Utah!

I am in Boulder, CO after camping for four days in and around various state parks throughout Utah. Utah wasn't originally really on our radar (When I think Utah, I think Mormons and skiing), but they have some really amazing scenery there!

We woke up in St. George early so that we could get to the first-come-first served campsite in Zion. I caught the last 20 minutes of USA vs Algeria. It was nerve-wracking, but so exciting! The small fans in the car made the drive bearable, and it was only an hour or so to get to the park. Since it was really hot, we set up our tent and relaxed in some shade under a tree. We grabbed some lunch, went on some errands to get firewood, and then headed for the trails. We were a little worried about hiking in the heat, but we took the river walk trail and hiked through the river to where the canyons narrow. The water was freezing and sometimes it was as high up as my waist, but we stayed cool and in the shade! Plus, it was really cool being by cliffs that tower over you! I made the smart decision of putting my camera in Harrison's backpack because I don't really have the greatest balance. It turned out to be a good life decision because I ended up taking a pretty epic fall. We were wading through a part where the the rapids were a bit stronger. My right foot got stuck on one side of a rock and the current started pushing my left foot off another rock. I practically did the splits before I tumbled into the water. Then I just sat there laughing for while before actually getting up because I looked pretty ridiculous. But yeah, if I had my camera in my own bag it would not have survived, which would have been very upsetting. The hike was still amazing and well worth getting soaked. I would highly recommend it, but definitely take a walking stick. Without mine, I probably would have fallen about 30 more times.

We also saw a few deer along the way, and Harrison contributed to the random "rock castles" (small rock towers) on our way back. We had a lovely pasta dinner and just relaxed in the cool desert air before going to sleep. We had to wake up early the next day to get out the east entrance to Bryce Canyon before they closed the road for construction. I ended up not sleeping well that night because it got extremely windy at night and the tent was really noisy getting blown around. Melanie also tends to move around in her sleep a lot and was practically rolling on top of me. Bryan Canyon wasn't that far, but it took us a bit longer than expected to get there because we accidentally went to the wrong campsite at first. We ended up not really doing much on Thursday because we were all a little tired, and it was extremely hot. We hung around our campsite's pool, did laundry, and napped. It was actually nice to relax a little.

On Friday morning, we woke up with the sun because it was so bright outside! It was much cooler in the morning, too, so we thought it would be better to explore the canyon when it was cooler outside. We went hiking on a combination of the Navajo Loop and the Queen's garden loop, about a 3 mile hike overall. The trail went down into the canyon and looped around through the hoodoos (what they call the rock formations). The canyon was really pretty, and there were so many different colors in the rocks and plants! One part on the trail had a very large collection of little rock castles like the ones we saw on the river in Zion. I think one person must've thought "I think I'll make a rock tower" and then more people saw it and made their own. Some of them were pretty impressive and had arches or delicately balanced rocks.

We stopped and ate our lunch at the park lodge and went to the Bryce and Inspiration viewpoints before heading to the Grand Staircase National Park in the afternoon. We had seen pictures of some canyon narrows, or slot canyons, and that park had the closest ones. The roads in the park were poorly maintained (most of them were dirt or sand roads) and I was a little worried that our van might get stuck out there. We took the Willis Creek trail which had some smaller canyons. They were cool, but not as spectacular as Zion. We turned around before the end of the trail because it started raining (yes, raining in the desert!) It ended up not raining too much, just a little thunder, but we didn't want to risk getting caught out there. We were all pretty tired from the hikes and such, so we went back to camp and went to sleep early.

On Saturday, we woke up and headed north to Moab, a small town close to Arches National Park. We took the scenic route 12, which goes through more of the Grand Staircase park and some national forests and other parks. The views were gorgeous!! There was one part that was very gray and ugly, and what we imagined the moon might look like. We checked into our campsite, and then headed to the Moab brewery (they make several Microbrews and their own ginger ale!) to grab lunch and watch he US/Ghana game. A little disappointing, but oh well.

While at the brewery, Melanie found a brochure for this place called Hole N' The Rock, and we decided to check it out because Arches is really hot during the day. It turned out to be a museum of a home in a rock that this crazy couple made. Seriously, the husband was in the mining business and basically blew out a large portion of a rock to make a cave/house. The tour was $5 but totally worth it because I haven't laughed that hard in a good while. They left the house the way it was since the wife died in the 70s. She had a collection of really creepy old dolls and collected random trinkets that she put in random notches on the cave walls. The husband was an amateur taxidermist and there were 3 stuffed and extremely creepily posed animals in the home, one of which was by the couple's bed. He also had a bunch of paintings of Jesus all around the house, and he was apparently really obsessed with FDR because he painted a portrait of him, made a bust of him, and carved his face into the rock on the side of their house. I waited until we were out of the building before I doubled over laughing. It was definitely one of the funniest/most bizarre roadside attractions ever.

When the sun started setting we headed to Arches, and went on a few short hikes (about 1 mile each) to see the different arches and fun rock formations like the balanced rock and the petrified dunes. We watched the sunset in a spot recommended by a park ranger, and it was beautiful! The rocks changed color in the light and it was really neat. We went back to the campsite when it got dark for a late dinner. Our neighbor came over and chatted with us for a while. We told him we were gonna make s'mores and he didn't know what they were. I don't really know how anyone could not know what s'mores are considering they are one of the most delicious treats in the universe, but we showed him how to make one. Seriously though, how do you not know what s'mores are?! So sad.

P.S. Melanie has her pictures from the trip on Picasa if you want to check them out!: http://picasaweb.google.com/melaniebeth.martin

The Grand Canyon and Las Vegas!

We left Glenn's house on Sunday morning, and since it was Father's Day, we snuck out early in the morning so they could serve their dad breakfast in bed. Unfortunately we only got to spend one night at the Grand Canyon because you apparently have to book WAY in advance for the campsites in the park (which we didn't realize). Our one night came from a cancellation, so we got lucky with that. We got to the park fairly early, driving past the Mojave desert and dirt-caked hills. We set up camp and ate a snack before catching a park shuttle to Hopi Point to watch the sunset. The shuttles are nice because they reduce car traffic and they're free! We explored a part of the South Rim and found a great spot to watch it. The canyon is seriously one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It was so awesome! After it got dark, we headed back to our campsite, where Melanie fixed some delicious chili for dinner. We decided to go to bed early so that we could get up early in time to do some hiking before we made our was to Las Vegas.

Yesterday morning, we packed up our stuff and parked our car near a shuttle stop, and rode the shuttle to the trailhead for the Bright Angel Trail. The whole trail goes all the way down to the bottom of the canyon and all the way to the other rim, but we clearly did not have time to do that. We chose the 3-mile option. The trail has several rest-houses with bathrooms and water along the way, the first of which is a mile and a half down. It was a fun hike, but very hot and kinda grueling going back up. We stopped in a few shady spots to rest on the way up, but we finished the hike in under 2 hours! I was really sad to leave, but Vegas awaited us.

We took route 93 into Vegas and went past the Hoover Dam. There was a lot of construction going on around the dam so it took a while to get through. Our air conditioner also started acting up, so we had our windows down. The dam was pretty disappointing. I mean, it was kinda cool, but it's not as big as you would expect, and it's really not that exciting. Vegas, however, was AWESOME. We stayed at Bill's Gamblin'Hall & Saloon, and it was great! It's right in the middle of the strip! And it's a great deal, only $60ish a night! We spent the night hotel/casino hopping, and it was great! One of my favorites was the Bellagio fountains. They go off every 15 minutes, and I think they do different songs, but the one we caught was "Proud to be an American." I'm not gonna lie, it was hilarious! But also awesome at the same time. At a bar we visited in MGM, the music randomly got loud and all the bartenders preceded to jump on the bar and dance. We spent most of the night at Mandalay Bay because the bar there also had a dance floor (no cover charge!). We tried a few slots for fun, but none of us are really big gamblers. I won $4! Wooooo! haha.

Today we started driving to Zion National Park, but stopped an hour short because the AC was completely dead and we wanted to see if we could get it easily fixed. Driving through a desert with no AC is not pleasant. We took the van to an auto repair shop, who originally thought it just needed more freon. But it turned out a part of the actual system was broken. The repairs would cost more than what the van is really worth (it's on it's last leg and this trip was kind of its last hurrah). We've decided to suck it up, but went to a local wal-mart and bought a bunch of fans. We ended up staying in St. George, Utah (where we stopped) because we were all tired from the night before and very hot. So we're in a cheap hotel for now and will head out to Zion tomorrow! We will most likely not have internet for the next 4 or 5 days since we'll be camping in various places around Utah, so I think this is my last update for now. At least I caught up!

Los Angeles

AAAAAAHH! I'm so far behind in my updates. It's kinda hard to update when you don't have internet access. Anyway, I guess I will continue with our LA visit even though I am now in Utah. Ok, so when we got to Glenn's house, she and her family were discussing all the different things we should do. They listed so many different things that we decided to just stay an extra day there! It ended up being good for us because we got to rest a little after 2 weeks (!) on the road.

Day one was our more tourist-y day of various parts of LA. We slept in some, and woke up in time to watch the U.S. play Slovenia. I'm still a little bitter about that call...Anyway, our first stop was Hollywood. We walked along the walk of fame, got bombarded by random people trying to sell tours (however Glenn was our private tour guide). We also stopped by the Chinese theater where the lucky few stars get to put their hand/footprints in the cement. We also saw the Kodak Theater (where the academy awards are filmed, and El Capitain (where all Disney films premier). We also got a view of the Hollywood sign, but never got particularly close.

Next we drove through Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, and Bel Air. We didn't have any of those star maps to figure out where celebrities live, but most of the houses are behind enormous brick walls, so it's not like you can really see anything anyway. From there we drove past UCLA and went to a shopping area nearby. Glenn took us to this place called Diddy Riese, where you can design your own ice cream cookie sandwich!! They had a bunch of different cookies and ice cream flavors to choose from, and it was only $1.50! So delicious!

A trip to LA wouldn't be complete without a visit to the beach, so we spent the rest of the afternoon on Santa Monica beach. Harrison, Glenn, and I ventured to go into the Pacific, but Melanie thought it was too cold. It was very chilly, but you get used to. We walked around by the boardwalk and the beach playgrounds and had dinner at a great restaurant near the Third Street Promenade. We finished our evening watching the sunset on the pier, then watching the Wedding Singer before bed (read previous post to understand significance of said movie).

The second day of our visit was Pasadena day! We stayed in the area to see what was going on. We stopped by the Norton Simon Museum (it's free for students with ID!), which is where The Thinker is. They had a lot of really cool and interesting artwork. Then we went to a Mexican restaurant for a taste of REAL Mexican food. I had taquitos and they were delicious! Next we went to this chalk festival around a shopping area. A bunch of artists made really cool and intricate drawings in chalk! I took lots of pictures. They also had a free concert series around the town at various locations as a part of the city's kick-off for their summer concerts. There were a lot of interesting people, including a man dressed as Darth Vader. A lot of people in LA just like to dress up as different characters and wander the streets. We were all a little tired from being out in the sun, so we went home to take a quick nap before we met up with another school friend, Drew, for dinner at Islands Burgers. I got the Maui burger. It had guacamole on it and it was delicious! We finished the night chilling out and trying to work out plans for the next few days.

San Francisco to LA

The past few days have been pretty great! Our friend Brad (who we stayed with in Sonoma) works at Ravens Wood winery and gave us a private tour of their facilities on Wednesday morning. We got to sample some of their wines right out of the barrel. It was pretty cool cause we got to actually see the different parts of the wine-making process. The drive to San Francisco was about and hour, and we came in across the Golden Gate bridge. We stopped on top of a hill right before the bridge to get some nice pictures and a good view of the city. We were meeting my camp friend Maggie for lunch, but stopped off at our hostel to drop off our stuff.

According to the Google map on my phone, Maggie's apartment was only a mile away, so we decided to walk. We kinda forgot that we were in San Francisco and that there are HUGE hills. Fortunately we only had one monstrous hill to climb to get to her apartment. She took us to Little Italy for some great pasta and gelato. We also got to climb on the roof of her apartment for some great city views. After lunch, we decided to wander around by Pier 39 and around the wharf.

At Pier 39, they had a store called Lefty's that sells stuff specially made for left-handed people. As a lefty, I was pretty excited about it. I purchased a mug that, if held with the right hand, would pour the beverage onto the drinker because there is a hole in it. I found it quite amusing. We also checked out the sea lions who live there, and walked to Ghiardelli square. We got a free piece of chocolate when we walked into the Ghiardelli chocolate shop! Delicious! We relaxed in a park by the wharf for a while and devoured some more candy we got at a store that has barrels full of different candies.

For dinner and more exploring, we wanted to hit up Chinatown, so we bought a cable car (trolley!) pass and rode one over there. The shops had a lot of really funny and cool stuff, and people kept stopping us to try to get us to go to their restaurant. We finally decided on one, and ended up ordering WAY too much food! We ended up giving our leftovers to some people staying in the hostel. We finished off the night by exploring the Union Square area and riding the cable cars around some more. I mean, let's be real, who doesn't love them?!

On Thursday morning, we woke up to the "Free Willy" theme song! Seriously, one of the Swedish guys staying in our hostel room had it set as his alarm. We had a good laugh about it, and it was a pretty great way to get up. We headed to Los Angeles via route 1. We didn't stay on it the whole way because the drive was really long, but the coastline looked beautiful, and we drove past Big Sur. We made it to our friend Glenn's house in Pasadena just in time to catch the last few minutes of the NBA finals. Glenn and her family were really excited to have us and started discussing all of the things we should do in LA, and listed so many things, we decided to stay an extra day. Fun facts: Glenn's house is the house where Adam Sandler's character lives in "The Wedding Singer" and her great-grandmother is the Little Old Lady from Pasadena (as in the song!). I need to take a break from typing now, so I'll try to finish the rest of our LA expeditions before we leave for the Grand Canyon tomorrow. No guarantees though.

All the Way to Wine Country!

We ended up staying at McMenamin's a bit later than planned. We went to their wine tasting and got to sample about 6 different wines for $3. And they weren't just little sips, they were pretty generous amounts of wine. We decided to stay for lunch to give ourselves some time to recover. The wine was excellent though! I bought a bottle of the estate wine to bring home with me. It should be good!

Since we stayed later than planned, and we wanted to take the scenic Oregon coast route to the Redwood Forest (well worth the extra time, by the way), we didn't quite make it to California. Around 8:30 we started looking for a campsite so we could set up camp and have dinner before it got too dark. We ended up staying at Cape Blanco, which was a state park. It wasn't nearly as cold as Yellowstone, but the wind made it feel much colder! It was so windy, we couldn't even get the fire going. We ended up using my super-old camp stove to try to cook some pasta, but it took FOREVER for the water to boil and it ended up not being so great of a dinner. Once we got in the tent though, it was quite warm and we slept pretty well!

This morning we got up early to get on the road to California. Cape Blanco turned out to be closer to the border than we thought! We drove through the Redwoods and went on 2 different hikes. The first was a mile-and-back hike to the beach at the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. It was a little steep, but bearable, and we got to explore some of the beach as well. The second hike was the mile-long loop of the Lady Bird Johnson Redwood grove in the Redwood National Forest. This trail had a lot of the old-growth redwoods, some of which were several hundred years old! The trail also had a guide that gave a lot of info about the trees and growth around them. A park ranger overheard us talking about some birds, and ended up walking with us a bit and telling us some cool stuff about the forest. We saw these giant clover-looking leaves. I can't remember what they were called, but they contain the same stuff that they use to make Sour Patch Kids sour. He told us we could eat them (but that we should wait until he left so that we wouldn't get in trouble). They were good, but weird! Whoever heard of a sour leaf?

After the forest, we made our way to Sonoma to stay with our friend Brad who works at a vineyard in the area. We're going to stop by his job on our way into San Fransisco for a private tour! Apparently Sonoma and Napa are somewhat rivals in the wine-making industry. Either way, it's fun to drive by all the vineyards! I'm really excited for San Fransisco, though. Goals: ride trolley, see Golden Gate, eat sourdough bread. It should be fun!

Yellowstone to Portland

We woke up bright and early, but ended up leaving a little later because we were talking to our campsite neighbors who happened to be from VCU. It was a couple who were traveling to the guy's dad's house in California. It took us a while to get around to our park exit, but we saw some mule deer and and elk on the way out! The car hit mileage 123456 shortly after we got gas, so we deemed it important to document it. We decided to drive to Boise for the night after our South Dakota driving fiasco, so the drive wasn't too long and was pretty uneventful. At one point Melanie's ipod started playing the Macarena, so we started dancing and a man driving on a motorcycle next to us started laughing and dancing along as well. It was pretty funny! Instead of taking us to the park where we wanted to camp, the GPS took us to the building of the offices that manage state parks....why? I have no idea! We tried calling but soon realized we had waited until too late to book a campsite. We ended up staying at Hostel Boise, just outside the city. It was run by a really friendly couple, and they gave us a deal ($15 per person) since there weren't many people there that night.

After chilling out on the porch and showering, we went downtown to Bardenay, the only restaurant that also makes its own vodka, rum, and gin. We found it in our Lonely Planet guide book. We tried their wings (delicious!) and their signature drinks that contained their spirits. Our favorite was the ginger rum cocktail. And all of the cocktails were relatively cheap. Well done, Lonely Planet!

After a good (and warm!) night's sleep, I got up and made pancakes in the hostel kitchen before we started making our way to Portland. We weren't too far from the border, and enjoyed driving through the drastic changing scenery from mountains to hills and plains. When we stopped for gas, I started to get out of the car, but an attendant immediately came over to help us. It's illegal for you to pump your own gas in Oregon. I don't really know why, but oh well.

The drive to our hostel wasn't too much farther after getting gas, and despite a bird casualty (it flew into our windshield), we all made it to McMenamins. I like to describe it as a hostel/hotel/winery/brewery. They also have gardens and a golf course and stuff, and wasn't too much more than a hostel in downtown Portland, so we decided to go for it. This is why I went exploring last night. They have a bunch of bars and restaurants, and lots of crazy artwork all over the walls.

We went downtown to Portland to explore a little and grab some dinner. Melanie needed a belt, so she went to Buffalo Exchange, which is a used clothing store, while Harrison and I checked out Powell's, the world's largest independent bookstore. No really, they have maps available for you to find things. My favorite was the rare book room. Their oldest book for sale is from the 1400's and their most expensive book is about $350,000!! They had a book written and autographed by JFK! I think my favorite, though was their first edition copy of Eloise! It was $700! For dinner, we went to this pizza place across the street called Rocco's. It was so good, but the pieces were HUGE! We couldn't finish it all, so we gave our extra pizza to a homeless guy sitting on a corner. In exchange for the pizza, he told us a joke that didn't really make sense, but he was really excited about getting the pizza so it was fine! Before heading back to our hostel, we stopped by the rose gardens as a recommendation from my friend Gina, and they were SO PRETTY! I've never seen so many different varieties and colors of roses! They had deep purples and almost neon pinks, and really cool multi-colored ones that looked like sunsets! Mad props to Gina for recommending.

I was a little worried about not getting sleep last night. While Harrison's room was virtually empty, the women's hostel room contained a bunch of women attending a wedding. They turned out to be really funny when they came back and talked to us about our travels. They even gave us extra goodie bags from the wedding! Anyway, we're planning on hanging out around here for a while after we check out to see the winery and brewery. Then we'll head down to California to check out the redwood forest and do some more camping!

From Minnetonka to Yellowstone!

I apologize for the lack of updates on the trip. The past few days we have been camping and haven't really even had cell phone service, much less internet access. I guess I will continue with the end of our visit in Minnesota. We got a bit of a late start because I had a phone interview and Melanie had a lot of stuff to do on her computer. We had lunch with Taylor at the 5-8 Diner, which is famous for it's burger called the Juicy Lucy. They're burgers with the cheese on the inside, and it oozes out when you bite into it. We all tried them, and they were quite delicious! After leaving Minneapolis, we decided to travel west to Darwin, MN, which is home to the world's largest ball of twine rolled by one man. It's HUGE! It was about 11 feet wide and is encased in a little house to protect it from the elements. We stopped by a local saloon for a bathroom break and the waitress told us that he probably did it because he was so bored and there was nothing else to do but roll twine for several hours a day. That waitress might be one of my favorite people we've met so far.

Since we ended up going farther west, we took mostly back roads through Minnesota to get into South Dakota. It was fun to see lots of farmland and such. However, once we crossed the border into South Dakota, the main road was closed, and our GPS had us weaving in and out of dirt roads around these farms until we finally made it back to a paved road and into a little town. I got really stressed out on the dirt roads because I had no idea where we were and I was slightly worried about the van getting stuck in some muddy parts. Although we did see a fox, which was pretty cool. We drove through the night to the Black Hills, all the way on the other side of the state. Sadly, we did not get to stop at the world famous Wall-Drug, which Taylor told us is quite similar to South of the Border (for all you I-95 travelers). But that turned out to be the least of our worries. We overestimated our speed with driving and our arrival time wasn't until 2:00 in the morning, but really 3:00 for us because of the time change, and we got lost because we thought we had taken the wrong road, when in actuality we just didn't drive far enough on it. When we finally saw a sign for our campsite, we started going along this road with some of the craziest turns I've ever seen (we later found out parts of it were called "Pigtail bridge" because they curl like a pig's tail). The road also had 3 one lane tunnels, and we encountered a mountain goat in the middle of the road who would not move. We managed to drive around him though. Melanie decided to name him Syrup because he was licking a syrupy substance on the road. So after driving back and forth on the road about 3 times, we finally made it to our campsite around 5 am. We set up our tent without stakes and grabbed our sleeping bags to collapse for a few hours.

When we felt we had slept a decent enough amount, we got back in the car and, at the advice of the campsite manager, drove to Custer State Park. We went on a three mile hike called the Lover's Leap loop, which had some great views! Although the park ranger told us it was a nice stroll, we definitely had to jump over this creek about 15 times as it snaked along with the trail. It was still pretty fun though! We then took the "Wildlife loop" drive around the park and saw a variety of animals, including buffalo (what the park is famous for), prairie dogs, pronghorns, and burros! Some of the burros came up to our car and stuck their heads in the window in hopes we would feed them. Then from the park, we rode the Needles Scenic Highway to Mt. Rushmore. We called it the Needless Highway because we thought that's what the sign originally said. The highway had a lot of cool rock formations that looked like fingers and the Needles Eye, which was the topmost point and looked like the end of a needle where you would thread it. Our day ended at Mt. Rushmore. It turned out to be a lot smaller than I had always imagined it, but I decided that it only looks smaller since you're seeing it at a distance. We went back to the campsite for an early dinner so that we could get some sleep at a decent hour. Before we went to sleep I suggested we put the stakes down on the tent since it was raining some and getting windy. It proved to be a good life decision because large gusts of wind blew during the night, and I feared the tent would get blown over even with the stakes! We survived though!

The next day we took another scenic drive out of the Black Hills to get to the highway on the way to Yellowstone. We drove through Deadwood, which is a historic town that was illegally settled by outlaws during the Gold Rush. It's home to Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok. In fact, they apparently do reenactment's of Hickok's murder....it was an interesting town. We made it into Wyoming and saw, well, not much. There's pretty much nothing in Wyoming. Gas stations and rest stops are few and far between. We did stop once though to see Devil's Tower, which is a giant rock that towers over the plains. I now like to call it "Devil's Elbow" though, because Harrison accidentally called it that when he was making notes for his journal. So yeah, pretty much nothing in Wyoming...until we got closer to the Rockies! We drove through the Big Horn mountains, which were absolutely gorgeous! We also took a scenic drive into Yellowstone toward the East entrance. We stopped at a gift shop in Cody, and the people there gave us free samples of buffalo sausage and sarsaparilla. We contemplated going to a rodeo, but decided it was best to just get to the campsite. I did get some cool earrings in a $5 grab bag though! Yellowstone is BEAUTIFUL. We came in around a lake and through some towering cliffs. We even got into the park for free since the entry station was empty! We checked in and set up camp.

One thing we didn't anticipate for this campsite was the cold. It was FREEZING. I woke up several times in the middle of the night and had only somewhat irrational fears of getting frostbite on my toes. It did snow a little! We managed, though. I really wanted to go see Old Faithful, so that was our first stop of the day of our tour around the park on Friday. In addition to watching it, we also walked around to see some of the other, smaller geysers. Apparently there are actually other geysers that are more predictable, but I guess they just found Old Faithful first. They all released a lot of steam that felt nice but smelled like sulfur. We also visited the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, which was absolutely gorgeous! We also saw more buffalo and a moose! And we checked out the mud volcano area that had geysers that spew mud out instead of just water. All-in-all, the day was excellent. We finished off the night with Melanie's potato/carrot fire-cooking experiment that turned out to be quite tasty! We also slept much better because we bundled up for the night!

Well I'm going to stop here, but I do have a few more things to share as I am now in Oregon and have to tell you how I got there. However, I want to explore my hostel a little, so I will finish updating later!

Chicago, Wisconsin, Minnesota

Well our trip has gotten off to a great start! Yesterday we left Kentucky and drove to Chicago to spend the evening there.` We didn't really stop anywhere while driving through Indiana, but as we drove further north, we did stop briefly to look at all of the windmills at this HUGE wind farm. Seriously, it looked like the windmills never ended! Some people don't like windmills, but I think they're really cool. And they're a great way of harvesting energy!

We stayed in a hotel close to the O'Hare airport because it was much cheaper than staying downtown. Our hotel had a free shuttle to the "L" train, so we had no problem making our way there. While Melanie was getting her ticket, this woman came up to Harrison and me and offered us her 7-day rail passes that still had a couple of days left on them. We gladly accepted. By the way, Chicago is AWESOME. Everyone there was really friendly, and we had a great time exploring. We started off at the Millenium park to check out the "Bean," the fun mirror-sculpture that reflects the city. We tried to get a famous Chicago hot dog, but none of the hot dog places we found were open (I guess since it was Sunday night). So after we had a non-Chicagoan dinner, we walked the Magnificent Mile up to the John Hancock Observatory. The tickets were a little pricey, but definitely worth it! It had great views of the city, and an audio tour that was really informative and also helped us find some other places we wanted to go. We definitely wanted to check out Buckinham Fountain, which has a big water show on the hour, every hour, and then we went back to Millenium Park to see the fountains that project people's faces and looks like they're spitting out water.


Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals was going on while we were there, too, and the city had done a lot of cool things to show their support. I'm personally not a huge fan of the Blackhawks since they beat the Sharks, but it was still cool, none the less. Several of the office buildings had coordinated turning certain lights on and off. One building projected the Stanley Cup, one said "Let's go Hawks" and one projected the Blackhawks logo. It was pretty impressive.

This morning we got up bright and early to make our way to my friend Taylor's house outside Minneapolis. We drove up through Wisconsin, taking a smaller highway around Madison to check out some fun roadside attractions. We stopped at a place in hopes of seeing the world's tallest scrap metal sculpture, but sadly it was closed. We also visited a chocolate factory that makes "Cow pies" chocolates (round chocolate pieces with caramel and pecans). Before meeting up with Taylor, we visited the Mall of America, and it was quite interesting. It had a theme park, a wedding chapel, and about 400 stores! My favorite was the Lego area, where they had giant Lego displays and anyone could build stuff for fun. I almost got a Legoman keychain. They also had a Wisconsin cheese store complete with free samples that we tested. Melanie and Harrison got some stuff at the Columbia sportswear store forthe trip. It was quite an experience!

Taylor met us at the mall, and we went back to her house for dinner before she gave us a tour of Minneapolis. We walked around a sculpture park - the most famous sculpture there is a giant spoon with a cherry on it, and went to a theater downtown to see great views of the Mississippi River. It's a big city with a small town feel. I really enjoyed it! Next we'll head out in search of the World's largest ball of twine rolled by one person before heading to South Dakota and the Black Hills where we'll be camping for a few days.

Woodford Reserve

In our original plans for today, we were going to visit 2 different bourbon distilleries, but we decided that it was better to just chill at one place and not have to rush so much. We visited the Woodford Reserve distillery in Versailles. It wasn't too far from us and I heard from others that they had a good tour. The tour was pretty cool. We learned about how bourbon was made ("All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon!"), saw the warehouse, and had a tasting! It was a lovely visit.

Another fun part of the trip was going past the castle. That's right. A castle. Melanie and Harrison found it pretty amusing that a castle is just there for no particular reason. The story as I know it is that this couple traveled through Europe and decided that it would be really cool to have their own castle. The husband started secretly building one for them, but then she thought he was doing something else and they ended up getting divorced. The castle sat unfinished for a while until a man bought it and started finishing the construction. At one point it got struck by lightning and caught on fire! It survived, though, and now it's a hotel/fancy place for events. I like the castle.

After the distillery, we went back to Lexington for lunch. I took my friends to Pazzo's, which is a delicious pizza place close to UK's campus. After that we went back to our house to relax and make some more plans. My friend Mariela had us over for dinner, and then we went shopping for some snacks and stuff for the car. We decided not to drive to Louisville tonight, but we'll head out to Chicago bright and early! I'm pretty excited.

Let the Road Tripping Commence!

Melanie and Harrison are officially on their way to my house as I write this post! I am so excited! I spent a great deal of time searching for all of our assorted camping gear in my house. I got the tent out and found our camp stove and mess kits and all sorts of other fun camping things. I haven't been legit camping in a good while, so I'm pretty excited. I've worked at a summer camp for the past 5 years, but we live in cabins and the one time the whole cabin group goes camping in the woods, I don't really have that much to do with setup and cooking. It will definitely be an adventure!

Anyway, once my travel buddies arrive, we'll be chilling at my house for the night and making sure that we have everything that we need. I still need to pack up all of my clothes. I feel like there's a lot of different clothes that I'll need because we're going such a variety of places, and the weather is kind of all over the place. We're planning on going to Yellowstone, and the temperatures can drop down to the low 30's at night! In the summer!

So far we have definite stops planned for the next few days of our trip. Tomorrow we'll stay in Kentucky and travel a bit along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. I've been wanting to go on the Bourbon Trail since I turned 21. My friend Scott and I were gonna do it for our 21st birthdays (our birthdays are 2 days apart), but sadly we never found the time, since we were at school different places. The trail consists of 6 of Kentucky's finest distilleries, all of which are more or less between Lexington and Louisville. You can go to any of them and tour the distillery, and they have tastings, too! A fun thing they started doing a few years ago is the passport. Once you've visited every distillery on the trail, you get a free t-shirt! I'm pretty excited about the trail, even though we probably won't make it to all of them this time around.

Tomorrow night, we'll stay with a friend in Louisville before heading up to Chicago. I discovered it was much cheaper to stay in a hotel by the O'Hare airport than to attempt to find a place downtown. I got a pretty good deal with my AAA discount, and the hotel has a free shuttle to the nearby train station. Well, I better get back to packing up my things. See you later!

I figured out how to map on the blog where we're going. Enjoy!

It's Official!

The road trip officially begins on Friday when my roommate and her high school friend make their way to my house in Kentucky! My roommate found this website called Roadtrip USA that was a great source for finding roadtrip routes across the country. Our plans won't take us directly on a specific route but we thought it would be a good idea to try to follow them in general. From Kentucky, we'll make our way up through Chicago to Minnesota, then roughly follow the "Oregon Trail" route listed on the website (best route name by far!). Hitting various spots along the way, we'll start heading down through California, then over to Vegas, and back towards Kentucky on what the website calls the "Loneliest Road." I'm not sure how about I feel about being on a route called the loneliest, but perhaps there will be some interesting roadside attractions! It should be a fun trip! Since we're all recent college graduates and are poor, we're trying to keep costs down by camping as often as possible and staying with friends who happen to be along the way.

As for the possibility of going to South Africa this summer, it no longer exists. After a very unnecessarily long application reviewing/interviewing process, I was informed that all of the positions in South Africa had been filled. It's just as well, I guess. I can't imagine what the crowds would be like there with the World Cup going on. It would be insane! I do wish that they had let me know sooner, though, instead of dragging this process out for almost a month longer than they originally said it would take. Whatever, I get to go across America and see a lot of places I've never seen.

On the blog, again...

Wow, a lot has happened since my last post back in 2008. Everything turned out okay with my ISP and all that jazz. I finished up the rest of my college days back in America and just graduated last weekend! It was hard to get back into a more structured routine, and I don't know that I ever fully recovered from learning to expect the unexpected. However, I am thankful for my entire college experience and the challenges I have face in the last year and a half since writing have made me a stronger person.

Anyway, enough about me and the past. I've decided to get back to blogging again for two reasons. First, my college roommate and I, along with a few of her high school friends, have decided to go on a cross-country roadtrip! And I figured, what better way to document my travels than to share it on the internet?! We have a bit of a plan together, but we're not entirely sure how it will all pan out. They're planning on driving from Virginia to my home in Kentucky, where we'll start off with some Bourbon Trailing and then move farther north from there. We'll see how it goes.

The second reason is that I might be returning to South Africa this summer! The organization that did my study abroad program also does summer programs for high school students called "Experiment in International Living," and they hire recent grads and such to be group leaders. I have my interview tomorrow, so I'll know for sure then. It's a little nerve-wracking for me not having a summer job lined up (this is the first summer that I haven't already had a job in place by this time of year). But I figure if I don't get the job, it just gives me more time to travel around the states, and when will I really get the chance to do this again?

I'm Done!

I'm finally finished with my ISP! Hooray!! All I have to do is print it out, bind it, and turn it in tomorrow morning. Yesterday I took a bit of a break from all the writing and went to a mosque in downtown Durban. It was really pretty, and I learned a lot Islam that I didn't know before, so it was very interesting. We also went to a used bookstore, and then a very small group of people went to a Korean restaurant right next to the Gateway mall. We also had our last braai at the backpackers, which was a little sad. I don't think that it's really hit me yet that I'm leaving in a week! Today after I print everything out, I'm gonna go back to Cato Manor for a little to give my family some pictures that I took while I stayed there, and tell them goodbye. I wish I could visit my other families, but I think Cookie is still off traveling somewhere, and I don't really have time to go all the way back to the rural areas. My friend who I lived with in the rural areas is staying a little after the program ends, though, so I gave her some pictures to take them as well. Tonight a few of us are having a celebratory dinner at the Roma revolving restaurant. I think it will be a lot of fun and a good way to finish the ISP period.

Things I will miss about South Africa:

• All of my homestay families
• The Hostel and the people there
• The people in my program
  
• The Botanic Gardens
• The beach
  
• All of the different Markets
• The laid back amosphere
• Florida road
• The rural areas
• The mini-buses with their ridiculous names and designs
• Braais every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Sunday
• Rugby!
  
• Random adventures and not knowing what's going to happen next
• The game drive and the hike at the South Coast
  
• Zulu
• Beads!
• Everything is pretty inexpensive because of the exchange rate (yesterday $1 was worth 10.32 rands!)
  

I think this probably will be my last entry because we have presentations of our projects tomorrow, then leave for the Drakensburg mountains on Sunday. Then I'll be going to Cape Town for a few days, and then I will be coming home! I still can't believe it! Thanks for reading blog, I hope you enjoyed it. Sala Kahle!

ISP has taken over my life

It's crunch time. I've spent pretty much my entire weekend working on my ISP, aside from a Sunday break trip to Ushaka Marine World. It's an aquarium/water park, but we only went to the aquarium because it was cloudy and a little cold. It was a lot of fun! We saw a stringray feeding, penguin feeding, shark feeding, and a dolphin show! It was a nice break. I also booked tickets for my 2-day excursion to Cape Town the last two days of the program. We're planning on going to Robben Island, Table Mountain (weather permitting), and doing a tour of the Cape Peninsula before catching a flight back to Durban and heading home. Anyway, this is only a quick update because I really should get back to editing my paper. Sala kahle!

Turkey Day

Well I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! It was a little strange not spending it with my family at home, but I also doesn't really feel like Thanksgiving or the Christmas season anyway because the weather is so drastically different here than it is in the U.S. My mom said it's already snowed three times at home, and here it's extremely hot and humid. The other day they put up a whole bunch of Christmas decorations lining one of the main streets downtown, and it looked so bizarre to me because I always associate Christmas with cold weather. I think I'll get quite a shock when I get off the plane in New York in 2 weeks.

Anyway, for Thanksgiving our academic director invited our group over to her house for Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone made some sort of dish (I successfully made some quite delicious mashed potatoes), and we had so much food! There were four, yes four, turkeys, two different kinds of mashed potatoes, tons of stuffing, green beans, rolls, cheesy bread, and lots of fruit and veggies. We also had about 5 different desserts. So much food! We all had a great time relaxing and a few of us went swimming in the pool. It was a lot of fun!

Now is crunch time for my ISP, so I probably won't really be able to update much from now on because I have to get about 40 pages written! Our papers are due by the end of this week and then we have to make little presentations on our projects before we head out to the Drakensburg mountains for a few days for some hiking and our final program evaluations. After the Drakensburg, a few of us are signing out of the program a little early to use our two free days at the end of our program to visit Cape Town, and then I'm coming home! I can't believe I'll be home in less than two weeks. It's a really bizarre thought. Sala kahle!

Super Busy

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I haven't really been in much of a blogging mood. My weekend wasn't too exciting. We went back to the Essenwood market and I got a bracelet from the same lady I got some earrings from before. I also went to the African Art Centre down the street and went on a gift shopping spree. I suddenly realized how much time was running out and I still needed to get some stuff for my family members. Afterwards there was a braai and rugby game. It was supposed to be a really intesne match ( a re-match of the rugby world cup last year which South Africa won), but South Africa pretty much massacred England. The only points England got were from penalties. It was a really fun game to watch though, especially went south africa scored a try by running basically all the way from their endzone. I'm really starting to enjoy and understand rugby, even though it is a little vicious.

Sunday we had yet another birthday celebration for one of the girls in the program. She really loves to cook and we all call her a domestic goddess, so she had everyone over to her flat for a birthday brunch complete with homemade bagels, french toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, and of course, cupcakes! It was so delicious! We told her that she should start her own bakery. And that we should all get a special discount for encouraging her to do it. After the brunch a few of us decided to check out a market down by the beach that we hadn't yet been to. There was some pretty random stuff there- they had everything from beads to pots and pans.

The rest of my week hasn't really been all that exciting thus far. Although I did get some cookies from one of my friends at Richmond on Monday, so that was a nice surprise! I also had two interviews today for my ISP, and I have another one tomorrow. It took me forever to get ahold of someone from the municipality! I was getting really frustrated but this woman finally agreed to meet with me tomorrow morning.

For Thanksgiving, our academic director has invited everyone in our program to her house for a thanksgiving celebration. Everyone has signed up to bring some sort of food. My contribution will be mashed potatoes and my apartmentmates are making stuffing. I've heard that there's going to be 4 turkeys, which sounds like a whole lot to me, but maybe the turkeys here are smaller? Also they have to be special orders because turkey just isn't a really popular meat. Anyway, I better go because I need to go grocery shopping for dinner and Thanksgiving. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving break! Sala kahle!

Random Adventures

The rest of my week has been filled with a lot of random adventures. Tuesday wasn't too exciting, I spent a lot of my time at the internet cafe researching for my ISP, we decided to buy a used movie at this movie rental place about a block away from our hostel, and it was one of the most bizarre movies I have ever seen. I think it was called "Edmond" or something. It was just so weird. I also realized that day that the cleaning lady threw out the papers I had saved about the U.S. election that my friend and I were in. It was a very sad realization.

Anyway, on Wednesday, I finally had interview for my project. I met with a woman who works for a paper in Durban who has been covering World Cup stories for the past 3 years, pretty much since South Africa got the bid. I got a lot of really useful information from her, and some more contacts for potential interviews, so it was really exciting. The newspaper building itself was a little strange, I thought. Basically, all the newspapers that are printed here all come from this same building, and a lot of people from different papers work side-by-side. I also tried to get a back-order issue of the paper that the cleaning lady threw away. I got what I thought was the right copy (it had the same cover story and everything), but when I opened it up, the article wasn't in there. I think the woman at the kiosk gave me the earlier edition of the paper instead of the later one...oh, well.

On Thursday, I met with a man who heads the KZN offices of the Tourism Enterprise Partnership, which works on bulding up small businesses and helping people who have been historically disadvantaged. They're trying to get more businesses, especially in the tourism industry to be prepared for 2010 and he seemed really positive. I also later went to a B&B Association meeting and talked to some women about their opinions, but they were really not happy about the FIFA regulations and things like that. There's an organization called MATCH that does ticketing and accomodation for big FIFA events and they basically buy out big blocks of hotel rooms to sell for the World Cup. For this World Cup, they're also buying B&B rooms in effort to help small businesses/tourism industries, but the women I talked to didn't like it because there were fixed rates involved and MATCH could cancel any time up to 15 days before the tournament. It was kinda funny to see two drastically different views back-to-back. It was an interesting day, and I felt very productive.

Today one of the guys in the hostel who works in a surf shop here was going to give my friend Adina and me a surfing lesson, but sadly, the weather did not cooperate. The wind was blowing in the wrong direction and there were basically no waves. We ended up going back to the Victoria Street Market and the bead market, and wandering around Durban for a while. It was a pretty random adventure because we didn't really know what to do. After an early lunch, we decided to head back to Florida road, and we went to an art gallery and checked out some stuff at a store close by. Then we walked down the road back toward the hostel. We stopped in a church along the way, because my mom told me that my Grandmother wanted to know what churches were like in South Africa. I hadn't really been in many aside from the half church/half house down the street from my house in Cato Manor. Anyway, we wandered in, and this old woman let us go inside and see . They had these two buckets on either side of the altar that had different color flags in them. We asked what they were for and she said that they danced around with them at their sunday services. She also told us that we needed to learn more about Jesus and that if we didn't we would never get into Heaven (I told her I'm not very good about going to church, and my friend is Jewish). I kinda wanna go to this Church on Sunday to see the flag-dancing spectacle. I think it would be rather interesting. We'll see what happens. Sala Kahle!

Gallery Hopping, Gateway, and Birthday!

I have had such a great weekend and birthday! On Saturday a group of us went art gallery hopping on this free bus. We rode all around Durban and saw a lot of really cool things! My favorites were the African Art Centre and the Durban University of Technology. The Art Centre had a lot of really nice handmade crafts and the university had displays of absolutely gorgeous jewelry that students there designed and made themselves! I was really amazed by some of their work. The gallery hop took pretty much the whole day, so when I got home I rested a little before some people came to the hostel. A bunch of the people in the program wanted to see where we lived and meet some of the people in the hostel. One of the girls is really jealous that we get to meet so many different people. I really do enjoy the hostel.

On Sunday we didn't really know what to do, and one of the guys who hangs out at the hostel all the time offered to take us to Gateway (the largest mall in the Southern Hemisphere). We had been before but hadn't really spent much time there. It is MASSIVE! We were pretty much in awe of everything there. They had a skate park, a wave pool, a climbing wall, and hundreds of stores! We ended up getting lunch at a sushi place where you sit at a bar and a conveyor belt goes around with all these different types of sushi on it and you just grab what you want. It was quite delicious. Then we decided to see a movie, "Body of Lies" and it was really good! I really enjoyed it, and it was nice to do something relaxing and mindless for a while. When we got back to the hostel, we braaied (like we do every Sunday) and chilled with the people at the hostel. They found out that my birthday was the next day, so they made me drink a "birthday concoction" at the bar. It was a glass of 4 different types of alcohol layered on top of each other and then lit on fire! It was pretty disgusting. But it was fun, and they all sang happy birthday to me!

On Monday, I went to the offices for a little bit, because even though it was my birthday, I still had to get some work done. I finally got a hold of this one guy who I had been trying to contact for almost a week, so that's good. Then I decided to go to the Musgrave mall, and get something fun to wear for my birthday dinner. I bought a really cute dress, and then met up with one of my friends to catch a mini-bus back to Florida Road. When I got back to the hostel, I was greeted by a really pretty bouquet of flowers that my parents sent me! The card was pretty funny because instead of putting "c/o Thekweni Backpackers," they put "The Thekweni's." We had a good laugh about it! For dinner a group of us went out to this really delicious Thai restaurant called Bangkok Wok, and we had a really great time! I had some very tasty Thai food and for dessert I got this chocolate sponge cake which ended up being very similar to one of my favorite desserts in the world: The Triple Chocolate Meltdown! One of the girls also bought candles that said "21" that they stuck in the cake. It was so much fun! One of the girls who really loves to bake also made me a very tasty cake, although she was disappointed in it because they apparently had some sort of icing fiasco. I thought it was still really nice of her though! I finished out the night hanging out with people in the hostel and having a guitar jam session. It was a lot of fun! Sala Kahle!

Mama 2010 and Ethiopian Food

Today was so awesome! My advisor picked me up at my hostel, along with some other people in the program, and we headed to the World Cup soccer stadium in Durban. There's a little building right next to the construction site where Mama 2010 works. Unfortunately, she couldn't give us her normal presentation because someone recently stole all of their electronic equipment, but she did tell us a lot about the stadium. It sounds like it's going to be awesome! They're currently working on this big arch that goes across it and supports the roof and they're putting a cable car inside of it so that people can go all the way to the top and get beautiful views of Durban! They're also going to have big shops and restaurants as well. Mama 2010 was so awesome! She talked about how much she loved telling people about the stadium and that she loved us for visiting. AND she gave us some jerseys for free that say "Team Durban" on the front and "2010" on the back. We were all really excited. We also checked out the rugby stadium, which was right across the street, but we couldn't actually go look at the field because the gates were closed.

For lunch, we went to an Ethiopian restaurant. One of the girls in the program is originally from Ethiopia (she's been living in the U.S. since she was little), and she's doing her ISP on the Ethiopian population in Durban. None of us had ever really had Ethiopian food, so she took us to this really cute little restaurant where she spends a lot of her time. It's a little hard to describe what the food looked like. It was basically a bunch of different piles of food- rice,lentils, corn, different meats, lettuce, etc. - served on top of a sort of flat bread or tortilla. It had a much different consistency from a tortilla, but that's the best way I could describe it. Anyway, we all shared the big platter, and to eat it you tore off a piece of the bread and used it to scoop up something from the piles. It was really tasty, and very different from anything I'd eaten before! We also stopped at the oldest house in Durban on the way back to the SIT offices. Although, it was actually only a replica of the oldest house because the original one had apparently burned down....it was still interesting though, and they had some really pretty furniture and an old mail cart.

There's supposed to be a game of ultimate on the beach later today, but I'm not sure if it's still on or not because we had a torrential downpour complete with flash flooding and some hail. It's stopped raining now, though, so hopefully it's still on. I would really love to play again! Tomorrow I'm going on a tour of different art galleries with some other people in the program. It's free and it takes us all over the city to different galleries. It should be fun! Sala kahle!

Zulu-Portuguese Christmas Land!

I've had a pretty random last few days. On Monday afternoon I went with a few of my friends to a shopping center and an area called Davenport that has a lot of cute shops and restaurants. We ended up going to one restaurant that had free internet because one of the girls needed to register for classes. Unfortunately, none of the waiters knew the code to get access to the internet, so we didn't really know what to do. We ended up staying there for a while talking to these random Portuguese men. We talked about politics in the U.S. and things to do in Durban. One of them thought we were crazy for taking the mini-bus taxis. Another one started telling this really elaborate story about how a long time ago, Portugal used to own Durban as its port until the British took over. He told us that "Natal" means "Christmas" in Portuguese and that the name of the province, KwaZulu-Natal (a hybrid of Zululand and Natal) effectively means "Zulu-Portuguese Christmas Land." It was pretty funny.

On Tuesday, I went to an internet cafe with my friend Daryl. I decided to check out a website about 2010 that I hadn't looked at in a while, mostly because of my computer being on the fritz, and I found out about this "2010 Roadshow" hosted by this tourism enterprise. I decided to find more info about it, and figured I might be able to catch it when it came to Durban (the post I saw was from last Friday in Cape Town, so I figured they would be gradually making their way East), and I found out from the schedule that they were actually in Durban that day! I basically ran back to my apartment and changed into the nicest clothes I had and got a cab down to this really fancy hotel by the beach. Unfortunately, the program had just ended when I got there, but the woman who ran the program was still there, so I got to talk to her for a bit. She gave me some really useful information and some pamphlets, and the contact numbers for the provincial team in KZN. It sounds like a really cool program. They're working to help small business owners, specifically craft-makers, reach bigger markets and buyers. They also help bed-and-breakfasts advertise so that they can compete on an international level. I've been trying to contact the man who heads up the KZN team, but I haven't had much luck. Maybe I'll try again today.

In yesterday's paper there was an article about a woman who calls herself "Mama 2010." She works at this tourism office that's right across from the new stadium, and she gives tours of it. My advisor, some other students, and I have decided to pay her a visit tomorrow and check out the new stadium. I think it should be a lot of fun because this woman sounds really interesting and eccentric! I'm excited! Yesterday, I also went exploring on Florida Road (a big restaurant/shopping road right next to the hostel) with one of my apartmentmates. She had seen this sign for what we thought was a Victorian-style bath house (based on the name), so we decided to check it out. Sadly, it was not a bath house, just a showroom for really fancy bathtubs...we had a pretty good laugh about it though. I'm not really sure what the rest of my day will hold, but I'm sure it will be interesting. Sala kahle!