First days in Lawrence

The first night in McCollum Hall was really refreshing.... NOT! I think those beds haven't been changed since at least 20 years, if not longer, and so they seem to be more like a hammock than a bed.... Whatever...

Good to know: McCollum Hall is the most fucked up Residence Hall at KU!

The first day, me and my two future room mates (Jessica and Matthias) wanted to walk around the town, making some necessary purchases like an american Sim-Card for our cell phones. On our way around the beautiful little City of Lawrence, the first things we recognized were that KU's Campus is really nice and that it can be pretty hot (!!!) in Kansas! Americans seem to like building their colleges in a gothic look, that you would expect to find only with churches or old castles... It's anyway funny to see bricks with an inscription like 'AD 1997' in those buildings.

Downtown Lawrence is fantastic! Walking up and down on Mass Street (= Massachusetts Street, which actually forms the center of downtown Lawrence) you can always find some store or some people that help you waste your time..

The perfect end of the first day in Lawrence, after having walked the whole day, was introduced by finally reaching Wal-Mart Superstore... Man, this is really a super store!

Good to know: Wal-Mart is the perfect address for exchange student looking for cheap crappy stuff, that only needs to last for less than a year!

If you have a look at the prices of the bikes that Wal-Mart offers, I would say almost every german (usually at least a bit guality-oriented) person will start laughing. But it's as I already said: Perfect, if these things have to last for less than a year!! The price for my Mountain-Bike with a set of lights and a really heavy lock was in the end slightly more than $100.... And packed with some other things all of us three were just happy not having to walk home! Only this trip home after a whole day of walking would have been worth the price...

Good to know: In the US you can get bikes, footballs, guns and bow and arrows in one store...

Another funny discovery we made on that day was 'Fast Cash!'. This is a function of american ATMs, that helps you get your money real fast... The only thing with that is, that you do not have to chose the amount you want to withdraw, so that you receive a fixed amount of usually $40 or $50... But anyway, nice name for that! By the way: ATMs here are usually drive-thru ones...

Something really funny here in the US is, that those guys seem to never get tired of explaining things that you would expect everybody to know... I'm talking about things like handeling high temperatures or using a traffic light... Explaining how condensation on cold pipes for the air conditioning works when opening your window falls in the same category!

Another funny thing about Lawrence: No store can exist in this city without having at least a little corner with KU merchandising stuff. Depending on the store this corner can be more or less big. It is awesome to see how KU fanatic this whole city is! Everyone who is or has been at KU is called a 'Jayhawk', which is the mascott of our University. I will tell you more abou that bird within the next posts!

Today's lesson:
The inventor of basketball, James Naismith, was a Jayhawk!! (basketball is a big, big deal at KU)