Blogs from St. Paul, Minnesota, United States, North America - page 2

The Road To St. Paul and the Twin Cities After Lollapalooza, we made a quick stop at Pot Belly's (yum!) and got on the road to St. Paul to see Ken. While we drove through Wisconsin, we were faced with a very boring landscape (or so we thought then...wait til you hear about North Dakota!). The best part of the landscape are the occasional giant mouse statues that come in a variety of different hat types. Besides the mice, the Dairyland of America is actually very flat and full of basic crops and farming equipment. After missing the Cheese Castle, we made it to the Cheese Chalet. The cheese chalet was all I wanted it to be and more. After that short and amusing stop we plowed on to St. Paul to meet Ken. The St. ... read more

Dear Family, Friends, Relatives, and Rock Stars, This Thursday i will be leaving for China. I will be spending the majority of the summer there doing field research on the impact of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, which happens to be the first railway to link China and Tibet as well as the world's highest. For more info see the link below: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qinghai-Tibet_Railway In order to do this i will be bicycling from the Chinese city of Xining in the Qinghai province to Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, alongside the railway - about a 2000 km journey...or 1250 miles, with an average altitude above 4000 meters for the majority of the ride. Once I reach Golmud, the halfway point of the ride and gateway city to the Tibet Autonomous Region, I join two partners for ... read more

Hey all- Well it is official, the semester is almost over and there is less than a month left until I leave Minnesota for almost half a year! I am getting really nervous at this point because I have never been away from home for more than three weeks, and now I am going to be gone for five months... I just thought it would be cool to write before I leave with some of my expectations and hopes for the semester and see how right I was when I come back in May! I hope that I can travel to... -Paris to see Aude over spring break -Rome, my favorite city ever! -Somewhere in Greece -other places that come up along the way! (Portugal, Germany, Ireland...) I also hope that I can... -become fluent in ... read more

Day 89- Thursday Yesterday was the first day when we needed a jacket...it is definitely getting cooler. But there are many more stages to come. I would love to come back in the real winter. It sounds amazing here. The lakes freeze over and of course everyone skates and does cross country skiing around the city. In due course the lakes become so frozen that the local newspaper announces that it is OK to drive your car on the lake. In addition, people put little huts out there so they can do lake fishing after cutting a hole in the ice. Today was a bit warmer. Murt took Nora and me to the Mall of America for actual shopping. Not only are things in genreral here cheaper to buy but in Minnesota there is no state ... read more

Monday Sunday morning I had set aside to visit the National Civil Rights Museum in the motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated. According to the brochure it was open from 10am. Unfortunately when I got there it was closed until 1pm, the time of my flight. So I only got to look on the outside. Disappointing, as Eva said it was the most impressive part of visiting Memphis. So..back to the airport and back to Atlanta...it is a major hub, this was my fourth transit there. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to leave the airport , so I read my book. For whatever reason I was seated both flights yesterday in business class. A great improvement on sitting up the back. Especially here, where people travel so much they all have the idea of ... read more