Adventures in Kansas and Nova Scotia

Turns out that getting utilities sorted, when you have no credit history and have only had a social security number a couple of months, is easier said than done. Electricity and water were easy to fix, the faffing come with gas and cable. It all wasn’t helped by not having a mobile phone number to give them resulting in several missed calls. Gas people seemed to go from “you’re going to need to talk to our credit department” to “it’s all sorted” from one phone call to the next without me ever talking to said credit department or any other reason I could fathom. Cable people were even more confused as they had just had a new computer system installed and they had no idea how to use it to deal with a complicated case like mine. Oh well it all got sorted by the Thursday.

The rest of the week was spent at work and on frequent trips to Walmart and then building the flat pack furniture I’d just brought. The bed and mattress I’d ordered online (again from Walmart) took a little longer than expected to arrive so I only moved my stuff from the International House on the Saturday and didn’t actually sleep in the new place to the Monday night. I officially moved out of the international house after my first night in the new place.

I’d hired a car for a week to help my move and buy stuff and I’d planned to go away for the long weekend. The new place all took a bit longer than I was expecting so I ended up going on day trips on the Sunday and Monday instead. On Sunday I went to Fort Scott National Historic Site which was about a two hour drive away (photos). It was nothing particularly spectacular but it was an enjoyable way to spend a day and it was definitely nice to get away from Lawrence for a bit. On the Monday I went to Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve (photos). I’d visited it when I was on holiday in 2010 but never did any walks in the backcountry as I didn’t have the time. I had an enjoyable 10-mile walk amongst the rolling hills in pretty decent weather.

Well I got back to Kansas on the Wednesday. The flight could’ve gone better for many reasons. Perhaps the most annoying was making the connection while my bags didn’t. Had to wait up to 1am to get them delivered. As I’m sure you don’t want to read me ranting I think I’d best leave it at that! When I got back I was in the International House by myself for a week although if I wanted to stay beyond that I’d have to move room as plenty of new people were arriving.

On the Friday I went and checked out the apartment complex that got recommended to me. Turns out that he has one free apartment and I really quite liked it. As I hadn’t look at anywhere else I said I’d think about it but having looked again at how little else was available I decided I’d take it so went back to tell the owner. Unfortunately it would appear he’d already left for the day. I left a message on his answer phone and he got back to me Saturday morning and I went down and sorted the paperwork. It all happened a lot quicker than I was expecting but it’s nice to finally have my own place.

The new place is a two-bedroom apartment in a block of four. All in all the complex has about twenty blocks but I was quite taken by the small individual blocks and the apartment that was free was an upstairs one which has larger windows and also means no one can walk about above you. Given how cheap the apartment is I think I got a very good deal. The apartment is however unfurnished so I had plenty to sort out before I could actually move in as I needed to get all the utilities sorted as well.

Before I injured myself doing the lead climbing test one of the other people I’d gone with had mentioned the possibility of getting climbing outside at the weekend but I quickly realised that this wasn’t going to happen for me thanks to my injury and so nothing else of interest happened until I flew back to England for Christmas.

As I didn’t yet have a car there were two options for getting me to Kansas City airport for my first flight on the way home. The first was a shared ride shuttle service that would get me to the airport four hours before my flight and cost $40. The other option was to pay $70 and get to the airport when I wanted. Deciding that I could not justify spending an extra $30 for a couple of hours less in an airport I was left sitting around the airport for quite some time. Thankfully they had wi-fi and between that and getting both breakfast and lunch while I was there the time went reasonably quickly.

My connection this time was in Houston. I’d learnt on trip out that on these small internal flights even hand luggage can end up in the hold at the gate if it’s too large and so this time I’d packed cleverly and had a small rucksack with my laptop and one or two other bits inside my bigger hand luggage and which I took out and took on the plane. Arriving in Houston I put the rucksack back in the main bag and this required a tiny little bit of squashing but then all of a suddenly didn’t. Given that I was carrying some glasses as presents for my family this was a little disconcerting and after eating I checked the bag and found out that I did indeed break one. Idiot!

The flight to the UK was delayed for quite a while as apparently the pilot that was meant to fly had called in sick shortly before he was meant to be at the airport. When I found this out I headed to the bar only to find two other expats who were on the same flight and also having a drink while waiting. Not that we were living up to stereotypes or anything! Eventually they found us another pilot and thanks to making up some time on the way we arrived into Heathrow not too late where I met my parents who had very kindly come and picked me up.

On Saturday I didn’t do anything particularly exciting but when I got back home I found an e-mail from Mark inviting me to a “Puppy Party” that one of his PhD students, Jamie, was having and who hadn’t had an e-mail address for me. By the time I got home the party was just about starting but deciding that this would be a good opportunity to meet people I got myself ready and only arrived about an hour late – for once not my fault. They were holding a “Puppy Party” as they had a guide that said they should introduce their new puppy to a large gathering of people. Given that the guide also said they should have taken it hot air ballooning I’d have treated with a pinch of salt but if they wanted to have a party for such an odd reason who was I to complain?

The party was a good opportunity to meet people and I also found out that several of them climbed, including Jamie which I hadn’t realised before as it had never come up in conversation in the office. I also managed to get a recommendation on somewhere to live. It was definitely worth the effort of going out again so quickly after I got in.

On the Thursday after the part I went climbing with some of the people from the party. The best nearby climbing wall is the other side of Kansas City (both of them for those that remember a previous post) and about a 45 minute to an hour drive. The wall was certainly better than the uni one even if you do have to jump through hoops such as a belay test. If you want to lead you also have to pass a lead climbing test. Being rather elitist they put this up a 5.9 (about F5 / F5+) despite there being easy lead roots. I didn’t really fancy a go at the test, knowing that I was weak, out of practice and disliked overhangs but got talked into it. Disaster followed when I fell off trying to get the second clip. Either grade conversion tables or wrong or I’m very weak and pathetic. It didn’t help that they used multi-coloured holds on a route and marked different routes by coloured tape next to the hold. I hadn’t got the hang of this so it took me a long time getting to that second clip while I tried working out where the route went. No excuse for my patheticness but still a stupid system. Anyway in falling off I managed to land on the rope and give myself a nice rope burn across the back of my knee and a lot of bruising. Although I carried on climbing it wasn’t that comfortable the next day!

Well not a whole to exciting happened in the week after I got back from Thanksgiving. My laptop arrived on the Monday and I managed to get my wages and ID card sorted. I went and investigated the uni’s climbing wall. It’s quite small and you can’t lead except on club nights when you’re a member. Turns out they also provide staff as belayers. The bouldering although small looked quite good. All in all a bit of a strange setup and not sure how often I’ll go. I also found out that the swimming pool is shut when it clashes with men’s basketball games – I have no idea why and nor did the member of staff on duty.

The next week I found out that, as staff, I had to pay to use the uni’s climbing wall as it’s in the student recreation centre. That scurrpered climbing plans one evening as you could only pay when the office was open during the day. Did pay, only about $5/week, and go the next day but as most of the people that use it are young undergrads and I now have to pay I still wasn’t sure I’d use that often.

By this stage I had worked out that the Chinese guy I was sharing the house with was a tit and really up him self. Tried telling the Italian girl that we also share with how to improve her English despite her English being much better than his. It was becoming clear why I didn’t see much of her – we were both avoiding the Chinese guy.