Mill Pond

I think I've recently had another 'living under a rock' moment, but here goes... I found a nifty place called Mill Pond. After googling it, and finding lots of blog references, I began to see that Mill Pond as been around SL for quite some time. It's a residential/commerical community, but manages to succeed where others fail. It includes brownstone apartments, apartments above shops and shops for literature, an internet cafe/cheese bar, a tavern and the Cafe Latte. The Cafe Latte has a traffic rating between 13,000 and 15,000. At any given moment there are at least 10-15 people...and often 3x that. The atmosphere is really friendly, everyone chats with anyone around. I didn't feel any cliques, just people talking and socializing. And, unlike information and help island hubs, Mill Pond wasn't diluged with new residents still trying to figure it all out. I noticed the majority of these people are well-established residents, several born in 2004 and 2005. I love talking to the '04 and '05ers, they usually have lots of wisdom and stories to share. The Tavern was empty every time I visited. But walking around the pond yesterday I noticed there were NO residential rentals available. Toward the other end of the pond, I stopped in at the Cheese Bar, which offered me a handful of laptops to choose from, each streaming a different SL blog. The blog of the week at Cheese Bar is Vint Falken's, but also available are the Avastar, NWN, Grid Status, and several others. The second floor of the Cheese Bar is a small 'museum' of slide shows containing historical Mill Pond photos. Having stumbled upon Mill Pond by accident, (my search was for China, of all places), I'm pleased to say that I've talked to many interesting people this week and made 2 new friends! If you are looking for good conversation, minimal grief/bling/annoying behavior and/or a place to people-watch, check it out!