300 Blackwell Street, Apartment 208

Well, here goes our first big post. We left home in Minnesota at around 3:30 AM on the morning of Thursday, July 31st. Apart from the latter half of Wisconsin, which smelled like bratwurst and BO, our trip was fairly uneventful. Tom kept us at a pretty good clip; we only stopped every four or five hours or so. Because of how early we left, we were able to make it to Knoxville, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains by the end of our first driving day. I think that everybody who was with us would have voted for either Kentucky or Tennessee as the prettiest states that we drove through.

We finally pulled into Durham at around 12:30 on Friday, and we went straight to our apartment to unload. As it was the first day that our building was open to anybody, it was a little busy with other neighbors moving in around us. It could have been worse, though. Only half of the building is currently leased. The next day and a half was spent moving everything in from the cars and finding a spot for it once we got it inside. We saw a dead body in the alleyway. Just kidding. I put that in there because Rachel just said that my first post wasn't very exciting. Take that, Rachel!

At the end of the first day, Tom, Sherry, Deb, Rachel and I had dinner at Tyler's Taproom, a bar/grill that's just around the corner from us. After that we walked around the rest of the American Tobacco campus (that's the big development our apartment is a part of), and stopped in for the end of a Durham Bulls game. There wasn't anybody manning the gate at the time, so we were able to catch an inning of baseball and a great fireworks show for free! After that, it was back to our apartment for some well-earned sleep.

One of the coolest things about our apartment is that it is just across the block from the Durham Bulls Ballpark, and we can hear the crowd cheering whenever something big happens. On top of that, the American Tobacco campus is chock-full of really cool businesses and restaurants. Just off the top of my head, there's Tyler's Taproom (where we went the first night, and where they have about a billion different kinds of beer), the Mellow Mushroom (a gourmet pizza place), Symposium (looks like a cool date place), Cafe Zen (sushi), SalaDelia (???), a YMCA, a ton of Duke University administrative offices, the WUNC North Carolina Public Radio broadcast studios, and a neato central square area with a big water tower, a giant smokestack (from when they made cigarettes and cancer back here in the day), and a man-made river. Basically, it's the bee's knees, as Rachel and the beatniks say.

Saturday was spent going around on various errands and spending so much money that Wells Fargo called to see if we got robbed. We bought an entertainment center from Target, a bedroom set, and a new car battery because mine crapped out in Tennessee. We also went to Hog Heaven, a great Eastern Carolina barbeque shack, and the Sarah Duke Gardens, which is pretty much a must-see if you come down here.

Tom and Sherry had to leave us on Sunday morning, and it was one of many really sad moments since we've been down here. That's probably the hardest thing about moving down here. We really miss our family and friends back home, and hope that as many people visit us as possible over the next couple of years.

Deb, Rachel and I ran a bunch more errands on Sunday, including buying a gigantic Majesty Palm plant on a whim that we're pretty sure will off itself sometime in the next couple weeks because we put it in a size-too-small pot. But oh well, Flora, as Rachel calls it, had a heck of a run with us, as we had the top half hanging out the side of our car as we crawled home from Costco. We ended the day on Sunday by going out to Pop's, an Italian restaurant at nearby Brightleaf Square just west of downtown.

Monday morning was my turn to feel really sad. I drove my mom to the airport early in the morning for her flight, and we both fought back tears saying goodbye. I'm pretty sure we both lost it the second we were out of eyesight from one another. When I got home from the airport, I cried some more because the Verizon guy took so freaking long to get our internet to work. But we finally got everything up and running in the end.

Tune in for more! Here's some awesome pictures of our place!














Our bedroom. And big kitty.














The kitchen.














Charlie's office.














Our gigantic tv.


















The view out of our living room window.














Our living room from the entryway.