The first outing for the English Summer students!

On our first weekend here in UWEC, we got to go two very nice places, that even though they were required activites, they were really fun!!

The first one was on Friday July 9, The Chipeewa Valley Museum. this place was so neat!! So many, many interesting things about this place. The tour guide was very kind and very knowledgeable since many of the things he was telling us about were things he experienced himself!! He was over 82, but still a very good tour guide. Here we learned about ancient Wisconsin, the native americans that lived here, the arrival of the europeans, their lifestyle and the various industries that Eau Claire has supported. The picture above is me in front of the museum: this bus was probably from another touristing group, but since I'd never seen a school bus this big up close, I decided a picture was in order, so Fa was kind enough to help me with that. I know its kind of random, but I think is really cool.

The second trip this weekend was to the Twins Cities St.Paul and Minneapolis, though it was more Minneapolis than St. Paul, since in this last city we only visited the St. Paul Cathedral, though the short visit was worth every minute. This structure was awing and breathtaking: I just adore architectonical beauties like this one, and with a late renassaince style i just can't resist. Its just amazing the amount of time and work dedicated to make this kind of places absolutely gorgeous. Here in this picture are depicted form left to right Abdulelah, Susan and me in front of the said temple.

The second part of the trip was in Minneapolis. Here we drove around Uptown and then went to the business center. It is really different: so many very tall buildings and sculptures and quirky things that spiced things up. Here we had lunch in a Thai restaurant, were I tried a medium spicy rice with chicken and pineapple. It was tasty, but next time I'll ask for a non-spicy version: my nose was running because of the intensity of the taste! After that we visited the Sculpture Garden of Minneapolis, where are housed tons of very cool, gigantic sculptures. I'll be cliché but the ones I liked the most were the "Cherry and the Spoon birdge" and the big red one with a long pole on a side, which i can't seem to remember the name.

Then we went to the Minnehaha Falls, were we watched the waterfall and almost got wet to the bone thanks to a sudden shower that I invoked (just kidding). After the shower stopped we went a head to the "Mall of America", a super humongous place, where for some reason I could buy anything: what was nice and cheap I didn't really like, and want I loved were either not my size or was way too expensive. All in all, it was kinda fun trying everything on, but a bit depressive to leave empty handed from such a huge shopping center.

But fear not my friends, I'm trully having a blast here in Wisconsin. I wish I could stay for the Fall term...

Over and Out.