The University of Edinburgh is cold, erratically sunny, but common spurts of rain. The University of Iowa is not different. There are haunted bookshops next to corner diners. I’m a writer. I used to say it was I do. Now it’s something I am. It’s the fanatic, crazy pro-university town status that I never seem to escape.
November rolls around and Iowa is frozen before Scotland sees a drop of snow or ice. Students wrap themselves in blankets just to go outside; and I’m wearing what I wore in September.Art deco frozen yogurt shops are the perfect late night snack; and theatre show crazy adaptations from Mary Kay cosmetics, musicals or heretics staging the life of Arthur Conon Doyle through the eyes of Sherlock.