hopeless already. 

Our viewing partners appeared to be mostly urban residing, and placed a lot of the blame for these families situations on the parents and on "the system". They were also quick to point that at least these children were white, so they didn't have the additional difficultly of racial injustice.

While it is real easy to place blame on the parents, what is important to remember is that a lot of the resources that are available in urban areas, are not at the hands of people in rural areas. Services such as food banks, community centers, income based child care, housing assistance and shelters just aren't as present in rural areas. Not to mention, public transportation. I felt Iike a lot of assumptions were being made.

The film was heartbreaking, but very real. Poverty is NOT just present in an urban setting -- nor is racial injustice. Some of the poorest areas in our country are rural and mostly populated by minorities (thinking of the delta region in the south).