Arriving in North Carolina

Before I do my recap of ISNI, which was a few weeks ago, I just wanted to go over my adventures in getting to Wilmington, North Carolina. I decided to drive down here because it is the kind of town where you can't get anywhere without a car, and I didn't want to be stranded or annoy other people by constantly asking for rides.

This is my first time in North Carolina. Also, it is my first time in the South. (Technically, Maryland is south of the Mason-Dixon line, but it is more of a mid-Atlantic state than a Southern one.) Also, this marks my first time driving for more than 4 hours. It is a 7-hour drive down to Wilmington, so I set off at about 10:00 AM on Friday, June 1.

I had to turn around because my GPS was acting up. ^^; It was charging, but then the battery would die on me. Granted, I knew that I needed to go south on I-95. A lot. But I wasn't sure what to do once I got to North Carolina, so I needed my GPS to not be dead, no?

At 10:30, with a different GPS, I set out again. (By the way, the different GPS showed the same problem. I should probably try finding a new charger cord while I'm here, because I think it was actually sucking power back out of the GPS.)

The drive down was full of adventures. As I was trying to find new radio stations for Virginia, a weather alert went out for a tornado watch. The second that alert went up, it started pouring.

Fun fact about Starr: I am quite terrified of tornadoes. Needless to say, I immediately got my foot off the gas pedal and started flashing my caution lights while keeping my eyes to the skies, searching for funneling clouds. I was also on the lookout for hailstones that would wreck my dad's car. I managed to get by fine, but I ran into about 5 stormy patches that were pretty scary for me. At one point, the wind was blowing so hard that I had an extremely difficult time staying between the lines! That was the first time the wind almost blew me off the road. (See all my fun little firsts?)

I stopped once to get lunch and stretch before hitting the road again. When I arrived at Wilmington at about 6:00 PM (made decent time!), I gave my people a call and was told where to go. The apartments here are interesting in that some of the Greek organizations can reserve units for their brothers/sisters permanently. Thus, the Greek letters on the outsides of the buildings.

Reserved for their brothers.

Unfortunately for me, the air conditioning was broken in my apartment. It was blazing hot in there, yo. In the meantime, my extraordinarily friendly PI (PI = principle investigator, he's the one running the lab I work in) treated me to dinner at Bdobo, which is a very delicious Mongolian grill restaurant. It's owned by this nice Shanghainese family who immediately identified me as a Chinese person when I walked in. She complimented my height. (I'm 5'8", or 173 cm for international folks.)
(Actually, maybe it's because there aren't a lot of Asians in this town, now that I think about it.) (Actually, not much ethnic diversity at all, when I really think about it...)

When we got back, my AC was still out, so they moved us to a different unit for that night. It was a very swanky dank place. Very shiny new appliances, it was way nicer than my apartment. (Plus they had working AC!) Also, they have housecleaning and provide linens... what is with these universities providing linens and housecleaning to their students? (The residence hall I lived in during my stay in Illinois provided the same things.) Spoiling their kids. I just hope no freshmen live in that building. Freshmen need to build character!

I had no internet because you HAVE to have a UNCW ID to log on if you have no visitor password. (Which of course, we didn't.) So I just showered and went to sleep after meeting my roommate.

That was my drive down to and first night in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Goodness gracious.