What with Peter sleep-talking about the weather and my frequent need to dispense the remnants of 22oz of beer we had imbibed 10 minutes before hitting the sack, it had not been the best of sleeps. So when Peter’s alarm roused me at 7:30, of course, I unloaded a barrage of pillows upon him and went back to sleep. I finally woke at nine to find Peter gone, having hidden the entire supply of coffee save a solitary sachet of decaffeinated (well played, Peter).
Gazing out the
window I was greeted by yet another grey day.
For our first two weeks - to my delight and Pete’s disgust - we had
managed to outrun all the wild weather of thunderstorms and tornadoes. I actually got so burnt one afternoon in the Texan
spring sun that I looked like a toffee apple upon which someone had crudely
etched a face.
Unfortunately in St
Louis the weather finally caught up us.
We had bucketing rain and howling wind and only ten miles south they had
hail the size of baseballs, or cricket balls for you colonial folk. Even driving up to Iowa we had not succeeded
in shaking it off.
So on a whim I decided
that I would head into Iowa City. Last
night at the bar we had met a waitress who had impressed us with the most extensive
knowledge of New Zealand we had yet encountered, knowing at least three of the
ingredients of Pavlova. Peter was so
impressed with her advice and vast antipodean knowledge that he tipped the kind
of figure that caused several of my orifices to reflexively tighten. I suspect it is also no coincidence that she was quite a lovely
wee thing…
She had spoken
glowingly of Iowa City and had insisted that it was well worth a visit, though
she had previously lived in a small farming town of 1500 with one of those
French names that you can’t say without expectorating, so her judgement may
have been suspect. However she had mentioned
that they had a pedestrian mall and always one keen to witness Americans en locomotion
sans machinery * I grabbed my camera and headed into town. I also desperately needed a real coffee.
* This is not quite
accurate. In places like Colorado we so
saw so many people walking, running, biking and climbing that I actually broke into quite a sweat (though many were clad
in the kind of figure-hugging garments that active girls tend to favour, which may
also have been a small factor).
By the time I arrived
I was feeling quite peckish so I popped into a market-come-café named “The
Bread Company”. Boy, what a find. It had a huge selection of soups and all the bread
was free. They were also quite happy for
me to try each before deciding. After
settling on a Mexican tomato soup and grabbing as much bread as I and two
waiters could carry I made my way to the alfresco seating. The flavour was actually quite reminiscent of
a certain Mexican dish my wife cooks me when I am well behaved, so it is
possible I was sobbing a little while I ate, it did seem that people were
staring at me.
If my various
overseas trips have taught me anything it’s that eating in a foreign country is
no different to how the settlers had to forage for food when arriving in newly
discovered territories. It takes a while
to learn what nuts are good to eat and what fruits will sending you running for
the nearest long-drop screaming like a bible-basher with Tourettes. When we first arrived in Texas we once popped
into a convenience store desperate for food then emerged a little later
deciding that while we were hungry, we weren’t that hungry. We were even getting to the point where we approached
mealtimes with the same level of dread as when we entered airport security and
saw a TSA agent limbering up his fingers.
But soon you learn
to recognize what is good to eat and often surprise yourself when you stumble
upon a particularly impressive little eatery, such as this one.
Feeling quite sated,
I walked extensively around the pedestrian mall. It was pleasant enough with a little added charm
from a number of old building erected at a time when designers cared enough to
add a little flare. Alas this was somewhat
outweighed by the proliferation of those characterless boxes that come about
when the primary design criterion is coming in under budget (New Zealand is
also particularly bad for doing this).
Iowa City is quite small and centred on a university, a “college
town” in the local parlance. And it sure
has a “college” feel about it. The inner
city is mainly bars and small trendy coffee hang-outs and shiny young students
strut about with an air of determination as shiny young students are apt to
do. There is little retail in the town centre
itself, as that has all been sucked up by the massive malls that lay outside of
the city. I did stumble upon a bookstore
and entered only to find it was chock full of banner, pennants, t-shirts and
other gaudy items for the “Hawkeyes,” which I took to be the local football
team. When an attendant saw me looking distressed, I uttered, “Where are your,
uh, books?” to which I was directed to a small room in the basement.
Afterwards I returned to the car to discover I still had
over an hour remaining. Not one to waste
a few quarters I decided to head East (or quite possibly North). I was hoping to walk far enough to get lost
and thus have to find my way back to the car, unfortunately the city was so
sensibly laid out that at no point did I ever have any doubt about where I was
and so the journey had about as much mystery as a modern honeymoon.
As I walked I encountered a number of tree-lined streets,
but they were mostly filled with uninspired student accommodation. I also came across many of the kind of
service roads that are particularly popular with movie makers when they want to
show a hair-raising car chase.
After a bit I was feeling somewhat parched and popped into store
where I interrupted an attendant who was eagerly effecting the removal of large
blockage in his nasal cavity. Once the awkwardness
had passed we chatted for a bit; he was a proud, if somewhat unexcited,
Iowan. When I pressed him on the local
attractions, he related two. First was Pizza
joint; second – if I was after something a bit more exotic – a buffalo wing
restaurant. Having encountered this kind of response a number of times on our
journey, where well-meaning locals will tell you about how to make your way to
out-of-the-way little villages so you can find some great little restaurant, it
occurred to me that many Americans take to travel in the same way as the Chinese,
that is, impressive buildings and beautiful scenery are just the fluff to fill
the hours between restaurants.
I also asked him about the best local beers to which he
apologised saying he was only twenty so hadn’t tried any yet. How quaint.
The weather had grown quite warm so I gulped down my water
and unwrapped the nut bar he had recommended me. Now perhaps he had been playing a joke, but it
was about the weirdest thing I had ever tasted.
The interior was like solidified marshmallow, yet it was wrapped with
salted peanuts, it really was quite unpalatable. But it had cost me 75c so with a heavy sense
of resignation I ate it.
That evening I met up again with Pete at the close of the
conference. He was chatting with three
Swedish weather folk and I glared at him as he invited them into town for dinner. Apparently he had forgotten that for the last
two weeks of travelling we had been throwing our rubbish into the backseat such
that when we took corners it sloshed about like a rogue wave. Of course, they accepted so we spent many
minutes transferring said rubbish into the boot, while they stared at us with
mouths agape and cameras clicking.
We found a nice Italian restaurant and had most enjoyable
meal, where the main activity was a competition to see who knew the most about
each other’s country. Let the record
show that the Kiwis won!
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