Ghost town

Today I met with some mates from the program here in Houston and went around campus to explore our possibilities. Since I was sleeping in till 10am I wanted to grab something to eat quite shortly. But everything on campus was closed. Even the ever-open Chinese restaurant. So I had to settle with Burger King oil soaked cheeseburgers.

At my permanent place (I can't wait to move in.) I was to meet a Swiss guy and ran into a Portuguese guy with whom we chatted on Facebook some time ago. So we decided that after forming a sort-of-European-alliance in this distant place to go around campus to see what we have. It a really big campus if toured on foot. I'll definitely have to buy at least a bicycle. But even if I have a bicycle, I'll still be locked inside campus because all the other places are miles away in every direction.

We then went inside the campus sports center. It's just fabulous. They have an Olympic size pool with diving ramps inside and they have a shallow pool on the outside, mainly occupied by children and adjacent family members charged with babysitting. The outside pool's water was rather warm, which proved to be not so comforting in the 100 F and rather humid weather. So after discovering that the indoors swimming pool had just the right temperature we only went back to the outdoor pool to dry and sunbathe a bit (I got burned even with sunblock on me.). I then tried out the hot tub they had inside. When these folks say hot, apparently they mean HOT. At first I couldn't go inside the water. After 15 seconds, though, it just felt right. I even had to explain to the Portuguese guy that Hungary is more or less a hot spring nation and I'm more or less used to such hot water.

Once finished with our deep end exploration of the sports center (it will be my second or third home on campus) we again were faced with the problems that come along with a ghost town. We had to find some place to eat. "McDonald's ist einfach gut." we agreed. Even though neither of us could be considered a fan. After such a long day my order was "The biggest Coke you guys have." and just to make sure I don't dry out completely "And a tall Iced Coffee." I said. Well, the biggest Coke was around 40 oz (approx. 1 liter) and the tall iced coffee was another 20 oz. I almost drank both instantly. I guess humidity is just on the outside. It's a different kind of hot weather here than in California. I had no problem with temperature in the 100s.