A cold weather system had recently uncharacteristically made Texas it's home base before walloping the Great Lakes region with tonnes of precipitation in the form of blizzards and white-outs. Even Lubbock got snow! I was definitely surprised! Even more surprising is that with windchill, due to the high winds in Lubbock, it was colder here than in Toronto for a day or two! Don't forget Toronto gets the lake effect from the air warmed by Lake Ontario, which buffers the frigidity of winter (and has the opposite effect during the summer months). Sure, I was told that Lubbock gets about a foot of snow but that's throughout the whole winter season. I actually even had to dig out a small hand-held scrapper to scrape some ice on my windshield one morning - am I glad I decided to bring a scrapper just in case! What I did NOT bring, was a hat...wish I did, but luckily I don't have to do much walking, and I'm naturally hardened by having suffered Canadian winters my whole life. Ironically, many people in Texas wear t-shirts and shorts out when they should be wearing pants and a jacket...either they're insulated by lots of southern-cooking or they don't own any clothing for cooler weather! Must be the food...speaking of which, I just had a delicious pulled prk sandwich at Dickey's Barbeque Pit:
I've only started to scratch the surface of what there is to do in this quaint city. I had taken some photos from various local places (some of which were sketchy and would have been interesting to share), but unfortunately I accidentally erased it from my phone...so I'll have to get some more interesting pics in the future. The one place I went to, called "Chances R" was as townie/country as you'll ever get, with a large dance floor full of townies, some sporting cowboy hats and boots mixed with a more modern middle-aged crowd. Too bad it was so smokey there...that's one thing in Lubbock, smoking is allowed in every bar/pub I've visited so far...I guess things are a bit "backwards" here...last time I went to this pub called Fox and Hound and it took a few days for the smell of smoke to get out of the clothes I wore there. Another backwards thing is that apparently there is no by-law (called "ordinances" here) against driving with one hand on the steering wheel and one hand holding a cell phone against an ear. People also sometimes don't signal when changing lanes or before turning into a driveway/plaza entrances (especially helpful for those trying to pull out and merge into oncoming traffic) and stop more than a car length's distance from the solid white line at intersections that you're supposed to line up with when stopped for a red light...which can be for a full 90 seconds, even if it's not a busy intersection.
Anyway, I've started to scratch the surface of things to do here...unfortunately I don't think I have the will to try everything all at once, but slowly, it appears that there's enough to keep me busy here...just have to find them! I'm actually very surprised to have gone to this hibachi Japanese restaurant that actually had really good warm lychee sake...and as the restaurant may suggest, had one of those chefs...wait, "cooks" cook...wait "heat up" your meal in front on you on a large flat steel grill. But I enjoyed the experience nonetheless. I also tried a nice TexMex place called Abuelos that was packed, even on a Sunday evening.
Recently, my lab had a post-doc visiting from Manchester, England, so the other post-doc in my lab and myself had ourselves a post-doc trip to Palo Duro Canyon about 2 hours north of Lubbock in Canyon, Texas, which is home to the 2nd largest canyon in the US. It's of course no where as magnificent and grandiose as the Grand Canyon in Nevada, but the difference with this canyon is that you can drive down to the bottom and walk around various trails (there were even mountain biking trails) and have a leisurely hike within an afternoon.
Well, I'm still slowly climbing up the learning curve at work, which is probably why time seems to fly by...I never seem to have enough time to just relax and well, do nothing...long days at the lab acts as a bridge that merges two days together and before you know it, you're tired and drained of energy and the weekend couldn't come sooner...and then you realize you may have a little work to do even on the weekend and then not only does your candle burn at both ends, it starts to melt in the middle! You know that feeling when your brain is so drained that you feel light-headed? Kinda like jet lag! So I think I'll need to start playing harder to keep my work-play life in check! Let's see how sane I am by the next time I get a chance to blog again! But rest assured, I'm definitely having an enjoyable time settling in here in spread-out Lubbock! A couple friends drove to Dallas this weekend...I may need to do the same sometime!
