Altstadt is a lovely little village comprised mostly of shops. I was able to rez a free cart for driving through the village too, nice for carrying lots of packages after a long day of shopping. It’s a delight to just walk (or drive) up and down the streets, ducking into buildings just to see what they have in them. For example, one of the buildings happened to be a nice pool hall, so I grabbed a cue stick and was soon racking balls. I played much better in SL than I do in RL!

On one end of the island is a small amusement park. Most of the venues appeared to be for rent, so this should be a happening place in a few weeks. There is a great gocart track there now though. Unfortunately, my driving skills have not yet improved, but maybe I’ll return to get in some more practice.

I discovered Yandi’s Junkyard today! It is newbie paradise, filled with tons of boxes full of a variety of items, and they’re all free! I am now the proud owner of thousands of things that I probably don’t need, but what fun! I found clothing, furniture, buildings, vehicles, decorations, animations….my goodness!

There’s also a free bazaar located on Stillman that was quite crowded while I was there. Not quite a large of a selection as the junkyard, but just as much fun! Now it’s going to take weeks to go through everything and clean out my inventory, but that’s half the fun too. I don’t think I’ll have any need for a marine outfit or garter belts in this world!

On my second day in Second Life, I noticed that many of the avatars around me had hairstyles and clothing that I knew were not in the default inventory, at least not any that I had found. In fact, all of us newbies looked a lot alike! I finally discovered that the options in changing appearance included hair length and color, so I gave myself a haircut and dyed it light blue. Then I changed my striped shirt to a tiedye and changed the jeans to purple crop pants. I was beginning to feel a little less conspicuous.

Then Tyna and I met Clare in the ISTE building. She was wearing a pretty blue dress and told us to go to Fragapini’s shop. Let the shopping begin! I found a new curly updo in several shades of blonde, a couple of new outfits, and some sneakers. One of my favorite finds was at a vintage clothes shop that was giving away a poodle skirt outfit with a donation to Relay for Life. I also picked up some shoes that gave me a new walk, more of a glide rather than a clumsy stutter step.

Hmmm, shopping in Second Life is even more fun than in Real Life, and a whole lot less expensive!