Weather today was great...actually pretty similar to Minnesota the last few weeks.
Initial impressions (I'm sure I'll think of some later):
- So many trees. Minnesota has forests but they are also broken up by farmland and/or prairie (except the NE corner of the state which is all forest). Was surprised just how wooded it was everywhere.
- Interesting that there's lots of medium sized cities. Minnesota has one huge metro area with 3.5 million people and only a couple medium sized cities. Medium sized cities everywhere here.
- Spent time in/at Charlotte, UNC, Duke, Durham, Wake/Winston-Salem. All seemed nice. I think there are things that a larger metro area like Minneapolis/St. Paul have that I would miss if I were in NC, but everywhere we went was really nice.
- All the campuses we visited were very nice. The Duke campus was pretty amazing.
- Biscuitville was the best fast food I had. Bojangles was good. Also had KFC for the first time in forever (hardly any left in MN) and was reminded that it is very underrated.
- Wake Forest football experience was cool. Smaller school and smaller stadium (our stadium seats 52,000 which is actually small by Big Ten standards) so different vibe because of that. Fans seemed more reserved than what I am used to. Might have just been the people I was around though. The football looked eerily similar to Minnesota football at times (struggling offense).
- We got to campus around 10:30am and walked around and saw all the Homecoming festivities. I thought it was cool all the stuff that was going on on the quad. Bought our Wake gear there. Wake campus is so easy to navigate - definitely easier than Duke or UNC. The University of Minnesota is smack in the middle of Minneapolis so it has a very different feel to it - you know you are in a big city. Also is one of the biggest schools in the country so it covers a lot of real estate.
- Walked around the tailgates to check things out. People seemed pretty well-behaved.
- Got into the stadium pretty shortly after gates opened to walk around and check things out. Watched warmups.
- I definitely stood out to people I talked with, with my "accent".
That's all I have for now. If any of you decide to visit Minnesota ever, drop me a message. You should all check out a University of Minnesota hockey game in January when it's -10°F.