By telling us your country of residence we are able to provide you with the most relevant travel insurance information.
Please note that not all content is translated or available to residents of all countries. Contact us for full details.
Shares
Downtown Des Moines at midnight. How to get from The Maytags’ show at Wooly’s to our friends at The Tipsy Crow? “Oh it’s only a short walk, 30 minutes at the most”. 75 minutes, an encounter with the police, and a lot of confessions later, we arrive into plans to either go home or to the strip club. A real dilemma. Out on the street passers-by are commenting on our accents “Oh my god you’re British! Are you from London? Have you met the Queen?”. Des Moines is alive with drunk locals, neon lights and country music. A flyover state with character and corn, full of fun and backwoods opinions is my home for 3 months, and I’m beginning to understand. Maybe. We get in an Uber and go home, making plans for tomorrow that don’t include anyone else. Let’s go paddle boarding while everyone is at the music festival, cash some cheques, eat pizza and talk about things we haven’t before. It’s raining as we leave the bank. “Hi, excuse me, which way is the lake?” We get our directions and set off on this week’s adventure. We pass through the financial district and express our surprise at the character surrounding us; colourful shrubbery and fun adverts make the otherwise cold brick and glass inviting and we struggle to focus on where we’re going. After being searched by music festival street security and buying overpriced pizza, we shelter in an alcove and wait for the rain to ease up. The lake is that way, we can see it. We take the long way around through the park and across the bridge, it’s longer than we thought but it gives us time to talk and get sunburnt. Out on the lake we start racing. I’m better than I thought, I didn’t even fall off first. What starts as a pleasant exploration of the lake quickly devolves into trying to push each other off; I push his board with my paddle but overbalance myself and fall in. I resurface ready to laugh, and catch a board straight to the face, bending my sunglasses and making me laugh. “I’m sorry I’m so sorry are you mad I’m sorry!” “I’m okay! It’s okay I’m not mad. We have to get back though, it’s nearly 2” We race back to the dock because we’re already late, and I run and get changed. I come back to an ice cream sandwich and another apology. I love ice cream. He knows that. There’s no internet at the lake so we wander into town and come across the Grumpy Goat Bar. Walmart then home. All things considered, I think it was a successful day, despite my injuries. The storm kept up so we ordered in and watched movies. The rest of the summer went the same way; fun days full of activities and clumsiness characterised my favourite months yet, and it was blissful. I didn’t expect to find love when I signed up to work at a summer camp in America. I didn’t expect to feel myself falling for someone so wholly, someone who lived so far away. I didn’t expect to find memories to last a lifetime, or a connection to last longer. Des Moines, Iowa never seemed very promising, but given time to explore it is abundant. It is not a holiday destination, it’s not a place you aim for or aspire to, but it is beautiful in its own Mid-Western way, and has a treasure trove of experiences and characters, if you know where to look.