Coming to Virginia

It all started with this:

And then a 3.5 hour car ride that brought to mind such questions as: Why did ANYONE think it was a good idea to name a county, Pittsylvania? And, why is it that there are so many duplicate city/town names? It's a little confusing that there is a Rocky Mount, VA in addition to the Rocky Mount, NC. Maybe it's just me....

And then we arrived!
Carvin Hall, my new home

So this is my first go-around with the dorms. The apartments were quaint and I enjoyed having two roommates that I could get to know pretty well but the apartments aren't technically on campus which means that I was looking out on a parking lot instead of this:

I think you can see the advantages to my new digs. Living in the dorms does mean that I have a lot PBJ sandwiches in my future (no stove!), but I didn't cook that much even when I had a stove last year so I don't think I'll miss it too much.

As for the accommodations, I didn't do too bad this year:

The mess above eventually became:

So far I'm enjoying the beautiful scenery, and I'm sure I'll like my roommates as soon as they start in move in. It has been a slow trickle around here; I've met a few nice new people, but most of the returning guard is coming in tonight or tomorrow, so for right now, the hall is pretty quiet. I'm sure I'll be bemoaning the wait for the bathroom in no time.

As for my and Bryan's last moments together, we had a nice "anniversary" meal at Hollywood's last night, watched Knocked Up for the third or fourth time, and tried to share a bottle of wine. However, we forgot a corkscrew. Now this corkscrew situation has become a hallmark of my and Bryan's marriage. Over the course of our 7 years as a married couple, we have had at least three occasions where we've had a corked bottle of wine and no corkscrew. One time, in Paris, we had to have the man at the local grocery open it for us. The Swiss corkscrew we bought after that little fiasco was taken away by the German airport security (only because we were flying to the States, mind you; the Italian airport security official had no problem letting us on the plane with it when we were on our way to Germany).

Bryan and I really don't drink a lot of wine, but it really seems unfair we have to go to these lengths when we want to have some with our dessert:

I'm sure anyone living below me last night was thrilled to hear the reverberations of Bryan hammering on the cork of our bottle of wine.

Besides the Cork Craziness of '08, we had a nice evening and a somber goodbye this afternoon. I won't pretend it's not incredibly difficult to be away from him during these summer sessions. As much as I love this opportunity to immerse myself in writing and reading, I do have to make some sacrifices and our two-week separations are certainly the biggest. I am fortunate to be able to see him while I am gone, but it takes a day or two to really get used to not having him around every morning and evening. I immerse myself in a brisk schedule to make the time go faster, but I still get the pangs. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for the spouses of our soldiers who serve time overseas. I really don't think I could bear it.

So, I'm a Hollins resident again. I'm going to go for a bike ride and forget about the fact that I have to practice my "drawing" sometime this evening. Michele drawing...hmmm....