http://travel.metafilter.com/ The past 24 hours of questions at TravelFilter Fri, 16 May 2008 05:32:39 -0800 Fri, 16 May 2008 05:32:39 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 Day 0
Arrive late night at Cedar Rapids airport. Get lost leaving airport and enjoy dirt roads to the interstate. Find lodgings: couchsurfing! Find beer: old landmark, John's Grocery. Apparently, also known as Dirty John's for being the first place in the area to sell Playboy. According to rumor, you can be kicked out of the store for calling it that while inside the store. Late: go stomping in the flooded parts during the freak rainstorm. Run inside when freak rainstorm turns into freak hailstorm.

Day 1
Friday of the week before school ends. Campus is busy! It's one of those days where you can take pleasure from being places you really shouldn't be, and places you have no reason to be (but also, have nowhere else to be). It's still cold and drizzly today, but that's not going to stop me! As recommended, the campus is fantastic for walking and poking around in. I loved the Boathouse (sideways monolith), and hated the Technology Center (a project Ghery decided not to have his name attached to). The stores selling university-logo stuff are lots of fun. Because life will never be complete without the UI cutting board!

After exploring the campus itself, it's time to go through downtown. Very pedestrian friendly! Lots of independent shops! I was not as thrilled with Prairie Lights the store as I expected to be, but some of the people working were fantastic, making recommendations from the vague notions of interest that people expressed after coming in and saying "I want a book." (No shit, Sherlock). The Strand it is not. Nonetheless, I did drop over $100 on books, as is my wont. Soap Opera does in fact have awesome smelling stuff. It smells awesome. Did you know you can have Margarita soap?? I do now. Also lots of fun in the modern and designy type shops: Akar, Design Ranch, etc. And there's a new knitting store/cafe (near Motley Cow's old location on Market) with a super-friendly owner, nice coffee, and soft, soft cookies. Also, they offer cool craft classes.

Day 2
Saturday is the FIRST farmer's market of the year at the parking lot near the fire station. So every Wednesday (afternoon/evening) and Saturday (~7:30-11:30) in the summer you can buy fresh baked goods, jams, plants, etc. This week featured a cooking demonstration by the chef from the Motley Cow. As far as the baked goods, I heartily recommend Carol from Coralville's strawberry rhubarb pies, and managed to transport two of them for 5 days across 6,000 miles to share them with my colleagues.

This is the day for the Quad Cities. It's hard to believe that even with four of them, there's just not that much to do, and it still looks like countryside or creepy suburbia (if you remember the intro to Eerie, Indiana?). Here, however, I did enjoy the Happy Joe's Taco Pizza on Locust Street. Two pulgares arriba! Also, I got lost in the Target parking lot (huge!!) where a friend spent his high school years pushing shopping carts around with his car at 40+mph. And ran into a Jon-Benet-Ramsey-esque dance competition near the high school *shudder*.

Also, stopped in Wilton for the Wilton Candy Kitchen and the WORLD'S BIGGEST TRUCK STOP.

Also, this was a Saturday. There are great house parties in Iowa City, and if you are youngish and friendly, you can go to any of them. Before or after that, though, return to the Ped Mall and enjoy the weekend zoo that is a mob of frat boys and sorority girls trying to impress each other. Try to keep count of the underwear-expos�s and nascent beer bellies. Really, it's entertaining. But I was told - repeatedly, and always with a sense of pride - that the city has one of the highest number of bars per capita in the entire nation, and later that the number of bars was 88.

Day 3
More campus. Finally, sunshine and warmth. Fall asleep on the grass by the river. Walk around some more. Fall asleep on the grass between the Pentacrest and Iowa Book. Shop at the co-op. Eat lunch at Masala. Learn your lesson, that Indian food in Iowa, even cooked by Indians, is just not going to cut it. Would've gone to the Hamburg Inn but it was packed. Apparently this is a typical state of affairs for Sunday afternoon. Get a malt at Whitey's before taking another nap. Late: nighttime bike ride through campus and downtown with a friend and a tape player with speakers, the Police playing loud enough for a good soundtrack. Parks are all flooded. See the Official University of Iowa Marching Band Practice Grounds. No joking. Theorize about how much damage they do to property values around that otherwise lovely green spot of land.

Day 4
Leave for O'Hare at ass-o-clock in the morning, with a juicy cranberry orange walnut muffin from the Java House.

If I didn't do your kinda thing in this weekend, check out the other recommendations given in this thread. ]]> http://travel.metafilter.com/7187/Iowa-is-for-Tourists tag:travel.metafilter.com,2008:site.7187 Fri, 16 May 2008 05:32:39 -0800 honey carpet sticky cleaning whatzit