Chapel Hill, NC

I hit the Research Triangle Monday late afternoon. Took a while from Charlotte due to weather (sunshine, rain, repeat) and Carolinians not knowing how to drive. But anyhow. Brother Tom is a grad student at UNC. Here's our evening:

5-6pm: Capital Markets class. Heavy. I get it, sorta. Some kids are taking copious notes, others drifting. Professor is young, sharp, Australian. 

6-8pm: He's Not Here (bar with great patio) for socializing, Carolina BBQ and huge babyblue cups of beer. It's a cultured crowd, I get tips on where to live in Manhattan, when to go to Stockholm, where to eat in Hong Kong, etc. 

8-11pm: Bowling with classmates. Monday night Dollarama. Some Dukies are a few lanes down, words are not exchanged. Beers flow like Lebowski jokes.

Good to be back in academia. 

Tuesday. 10am alarm bell. Coffeehouse, WSJ, workout. Tom goes to class. I skip it, grab a bite on Franklin Street. Mid-afternoon, I meet Erika at Top of the Hill (bar with great view) for some hefeweizen. Clouds are moving fast above the chapels and trees of Carolina as if in time lapse. Sunshine, rain, repeat. Weather here's a bit fickle. 

Hadley and Justin join us for dinner at Tyler's, a cozy restaurant in downtown Durham that's been converted from an old tobacco plant (what would we do without the vision and ingenuity real estate developers?). 

Rain subsides in time for the Durham Bulls game. Our group takes half a section along the third-base line. I shake the hands of the folks I've not met, high five or fist pound the ones I have. Friends and fresh grass and beers and footlongs. I have no idea who won the game. 

Wednesday noon, I'm at Cafe Carolina on Meadowmont, checking email, weather, directions to Charlottesville... Blue Ridge Parkway to Skyline Drive. Shenandoah. Appalachia. Nostalgia. No where to be for 36 hours, I think I'll take my time on this one. 

I depart, rested and ready, leaning forward into the next crazy venture beneath the skies...

That's a little Kerouac for ya.