ktravula – a travelogue!

Minneapolis

I visited my third other mid-western state this weekend. (The first two were Kansas and Missouri.)

Minnesota is the last state on the northern border before Canada. It is bordered on the south by Iowa (where the Republican folks are now playing for nomination), on the east by Wisconsin and Illinois, and on the West by the Dakotas. Minnesota is known for its “10,000” lakes as for its very long winter, the Metrodome, and the Mall of America (the biggest mall in the country). There seem to be a lake on every street – as you’d see from one of those pictures above.

This was a very short, family visit, so here are a few shots. As you’d see, they already have an early winter that will probably last until May. This is the first post of the year, so I wish you a happy new year.

Minneapolis was published on January 2nd, 2012, with the tags , , , , under the Observations, Travelling category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

We Got Snow!

Two days late still, but, yes! Winter is here.

We Got Snow! was published on December 27th, 2011, with the tags , , , , under the Art, Observations category. There are currently 3 comments on this article so far.

Before the Storm

Last week, I rode a bicycle to school again for the first time in weeks. It was cold, as it is meant to be for this time of the year.

But it was after getting to school that I discovered the real reason why I should have been doing this a lot more than I have in the past weeks and months: there are so many cars on campus and I spend too many agonizing moments trying to find a spot to park in the morning, and a few more in the evening trying to locate my car, and then even much more at home trying to find a spot closest to my apartment. I believe that more than 80% of students/workers in this University have cars, and we all compete trying to find the right places to put them.

We’re expecting about fifteen inches of snow and up to an inch of solid ice on the roads in the next couple of days, along with snowstorms. I have a feeling that the bicycle is not going to be of much use now either.

Before the Storm was published on January 31st, 2011, with the tags , , , , , under the Soliloquy category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

Freezing Points

Photos from around campus after the 12 inches snowfall.

When life offers you snow lemons, make picture lemonades. Or at least try.

Freezing Points was published on January 22nd, 2011, with the tags , , under the Observations category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

Subzero in the Midwest

This is how to freeze: move from a tropical town in an African country to live in a part of town in America where four inches of snow and (up to) minus ten degrees of cold is never enough to close the school even for one day. Have a series of clothes that will look a little weird when stacked upon another in a fashion meant just to defy the weather. Have a series of apartment mates whose idea of a hot temperature on the house heater is different from yours. Have classes that take place in the evenings when it is usually the coldest. Lastly, well, be thin enough to let into your chest all the cold air that blows. Be restless. Resent all the fatty American-style food that, even though may be junk – sometimes have what’s required to battle cold: fat.

The result is usually the same: a week or more of terrible flu, discomfort, and bed rest. And after a while, and plenty of fluids, and sometimes after breaking one’s promise never to dabble into American medication for worry about ever present contraindications, one is back up again. It also helps to have lost one of one’s pair of gloves.

PS: Clarissa seems to have had it worse than me. Please give her some love.

Subzero in the Midwest was published on January 13th, 2011, with the tags , , , under the Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently 4 comments on this article so far.