North Carolina, here we are!

Monday,19 April 2010

Durham, the city that cigarettes built! Now with the old warehouses turned into condos, offices and restaurants, and a major university, and as the City of Medicine, where 20% of the population works in the field, it's living down the image of tobacco.

It's not very large, but it's got interest. We had lunch at the Amelia Cafe in Brightleaf (how's that for tobacco images?) Place, and sat outside in a rather cute little brick warehouse area. The sandwich for me was huge, lots of boiled ham, a bit of salami, tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise for an "Italian" sandwich, with Ranch dressing on my caesar's salad to accompany. Ben had a turkey and cheese crepe. He should have had a sandwich. Heavy. His cappuchino was disappointing. But, the conversation with a local Scouse photog who was shooting pastries at the cafe for its website livened up the lunch. As did the little girl, hamming for him as he took photos.


We drove around Duke, before getting to an appointment at the medical center, pretty enough, and then afterwards had a run around the University of North Carolina. Where Duke is pretentious in it's Gothic architecture, UNC accepts the red brick of Georgian colonial buildings and comes across as a more human campus. Both excellent schools of course.

We took off to a local casual dining restaurant for dinner. The Backyard BBQ Pit on route 55, near Research Triangle Park. Formica tables, booths, no license (I got a beer from the local Food Lion), but the dinner was quite good. Ben had a deep friend flounder and hushpuppies to accompany his okra, while I pigged out on half a sow with sweet cole slaw and Brunswich Stew,a sort of vegetable concoction. Very tasty, but quite sweet. The place closed at 8 having sold out of all its pulled barbecue and all its ribs. I can see why, it was excellent. North Carolinians do tend to like things sweet, though.

The drive down was uneventful. Virginia's roads are dreadful, they need a massive investment of funds, which may or may not be the reason the State Troopers are out with their radar every 10 miles or so. Lots of pulled over cars. North Carolina, on the other hand, has superb roads, a driver's delight, except at rush hour, when the freeways are worse than the Beltway.

Tomorrow it's off to South Carolina.