Blogs from Madison, Wisconsin, United States, North America - page 7

well.... i'm home and what can I say, it was an amazing trip! Here are some more photos for anyone who hasn't had a chance to see them! These are just a few of my photos from Harnas!... read more

The first indication that I'd returned to the United States came when I opened my computer to write this blog and realized I would have to type in English. That was over two weeks ago. Each day, I summoned the courage to crack open my Macbook, and timidly tap out a letter or two. The past several days have brought colossal victory as my grasp of the Roman alphabet returned and I realized that the meaning of each word was distinguished by pronunciation only and not accompanied by one of four tones. Cue victory music. Everything in the United States is different from China. People drive differently, greet friends differently, decorate their homes differently, even sneeze differently, (although I have to say, I'm not at all adverse to the American method of covering the mouth while ... read more

Today was a travel day through the land of cheddar, Wisconsin. It seemed fitting after hearing that Brett Favre was traded from the Packers to the NY Jets. We did see a lot of signs wishing him well, and certainly the pubs were ready for the first game for Brett. "Come join us for Favre vs. the Dolphins." We stopped first in Lincolnshire, Illinois to play a great mini-golf course. It was a classic 60's setup with many things to putt around. After the round we needed to refresh at the Flatlanders Brewery for lunch. Kristen had a bbq meatloaf sandwich, and I had the Terriyaki Ahi tuna sandwich. Both of which paired nicely with our harvest amber and scottish ales. A few hours later, after some traffic, we stopped in Madison at The Great Dane ... read more

Well, my procrastination has apparently sunken to a new low. I'm finally finishing this deal. I've been back in the States for over 5 weeks now so I suppose this should be finished. Looking back on Greece, despite Brad's accident, it was a really cool experience. Athens was slightly disappointing; the city was pretty dirty and not much to see besides the Acropolis. Also, the Parthenon was covered in scaffolding which is understandable since the thing makes the buildings in Spain look like they are in their infancy, but still kind of less cool than I had expected. We also walked to the Temple of Zeus which is only about 14 columns of what used to be over 100. It was kind of cool though and from there I got a cool picture of the Acropolis. ... read more

Our last day in Toronto we took a tour of the Steam Whistle Pilsner Brewery. If you're in Toronto and you want a few free drinks, go here and just hang around - they pretty much just pass them out. We did take it though, heard about the great efforts they put into the drink, got to compare prefiltered to officially filtered, had a few more (me anyways, I kept finishing Lauren's). We met a film student and Frenchman, whose name- Romain- we could not pronounce. We walked through Downtown on Yonge St where we couldn't find what we wanted; Lauren didn't get any postcards, Romain didn't find a gift for his host, and there was a lack places to pick up a beer for me. After a small bite, we parted with Romain and stopped ... read more