Blogs from Minnesota, United States, North America - page 7

February 4 – Saturday – morning Drinking my coffee and thinking things over in St Paul, Minnesota. I flew 1500 miles for this. The Ice Sculptures are melting. I've seen more snow in Texas in February before....sigh. Guess I should have just went to Colorado again. I heard they had a little snow there. I guess I will change my focus on this trip from attending the Winter Carnival to touring St Paul and Minneapolis. Quite frankly I’ve seen more going on at County Fairs….no wonder Ron is lonesome. They only had one Snow sculpture and there was a sign next to it thanking some organization for hauling in the snow for it….sad. I guess I will finish getting dressed and go down to the 10th floor for the continental breakfast, then go to The ... read more

Monday February 6 – Day 4 Today the plan was to go to the Cathedral of St Paul and then go to the Mall of America. I caught the #21 bus over to the Cathedral of St Paul. There is a bus stop right next to the cathedral where I got off. It was a very impressive Cathedral and patterned after the one in Rome. After touring the Cathedral I got on a very crowded #21 bus and headed towards the Lake Street Midtown station where I intended to catch the #55 Hiawatha Light Rail train south to the Mall of America. I would have done better if I had gone back into St Paul and caught the #94 express to the Nicollet Mall Station in Minneapolis and then went south from there on the ... read more

I have been bouncing around for the past week or so trying to decide if I wanted to spend what it would cost me to go to the Winter Carnival in St Paul, Minnesota. Going to the Winter Carnival in St Paul has been one of the things I have always wanted to do and since it is a something that only occurs once a year I decided I would bite the bullet on the cost and go. I invested most of yesterday evening and today in doing homework on the Winter Carnival in St Paul, Minnesota. I Found a nice hotel, the Hotel 340 on Cedar Street about a block and a half from Rice Park where most of the events for the Winter Carnival occur. I booked a room for February 3 thru Feb ... read more

In order to know how I have gotten to where I am now, we must first rewind. Following closely in my Uncle's shoes, I have always had the travel itch. To go to new places, see all the sights, and most importantly, experience life as so few take the time to live it. On a trip to Nicaragua in 2011, I met a man who simply asked "what is it you want to do every morning when you wake up?" A fairly straightforward question that I had absolutely no idea how to answer. I knew bits and pieces of my ideal responce. I knew what I didn't want to do. But for the most part, I found it difficult to reply. The anxiety of being 26 and not knowing how to answer gave me good reason ... read more

In a flurry of post Christmas, pre New Years stress (and, upsettingly, illness), I have managed to get everything packed. Three months in one medium sized suitcase and a backpack... this will be a lot different than my first college move: SUV filled to the ceilings, camping roof top attachment, bike strapped to the back. The Beverly Hillbillies. But not this time. The only non essential things in my bag are some minnesotan gifts for my host family. Hopefully they don't hate wild rice and craisens too much. After begrudgingly printing out hundreds of pages of pdfs, chosing a measly week's worth of clothes to bring and stuffing my suitcase with all types of pepto bismal, I think I am ready. Or as ready as I'm going to be. Now it's just time to wait.... read more

We quickly left the Badlands behind and headed on the longest drive ever to Minneapolis. All there was to mention was the Corn Palace visit (yes a building that is mainly made up by corn - and bricks) and lunch at Dairy Queen. When we reached the campsite, Todd and Zach told us that Minnesota is the lake of ten thousand lakes, which meant there were a hundred thousand insects to go with it! And they weren't wrong. We soon found ourselves struggling to deal with the insects as our camp was right by a lake. Even getting out of the sanctuary of the van to get dinner and back resulted in many itches and I'm sure some bites. I was in there with Zach, Kristina and Joanna, and I had a good chat ... read more

Our plan is to post pictures and short videos as we visit Beijing. Grace and Ying will be using the site to update their classmates about their activities and adventure. Check back later and/or subscribe.... read more