Sal will post something eventually, I just happen to be the one with lots of spare time.
America is typically very car dependent, as I am sure you are aware, so buying a car has been high on our agenda. I wanted something big, like the Ford I sold before I came here. This was vetoed by Sal, who wanted something small. Last week we thoroughly researched what cars were available in our price range and found a nice 2000 Hyundai Accent being sold by a dealer in Raleigh, which is the town next to Durham. Here is a picture of it.
The price was reasonable and it had done comparatively few miles. In North Carolina they have a thing called CarFax, which is a police record of vehicles, which said the car was not reported to have been involved in any serious accidents and had been well maintained. So yesterday we hired a car and drove down to Raleigh to look at it.
Considering the trouble I am having even crossing the road I had been anxious about driving here. It is about a 20 minute drive down the freewayto Raleigh. Both Sal and I took turns driving and I think we did surprisingly well. We didn’t turn into on-coming traffic or do anything else life threatening or stupid. We're both feeling vastly more confident about getting around now.
We found the car dealer and checked out the car. It was in amazingly good condition with no obvious problems. We took it driving and other than a slight steering wobble, which we think was due to low tyre pressure, it was fine. The dealership was in a light industrial area and had its own workshop. We reported the wobble to the dealer, a lovely and amusing woman named Missy, who put the car in to be fixed for no charge. Missy was very friendly, professional, organized and above all else not pushy at all! I am still a little suspicious. So we get the car on Tuesday.
Whilst waiting for the car to get sorted out we took the opportunity to look around Raleigh. The bit of down town we saw was depressing. Imagine Forrest Chase without any of the cafes or shops, just buildings and wide empty streets. It was 2 PM on a Saturday and we saw only a handful of people after walking around for two hours! From the cars on the street we could tell there were clearly plenty of people around, just not walking. After leaving Raleigh late in the afternoon we encountered streams of traffic just on the out-skirts of town as people were leaving something. What could it be? Perhaps a sporting event. No, sadly, it was a giant mall. So that's where everyone was. To work you have a CBD, to shop and hang-out you have a mall. Even our American friends say this gives them the s--ts.
In Raleigh we need to kill time and eventually found the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (http://www.naturalsciences.org/), which was apparently deserted from the outside but bustling with people on the inside. We were extremely impressed by the museum. The displays were excellent and very comprehensive. They even had a big display on evolution, which surprised me considering where we are.
After visiting Raleigh we spent the evening in Chapel Hill with some of Sal’s friends. Chapel Hill is another nearby town (for the record these places aren’t distinct towns any more than Midland is a town distinct from Perth). I like Chapel Hill, it is open and filled with restaurants and pubs. We had Mexican then headed to the Carolina Brewery, which is microbrewery. It was a good chance for me to get to know some of the other Duke graduate students. On the one had these guys are very intelligent, well travelled and well read, and on the other hand crazy (i.e. one was telling me he has ten guns, seriously).
Finally, we have sorted out the blog problems so here are the pictures we were promising.
This is our group of houses, ours is the one on the far left.
This is part of the Duke campus.
And this is the autumn forest that covers much of the landscape in and around Durham.
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