Wake up at 7h30, maybe a little bit of jetlag, or finally falling into a grown up rythm who can tell? Jetlag, not growing up at all.
Since we are awake this early might as well make the most of it. Let’s begrudgingly try the gym, no access yet. Apparently, the keys don’t always work the way you want them to. Fun.
Guess it’s time to hit the time then. We take the 930 NoMo shuttle, a bus which is free for all NoMo residents takes us straight to downtown Charleston (College of Charleston and MUSC), drives every 30 minutes. Alright that’s already something interesting.
We arrive at the College of Charleston (CoC) and decide to get off and walk the rest of the way just to start to get the feel of the city and find our way around. It seems to be a pretty cute southern city. Cute houses, american flags, huge cars, all of it.
Used to walking around in Antwerp, we kind of underestimate the size of an American city. But since the food here is so “healthy” we don’t mind walking around. After having found one of the MUSC buildings on Calhoun str we decide we know enough about the campus (big mistake) and walk back to the main street (King str) and find some food. Healthy food (SUBWAAAAY!). We will find some healthier food later on.
I have a meeting at 11 a.m to start up my registration here. But it is almost impossible to 1) find the correct building (thank you waze for showing the way), 2) the correct entrance, 3) the correct floor. Luckily everyone is very friendly and helps us along.
Next stop a vegetable store. Fresh fruits and vegetables are an elusive thing here. Not alot of people feel the need for eating these things. We buy 4 bananes, 3 tomatoes, 2 zucchinis, a giant eggplant, and 4 apples, that should last us through the week: 18$… IT HAS TO LAST US THROUGH THE WEEK!
Health check time: a TB test, don’t know where I would’ve picked that up but…
Time to meet the boss and the team and take a little walk on the campus. It’s so pretty here! Dr. Louis Luttrell, or Lou, seems like a very nice and driven person. I expect to be able to learn alot from him and I’m very excited to start. The rest of the team are equally welcoming, only our names are a difficulty. Djaana en Djan guess that’s who we are now.
Maybe look for some food? There is a Wallgreens at King street let’s see what they have. First thing: WINE! Yummy. No showercurtains, no TP… Guess we’ll have to find walmart. But first a cookie.
Luckily there is an express line taking only 14 minutes. We spend an hour looking around for some food that we recognize as edible plus cookies and cheetos, duh!
Apparently busses never run on time though, either they’re early or late, we don’t know which. So getting home was tricky, but we made it! And thanks to some grapes we didn’t starve.
Now time for a Cheeto snack
Jaana