Walking... not gonna happen.

Having effectively not had a car for three years whilst living in London, I've been adamant that I would be able to manage by mostly walking around over here for day-to-day chores. Seems reasonable, right?

Wrong.

Here's why you can't walk around in the US:

1. Footpaths: Or more specifically, lack thereof. Every small excursion quickly turns into some sort of rambling / orienteering / Bear Grylls survival exercise.
2. Crossings: Or more specifically... lack thereof. Want to cross the road? Prepare to play dice with your life as you attempt to weave through six lanes of traffic in a real-life Frogger reenactment.
3. Heat: No, not guns (more on this later...). Walking around in sweltering >30*C temperatures is not cool at all. Pun intended.
4. Distance: Unlike the UK, space is not a premium in this country. Buildings and properties are naturally much more spaced out. The result, for your avid walking enthusiast, is the need to walk farther, and for longer.

I was always going to get a bicycle, but I definitely have a much greater sense of urgency now. Things should get easier once I'm set up with the Enterprise CarShare scheme, but I'm now unsure if I can totally avoid buying a car.

On the plus side, I did discover this local 'specialty store' on my travels:

La nueva casa - and Prank #1

Moved in to the new pad over the weekend - it's a brand new apartment complex, so feels pretty cool being the first ones in here.

My housemate has been super helpful - he drove all the way down to Charlotte to pick up me and all my luggage.

Sister and BIL also bought us some cutlery, crockery etc. which was really sweet.

Kinda lacking some basic stuff at the mo (bed, desk... lightbulbs!), but it definitely feels like home. Fairly chilled out here, so hoping that it will be an environment conducive to work.

View from our balcony:

The essentials:

Pranked my housemate on the first night here - needed to let him know that there will be a zero tolerance policy for any colonial uprisings ;) plenty more transatlantic banter to be had, I'm sure!

Here we go...

3 x suitcases, all hideously overweight.

Packed like an Indian, natch.

No turning back now... Slightly scared, but very excited :D

The storm before the storm

So I'm moving to the US tomorrow to start a 2-year MBA course at Duke.

In true Suman tradition, I'm doing all my packing at the last minute.

Why change the habit of a lifetime, right?

One suitcase filled, these two left to do...