montpelliEMMA

Bangor: The Queen City! Did you know that Dorilus Morrison, the first mayor of Minneapolis, was a Bangor lumber merchant in the 1840s? It seems that Maine-Minnesota connections go back a long way. On Halloween, I pedaled through town looking for some spoooooky decorations to photograph. I found a few houses that were decked out in creepy glamour. The trend seemed to be to throw spider webbing over conveniently located shrubs and hedges. Halloween was definitely in the air; it was somewhat chilly, and several small witches with brooms kept guard of their houses, waiting for darkness to descend upon their town. I took the required as asked-after shot of Stephen King's house. The house had been dark until this week, when I saw lights on a few nights ago. The house and yard are very ... read more

I recently took a week-long trip with my mom to Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, where we were treated to a heavy dose of southern comfort. The food was delicious, the people were nicer than those back home in Minnesota, and the scenery was exquisite. With a rented car, we left St Paul and saw the following: Eureka Springs, AR Wiederkehr Village, AR Mt Magazine State Park, AR Little Rock, AR Hot Springs, AR DeGray Lake Resort State Park, AR Highway construction Breaux Bridge, LA Lafayette, LA Avery Island, LA Atchafalaya swamplands, LA (as seen from the road) Baton Rouge, LA Natchez, MS Rural MS, LA, AR Cane Creek State Park, AR Notable mentions: - Lunching in a subterranean German tavern on a Sunday morning in rural Arkansas - Appreciating the luxury of Arkansas state parks with ... read more

Last Wednesday at the ungodly hour of 6:30am (unsure how god relates to a time of day), I flew out to Portland, Oregon as part of the UofM student chapter of the Society of American Foresters! It sounds pretty professional, and indeed, it was a conference held at the Oregon Convention Center. Our group stayed at the illustrious INN at the Convention Center, which was conveniently practically at the convention center. I attended 11 seminars, most of which focused on ecology, and more specifically, fire. They were very interesting and educational except for one, which didn't seem to belong. I toured the city and found a park with a vista, which provided a beautiful shot of the city, and tall trees. We had a dinner with U alumni. We ate out and felt full, and then ... read more

c'est fini! Europe » France » Languedoc Roussillon » Montpellier By montpelliEMMA May 14th 2007 emma i am done! i have finished! i ended my athletic six exam spree with an oral interview or sorts, where i talked about the sixth harry potter book, of course! it was an unfortunate end, since speaking isn't my forte, but i am not going to worry because at this moment tom is at the airport working his way towards france! he will be here tomorrow and i am excited and waiting until then. here are a few pictures from my week: mänja took me on top of the corum, and we h... read more

there isn't much to report about my weekend, it was mostly just there and enjoyable. i burnt myself up at the beach despite applying three or four coats of sunscreen, because i obviously cannot apply it correctly. i started to bake a cake last night except some hoodlums had turned off our gas and our landlady wasn't able to get it going again. the cake was relocated to the fridge, so hopefully i return to a fully gassy house. my roommate and i will be dining chez landlady tonight, so i am assuming we will have to fork over five euros per person for the pleasure. my pictures for this week are mostly gathered from the day-trip i took last thursday with my class level at the university's foreign institute. we saw several sights of ... read more