Another day in Raleigh. This day there is more activity in the street. The banks and hotels that make up the downtown area buzz with people, but there is another element too. Street people are much more numerous here and there is an air of quiet desperation. "The Sir Walter" a once grand hotel on Salisbury Street, has been converted to social housing for the poor, it looks forlorn and ill at ease with its new role. Grand facades and gilt are defaced with warning signs and fire notices.

There is a free bus around the town, which is supposed to show the sites, the R ride. The windows are almost blacked out with a heavy black and green mesh and the bus is populated with the urban poor. I am the only tourist, the only white face. The journey takes about 10 minutes and I get off at the convention centre where I started. I walk up to the Governer's mansion. It is an old neo classical structure with many statues, cannon and other guns in the grounds. I even see two mortars and a naval 6 pounder. The grounds are surprisingly unkempt and there is need for a lot of small, inexpensive projects to be undertaken. The mansion is in the middle of a square and is surrounded by the offices of state, Education, Agriculture etc. It's a bit like a mini Whitehall and there are busy civil servants scuttling about between the buildings looking terribly important. I decide not to stay here any longer. I cannot get a bus to the University town of Chapel Hill with my bags and there is no train, so I get in the first taxi I see. It is driven by Abraham, from Eritrea. He has travelled to Europe and is interested in Ireland. I surprise and delight him with my limited knowledge of his homeland the Marxist dictator Meingistu and of the civil war that raged there for 30 years. We talk for almost an hour. About 30 minutes into the journey Abraham shows me where the University of North Carolina's land begin. Impressive. I am deposited outside the Carolina Inn. Chapel Hill looks lovely, like the prosperous campus town that it is. The Inn looks most inviting and I am struck by the fear that there will be some difficulty. I paid very little for this accommodation, but there are numerous valets who rush to take my bags, the place reeks of old opulence and luxury. But there is no problem, I am even upgraded! I decide to freshen up, make contact with a University Professor who works in the area of juvenile justice and who is the main reason that I am here and go for a stroll in the 104 degree F heat.