Day 6: North Carolina State University (Raleigh)

North Carolina State is the place with the intriguing tech writing Master's program. After a late start, I spent the late afternoon following a guided walk through the campus. Thunderstorms arrived as promised; while I was enjoying listening to the thunder, I was hoping that the buildings had lightning rods -;) My knee kept on seizing up too, so I wound up holing up and resting it in odd, dry little corners. The walk was enjoyable, but it was also...long. But I finished it.

I liked the university. While it had the same bricks-and-trees mix as elsewhere, it had a nice balance between the old and the new. It also had some idiosyncratic things such as the Strolling Professor (statue of a professor walking and reading), the Free Expression Tunnel (a graffiti-filled tunnel), and the Listening Vessels (chamber in which you can hear the person in the other Listening Vessel). To wax a little metaphysical, I liked the energy of the place.

I had originally planned to go to the University's Arboretum, but it had gotten way too late. After completing the walk, I hung out for a while using up the film in my other camera, and grabbed a bite to eat, waiting for the traffic to clear out. The person at the pizza place assumed that I worked at the University. That's the second time someone assumed that I was from the area. (Well, I suppose that there's no reason why I wouldn't be.)

Then I went home. And thus concludes the trip because I fly back tomorrow. I'm glad; I'm really tired, and running around exploring was starting to seem less like fun and more like work. I'm craving a day to sleep in and do nothing. (Well, I can do nothing on the plane.)

The upshot is that while I could live here if I had a compelling enough reason to do so, I don't think that it's a really good fit for me. (The trip did what it was supposed to do.) I'm looking upon Austin in a different light. I need to go back there again (and, to be fair, it should also be in early summer, and I should drive). I planned to take a short trip to Portland later this year, but now I'm thinking that I should take a longer trip (and I should drive). I need to try to immerse myself in the place rather than skim the surface. I also should check out Atlanta. So I have my work trips cut out for me.

The End.

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