Oriental Insitute at the University of Chicago

Definitely worth checking out.

Coal Valley, IL 9/5/09

Took these pictures at my grandparents house in Coal Valley...sometimes I forget how beautiful it is.

Parts of the whole

"Ta Da!" "Zoe, only magicians and idiots say ta da."

The head will take some more work...I don't think stuffed is going to work...and his chin is kind of nonexistent...and the nose is not attached very well...but not bad for a first try I guess!

Halfway there...

My Nemisis

Mr. Deuce

My nickname is "Ka".

Happy Friday...although that loses meaning when one is unemployed most days.

West Bend! Who knew you had it in ya?

I hate you and I hate Valley Forge and I will NOT go!

I was reading Chuck Klosterman's Killing Yourself to Live yesterday (he is amazing and hilarious and references the Quad City Thunder in the book BTW) and got to the part where he talks about visiting Macon, Georgia to see where the guys from the Allman Brothers Band died, and I realized that I had been to Macon and how hilarious my brother and I thought it was to yell "Macon Bacon!" the rest of the drive to Florida. It also made me start thinking about all the other crazy trips my parents took us on every summer and random places we visited. Such as the aforementioned Valley Forge excursion, where my brother hid in the back seat with a blanket over him and wouldn't talk to anyone because he was so mad that we were being forced to see yet another historical sight. There were a lot of similar events. I think I cried once because I didn't want to go see a crazy shirtless man wrestle an alligator in the middle of the Everglades. We definitely visited some sort of dinosaur/archaeology/bones dig place in Montana or something....banana trees outside the Alamo...buffalo blocking the entrance to public restrooms in Wyoming..good times. And my dad visiting the visitor's center at EVERY SINGLE PLACE. Even when we had been there before.

Maybe this is fodder for some sort of crazy-family-hilarious-memoir....or not.

The Archipelago

Took a cruise around the islands of/around Stockholm. They said that lots of people have their summer houses there and just commute during the summer. I also learned that the majority of the TV that Swedish people watch is subtitled American TV...and that some Swedish people sound Australian when the speak English. It is a crazy place with tasty herring and lots of very nice blond people. And there are totally a bunch of H&M's and 7-11's all over.

Ahoy, matey. How do you spell "matey"?

The Vasa Museum (or Vasamuseet which is way more fun to say) was super cool, basically this giant super-old ship that was preserved in it's entirety in the Stockholm bay. And it's in really good condition since it sank on it's very first trip....which is sort of funny, and makes me think about how many historical museums benefit from the stupid mistakes of the past. Anyways, the museum building itself was pretty cool, there were a bunch of different levels because the ship is so huge, and the building itself looks kind of ship-ish.

The last photo was taken in the National Gallery-they had this exhibit about exploring new ways to display art (as opposed to the standard pedestal/painting on the wall/benches in the middle look), like putting all these old busts together on scaffolding. Makes a little more interesting, like a big modern work of art made from little old statues. Good stuff.

Stockholm-from May

I think there was a picture exactly like this last one in my guidebook. Definitely one of the greatest things about Stockholm is all the water everywhere....kind of a pain if you want to do things in different parts of city and you have to find a bridge to cross, but the beauty is worth the blisters.

Swedish store windows are fun in a creepy way.

A New Adventure.

So, May was mostly an exciting, chaotic few weeks with my Norway and Sweden trip, family visits in Switzerland, my 22nd birthday, college graduation, and subsequent attempt and fail at a return to Europe.  Apparently we were all misinformed about the rules, and non-EU people can only stay for 3 months in all of Europe, not just one country.  So the passport control Belgian dudes sent me back to Chicago and that was that.  

For now I'm in North Carolina hanging out with family and figuring out what to do next....and the 85 degrees and sunny forecast for most days doesn't hurt. Or the prevalence of tasty barbecue and seafood (like what pizza is to New York City).