New Bern and other adventures

Whew! It's been a busy two weeks.

Last week, I went to the North Carolina American Planning Association conference in New Bern, North Carolina. New Bern is on the Eastern coast of New Bern between the Outer Banks and Wilmington. It's about 2.5 hours away from Chapel Hill. New Bern was the colonial capital of North Carolina and was also the place where Pepsi was invented!

Unfortunately, Tropical Storm Nicole was also in New Bern last week, so it was pouring the whole time we were there. I was really glad that I brought two different pairs of dress shoes, because, despite putting my shoes from the first day on the radiator in the hotel room, they were still soaking wet the next morning! We even had to leave early on the last day when the entire town started flooding. It was also unfortunate because New Bern seemed to be a nice, walkable town and I was really hoping to get a chance to walk around more than we were able to.


The second day, we went to try and visit the "birthplace of Pepsi" store-- only to find a sign on the window saying "closed due to weather!"

Despite the weather, I really enjoyed going to the conference. It was nice to hear real planners talk about their real world experiences and get a better grasp on all of the different focuses that exist within city planning.

This week was busy, but not quite as exciting as I had several papers due and thus spent most of the first half of the week in the library.

The weather here, however, has been absolutely gorgeous in the last few days. I'm glad that it finally feels like fall and I'm looking forward to spending a lot of this weekend outside!