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Scene In Detroit: Kids' Perspective On Big City Life

By Amelia Kanan, CBSDetroit Blogger

Detroit has artists, musicians, entrepreneurs with cool businesses, rehab building projects and international intrigue -- but guess what else it has? Detroit has....kids.

I wanted to get this highly underrated perspective on what it's like to spend time in the city and knew exactly who I needed to talk to.

Names: Olive and Ingrid

Relationship: Twin sisters

Ages: 6

Neighborhood: Woodbridge

After some heavy negotiations, Olive and Ingrid agreed to answer some of my questions about the city they know better than most. Sure, I had to promise them I would play in the rain, even though I was wearing a white shirt and short jean skirt, but it was well worth it. Although I couldn't capture any sound bites with my trusty recorder due to the rain, I was still able to get some excellent recommendations and a list of their favorites that might be helpful to you.

Favorite mode of transportation: "Bike!" And when they said bike, they meant sitting in the buggy that gets pulled by their dad and his bike.

Favorite Place To Play Outside (other then their front yard): "Murphy's Playlot" because "it has monkey bars." "My sister can only do three but I can do four," Olive quickly added, which gave her sister some guilt. "Well, this is super embarrassing but guess what? I've never been able to do any," I informed them, to save Ingrid the shame. "Not even one?!" They couldn't believe it and now I was embarrassed, "Well...yeah, maybe one..."

Favorite Place To Eat: Hot Taco. Why Hot Taco? "Because we drink orange pop there," was the answer, to which their father quickly corrected, "Mandarin Jarritos." He would hate to have the world think he was letting his kids drink high fructose corn syrup and food starch.

Favorite Thing About the DIA: "Drop-in Workshops" was the unanimous answer, without any hesitation. "Even grown-ups can make stuff," Olive graciously informed me, making sure I wouldn't feel excluded form the fun.

What about the MOCAD, is it cool? "Ohhh yeah, the MOCAD." They remembered, looking at each other. "They have puppets," Ingrid said proudly and Olive agreed but then also remembered, "Oh and Family Day!"

What's your favorite thing about your block? "Our friends." This prompted them to start naming a list of names, and then express curiosity as to what all those names were doing at that moment and why they weren't outside to play. So our interview ended and I got suckered into following the girls from house to house to see if anyone could play.

Huge thank you to Katherine Honzu and Peter Dalinowski for letting me pick the brains of their precious gems and put it on the Internet.

Amelia Kanan is freelance writer/photographer and a returning native of Detroit. A graduate of Columbia College in Chicago, she wrote for an Emmy nominated sketch comedy show and pursued her passion for documentary filmmaking in Los Angeles. An incomplete list of her loves: books, human rights, improv, the smell of new shoes, talking to strangers, libraries, France, yoga, furniture, music, sociology and pushing the limits.

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