We made it to Chapel Hill!
Day 1:
Started out as most of my trips to the airport do… early! Woke up at 4:30 (after finishing packing at 2:00) and got ready to leave. It was sad to leave because that was the last time I’ll see the place on Pender since we’re moving sometime in June. Oli graciously woke up early and drove us to the airport, where we weren’t charged for the 2 bags that were overweight! Woo-hoo! The flights to Toronto and then to Raleigh-Durham were uneventful, and I slept most of the way. Too tired from packing and stressing about the not 1, but 2 impending moves.
Keith picked us up from the airport and drove us back to his place where we waited for Sabrina to get home. Had take-out Indian food in their screened-in porch. Food was pretty good. Not as good as Bombay Bhel, but good enough! Were serenaded by Barred Owls, so that was pretty cool.
Another high point, Greg found out he could pick up a wireless signal, so all is well (thank goodness!). So, he’s happy. I, on the other hand, can pick up the signal, but can’t do anything with it. Keith has the same problem. Weird. At least he has internet. I think if he didn’t, he would have killed me by now out of sheer boredom.
Day 2:
Woke up at around 9:00 Chapel Hill time – that’s 6:00 Vancouver time, so really, I woke up early! Picked up the rental car, a nice little Kia Rio, and headed over to school to meet Keith. On the way we got a bank account, and interacted with our first southern Asian guy. Had the whole southern accent and everything! Hee! Hee! He was super helpful, and so now we have a bank account. Task 1 completed.
Met Keith in his office and got a tour of the lab and got paperwork to fill out so I can get paid and have health insurance. Was introduced to the 25 starlings that are currently in the lab aviary. Will post pictures sometime next week documenting the disgustingness of the aviary, and my attempt to bring them inside. I can’t believe I’m actually going to do this! I avoided working with starlings for almost 8 years, and now not only am I working with them, I’m bringing them inside!!! I think I’ve finally lost it! I’ll be sure to take “before” pictures of the room and “during” and “after” pictures. Luckily we have a part-time tech who will be helping with cleaning. To give you an idea of how gross they are, there is a flat-edged shovel leaning in the aviary to scoop the poop into a large and stinky garbage can! A shovel!!! I can’t wait until they’re gone and all that are left are my finches!
Anyways, the plan is to move the starlings inside on Monday, while also attempting to trap House Finches in potter traps. Depending on how well these work, I may or may not have to build the other traps. Greg is on the lookout for large tin cans though, just in case.
After the long lab tour, we headed out to a mall (yea!) to get us a cell phone. Ended up with a nice camera phone. Task 2 completed. We then headed towards Durham to find the Best Buy, Walmart and Target that Greg looked up on-line while I was touring the bird facilities (he conveniently didn’t go with me for that part of the tour!). Anyways, scoped out prices for TV, which is extremely important if I want to watch Gilmore Girls on Tuesday! Headed towards home after price comparing and had pretty good Mexican food at La Hacienda on the way back to Keith’s place. Lots of Mexican restaurants here.
Went to buy groceries so that we’d have breakfast food, and not have to sponge off of Keith and Sabrina. Went to the local Whole Foods. Holy granola! This place only sells organic natural stuff, and everything was pretty expensive. Think Capers. I thought Greg was going to lose it when they didn’t sell any cereal that looked like cereal from Save-On. He ended up with something with a penguin on the box that vaguely resembles is beloved mini-wheats. Will find a more appropriate store for general stuff soon, I hope!
Filled out the post-doc paperwork and finally went to bed around 1:00. I think we’re not totally adjusted to the time just yet. Either that or we’re totally adjusted, and just wanted to go to bed late. Can’t really tell…
Day 3:
Woke up around 9:00 again today and tried looking for my Teva’s for the longest time. Kept thinking I may not have packed them, or they were pushed under the bed back in Burnaby when I was packing because they were nowhere to be found. Finally got all of the paperwork done, and missed my bus (they come every 20 minutes from Keith’s place) at 10:45. Turned out sometimes they only run every 40 minutes, and this was one of those times. So, had to wait until 11:25 to catch the next bus. On the way out to catch the bus I saw some sort of lizard, various birds including Cardinals and Robins, and a chipmunk! By the time I walked to the lab from the bus stop it was almost noon, and my feet were killing me. Apparently my cute new mint green shoes kinda stick to my toes when it’s a bit humid, and so I now have small blisters on the tops of my “ring” and “pinky” toes on both feet. I REALLY needed to find my Teva’s! Turned in my paperwork, but I couldn’t do anything else (get e-mail account, do online animal care training) because I couldn’t get my PID number (not sure what PID stands for). So, I called Greg and had him pick me up, and we drove out to Carrboro, where our new place for the summer is. Drove by the apartment, which looks great (less than a block away from the weekly Farmers’ Market and across the stress from a gym) and then had lunch and drove back to Keith’s place to try to find my Teva’s. Still no sandals.
Proceded to drive back to Target to get supplies (shampoo, bandaids, contact solution, and comfy sandals – my Teva’s are dead to me now). Yea! Shopping. Then drove to the Best Buy and bought a flat screen TV that also works as an external monitor and a DVD recorder/player. Yippee!!!!! Task 3 completed!
Went back to Keith’s to drop off the purchases and rested for a little while. I then decided that I would unpack all of the bags just in case my Teva’s were just shy and hiding from me. After I looked through 3 out of the 4 bags, we had to go find some dinner. So we went for a drive aroudn town, and found a bunch of restaurants on my main street that runs in front of the university, and also leads towards our new apartment. Ended up in a small pizza place that was diner-esque. Pretty good pizza! (Yes, the first could of days is turning into Eatfest 2 – 2006, with Eatfest 1 – 2006 being Suyoko’s recent visit to Vancouver).
Back at Keith’s place, I decided that now I HAD to go through the last bag. And, finally, there they were, at the bottom of the bag, wedged in the middle of the two handle poles… my Teva’s!!!! YEA!!!! No more sore toes!
So, the last couple of days have been pretty eventful. Tomorrow we actually get to see the inside of our new place, see the Farmers’ Market, tour campus on foot, and maybe visit another local mall. Then on Sunday it’s Carrboro Day (I have no idea what that means, but we’re going!), and probably a trip to Costco. Then Monday is move-in day and starling moving day.
Sorry this is so long. I promise the next ones will be shorter. Must blog now while my life is exciting!