Niagara Falls Update

Visited Niagara falls in late July. I can't remember if I blogged about it or not. Here are a couple photos of the trip! It was a 12 hour drive, one way.

apartment upgrade?

My bathroom had a steady stream of drops coming from the ceiling on Friday. I checked with the upstairs tenant to make sure they weren't overfilling the bathtub. I called the complex and they came and cut several holes in the ceiling to check what was going on. They left a lot of debris behind and a few large holes in the ceiling with a note saying they would come back again at the start of next week to fix it. Bummer. My papertowl roll was decimated when I got home that night, I guess they used it to clean their mess (they only cleaned parts of their mess). :)

Petersburg, Jamestown and Yorktown!

Mom and Dad flew out to Charlotte for the week. They drove a couple hours to meet me in Durham and we hung out for a few days. Lori accompanied us on a day trip to Virginia where we saw Petersburg, the site of a civil war battle. Most of the pictures are on my Dad's camera.
From there we drove to Jamestown and spent a couple hours touring the famous landmark. In the early evening we thought we'd try to squeeze one more trip in and drove another 30 mins to Yorktown, site of the revolutionary war surrender of Cornwallis. I have this picture of the house where Cornwallis sent his Lieutenant to surrender on his behalf.

Pontoon Plane

I took a Sea Plane to Lake Union on my way out Seattle. The plane took off from the marina on the island, landed at Lake Union, and I took a 5 minute shuttle to the airport from there. Once I boarded my commercial flight headed for Milwaulkee I snapped some pictures of Mt St. Helens from the air. Enjoy all the photos below.

Camping!

Labor day was fun. Camping in Asheville. It was kind of cheating because rather than actually rough it we stayed at a KOA. I think we had fun. One or two more camping trips and I think Lori will be ready for a backpacking trip. Maybe. We bought the tent, lantern, and chairs at target and rented the campstove. Here’s a picture of the inexpensive, yet nice, tent.

Seattle Conference!

I am at a mini conference in Seattle. I'll be back in Durham on Friday. My boss and I left Tuesday (I left at 6am and his flight at 7am) but we arrived here in Seattle within 10 mins of each other. Next was a 2 hour car ride to the ferry departure point. We tried to take the ferry but got here too late so we had to wait 2 hours for the next one. Here are several photos of the ferry system.




They even loaded an eighteen wheeler on the ferry. Cool.

Here is the ferry dock at Fox Island, our only stopping point on the way to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.

At the Fox Harbor dock there was a massive bumper pier designed to keep the ferry from running astray. Here is a game that was on the concrete slab topping the pier.

The objective of the game was to throw small coins from the ferry and try and land them in the old car rim. I imagine someone collects the money occasionally because I estimated there was about 100 dollars total between the four piers.

We finally got in around 7pm. We had a quick dinner because they were shutting down the cafeteria and then we went to our respective bunks. I am rooming with two grad students named Chris and Brandon. They're an interesting group. First morning here and I was the only one up, this place kind of reminds me of summer camp (from
The Parent Trap because I never went to a real one myself) because it is so
heavily wooded and just little cabins around the campus.

Update:
Last night we drove the university van to Lime Kiln lighthouse to watch the sunset. We got there a few mins after sunset, but I did manage to get a photo of the lighthouse.

Return from Denmark!

Postings have been light due to several reasons, but most likely it just boils down to laziness. I have returned, however. First let me get you up to speed on Denmark. I am obviously back in the U.S. We came back on the Sept 26. I’ll give you the whole update. The most notable thing from the end of our time in Denmark was our trip to Copenhagen on the second to last weekend (the last weekend being the weekend we left, obviously). We did several things while we were there. We stayed one whole night which included a walk to the mermaid statue, a statue erected in reference to Hans Christian Anderson’s famous story. Below is a photo (it was taken at night, this is the best I could do).

Here is a photo of one of the canal streets near our hotel.

Here we are walking to get something to eat. We ate at the equivalent of a fast food place in the shopping district. One particular member of our group liked it so much we were forced to walk back and eat there once more.

Here is a picture from inside the place. You can usually assess the quality of an eatery by the menu, you be the judge in this photo.

We got a tour of the parliamentary building, but no cameras inside so you only get a picture of the outside.

We also visited a place called Christiania. Christiania was founded in 1971, when many people from different backgrounds began to take over an area of recently abandoned military barracks together as a protest against the Danish government.
The people in Christiania have developed their own set of rules, completely independent of the Danish government. The rules forbid stealing, guns, bulletproof vests and hard drugs. Famous for Pusher Street, where weed is sold openly from permanent stands, it does have rules forbidding hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine. The residents negotiated an arrangement with the Danish defence ministry (which still owns the land) in 1995. Since 1994, residents have paid taxes and fees for water, electricity, trash disposal etc. The future of the area remains in doubt as Danish authorities continue to push for its removal. On Pusher Street, cameras are not allowed, and locals will wave their hands and shout "No photo!" if they see someone trying to take a picture.

I was amazed at the number of satellite dishes in this place. You would think "hippies" might shun the modern marvel of dish network, but apparently not. We got a tour from a resident for the equivalent of $6 U.S. Here are some of the pictures from the town.




Someone in Copenhagen has a sense of humor, they placed a strawberry on top of an animal poop, so of course it will be commemorated on this website. Some German tourists joked that it was the morning’s Danish. I’ll stick with the jelly donuts.

A photo from the 3 hour train ride home from Copenhagen. This is looking out of the window of the train on Sunday evening, Aug 19.

I do have one funny story from my last days in denmark. I was trying to buy OJ at the store in Denmark, but yogurt, it turns out, also comes in a big juice-type jug with oranges pictured on the front so I ended up getting yogurt. It's not too bad to taste, but if you're expecting OJ and you get plain yogurt then it can be a little freaky.

Everything went well with the trip home UNTIL we landed in the U.S. Typical. :)
The line through customs was long, and we almost missed our flight. We boarded the plane and the door shut behind us. We got stuck on the runway for 3 hours and then we taxied back to the terminal and offloaded. The weather was keeping us from taking off. We ate Wendy's for dinner and then hung out for a while. We finally boarded the plane and waited around a bit longer, then we took off. We got home Sunday morning instead of dinner time Saturday. I slept all day Sunday. I was so tired. The trip ended up taking about 1.5 days. My luggage made it ok though. That's good.