Well, two of my friends.
That and there are going to be changes made to "Wish Monday." Instead of doing a "Wish Monday" segment, because that's full of longing and sometimes whining, I've decided that I'm going to shift focus to answer the wish of my friend, Melbourne, and record my life knowledge. Because I know so much. So will begin a segment titled "Hitchkratz's Guide to the Galaxy." (Thank you, Tom!)
This shift was prompted by a status post on my Facebook that listed a number of things that I learned over the course of the past two days (today and yesterday) while at orientation for my brother in Iowa. I've been to Iowa before, but I've never been to University of Iowa. Well, not inside any of the buildings. For the past two days, the only building I spent any substantial time in was the Iowa Memorial Union, more commonly referred to as "the IMU." Which I pronounced "I-MOO." Because that's just the way I am.
Today I learned that when you're in Iowa City at 8-ish AM, nothing is open. When you're in Iowa City at 9 AM, nothing is open. In fact, nothing of interest is open until 10 AM. I learned this because when in the company of my mother, I learned that she would be sitting through all these boring academic sessions. I decided that I would explore Iowa City (at least a part of it) and browse the shops in the mall. So after dropping off my mother at the I-MOO, I climbed up the partial hill to get to the mall, which I discovered was open. To my dismay, all of the shops were locked up with those funky cage-like mechanisms. All I wanted to see was the Silver Spider because it has a lot of neat little trinkets in it, but I gathered that it wouldn't be open for a while. So I sat down to read some of Jane Eyre and wait till 9:00. When 9:00 came and went and none of the stores near me were opening, I could only assume that they would be open at 10:00, leaving me another hour to kill. I killed this hour by sitting outside for a little bit and doodling, making a list of things I want to put in a "you're going to want this at college" box for my brother, and browsing a TINY grocery store. I sat in front of the Iowa City Library for a little while before I noticed the sign that said it opened at 10. Once the clock finally struck 10, I went back to the mall and looked at the shops I wanted to see before returning to the library so I could check my e-mail. Of course, there was nothing exciting to see, except Facebook thought I was hacking into my own account because someone in Iowa City was logging in as me. Even though it was me.
I also learned that bridges are meant to go across rivers. Walking around with my mom, we were talking about where this pretty green bridge behind the I-MOO went. I asked her, "Hey, where do these stairs go?" And she responded, "They go up." (Ghostbusters) It was one of those moments. We watched the icky gelatinous pollution float down the river for a little while, and explored the far side of the bridge very briefly. Nothing too exciting, just a busy street and some sidewalk. Typical.
There were some other things I learned, but those are the most essential things to visiting Iowa City for a single day!
"Is this heaven?" "No, it's Iowa."- Field of Dreams
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