Fall break meant lots of activities--Day 1

Fall break started Wednesday evening last week and lasted until Sunday. What is Fall Break? It is a brief time off from classes (but this does not mean the work stops!). With my Fall Break though I did take some time off, and it was wonderful and much needed. Now I am just struggling to get out of that break-mode and into serious work-mode.

For Fall Break, Arianna and Tim came over for a visit. We picked them up Wednesday night at the airport (they were a few hours behind schedule after missing their a.m. flight out of Seattle. Check our her blog for more info). Although they were a few hours behind, we still managed to squeeze a lot of fun adventures into the trip.

Here is a brief overview of Day 1--Thursday (Tune in for more in a later post!)
We started off with a bit of history. We went to Historic Stagville, which we had found the previous weekend with Cassie. It was still just as interesting, and while there we learned about some other historic sites we will likely be visiting in the future. Shawn and I plan to go check them out, so look forward to posts for trips to Duke Homestead and Bennett Place.

After Historic Stagville, it was off to campus to show off my building, office, and UNC in general. Before we could walk through campus though we needed some sustenance. We stopped at the oldest restaurant in Chapel Hill, the Carolina Coffee Shop. After enjoying lunch there (I had a delicious turkey club sandwich!) we headed up to campus. We took a brief break in my office for some sugar...

and then headed to the bookstore. Arianna and Tim came away with some great UNC gear.

Then it was time for a pic in front of the Old Well.

Although this tour and shopping spree took us a few hours, we managed to come home and make our own dough and pizza and then watch some television. It was TV night. Arianna and I used to watch television together on Thursdays so that we could enjoy Grey's Anatomy and Project Runway (It started though when we used to watch ER together--so that gives you an idea of when it really started). When Arianna moved back to Western Washington in 2008, we would text during our shows so we were still "watching" them together. However, with the three hour time difference, it hasn't been possible for us to watch together in any capacity, so it was a really nice treat to have a good old fashioned TV night. 

Look for Day 2 of our adventures in an upcoming post!

Campus, Gardens and History--all in a weekend's work!

Our wonderful friend Cassie came to visit us for the weekend of October 16 (I know, I am a bit behind in posting), but I wanted to share some of the wonderful adventures we took with her.

The first stop Saturday morning was campus. We showed Cassie around the UNC campus and showed her my office. We also visited the Old Well, the main landmark on the UNC campus. We had to wait awhile to get a picture in front of it because everyone wants a picture in front of the Old Well.

We then moved on to lunch at Panera Bread. Yum. After that, we were off to the Botanical Garden that Shawn and I always drive by and say we should visit. We only walked though a portion of the garden, but it was pretty interesting. They had sculptures out in the various displays, one of which Cassie posed in front of.

We also spent some time there in the herb garden. They had the typical herbs, but they also had sections for poisonous herbs and medicinal herbs, too. One of the best parts though would have to be the awesome chess set. Cassie and Shawn took a stab at playing (or playing with the pieces anyway).

After checking out some more areas in the Botanical Garden we choose to head out back to Durham. We wanted to visit Historic Stagville. Historic Stagville is an old plantation that still has the slave quarters standing. It was so interesting to hear about the various people who lived there.

The plantation was one of the largest in the area and was almost like a self sustaining city, creating most everything the residents needed. The plantation had about 900 enslaved people who lived there at one time. It was ridiculous to see how nice the main house was compared to the slave quarters, and we only got to see the "nice" versions that were created after plantation owners realized the sub-par conditions were leading to sickness and therefore less productive workers.

The main house had wainscoting, paint, and imported fabrics and glass. It also had four poster beds. The houses for the enslaved people had one bed and pallets to sleep on and each room housed around 5-10 people. It was also really interesting because although there was a marked difference between the two settings, this plantation would be considered very modest compared to some that existed in the South. It was certainly an interesting tour.

Below are some pictures from a barn that was built in just under 5 months by some of the enslaved people. The barn didn't even use nails in the construction. It is believed that the barn was engineered by boat-makers who were brought in from the coast because of the various techniques they used. Also, the beams used in building the barn were hand-carved (see pic below). One of the beams extends all the way from one side to the other, and it is a solid beam of wood that would have been hand carved out of one large tree. It was very impressive.

After our day of adventures we spent the evening making and eating pizza and watching old movies and television shows. All in all it was a great weekend!