Lots to report!!

I had planned to update a couple of times during the last week but things just turned out to be so busy that I didn't get chance. I know that 3 whole people will probably be waiting for this update so here's what I've been up to recently!

I'll start with the last Thursday at Cornell, as a celebration of the end of the program we all went on a cruise on Cayuga Lake, this included a three course dinner, which was very nice and the lake was stunning. Afterwards we retired to the Zeta Psi basement for our final party. We danced late into the night, which made getting up on Friday morning very difficult. So, myself, Fiona and Mihai then set off on our travels. Getting the coach on Friday morning was almost a complete disaster, we were late leaving and got to the coach station 10 minutes before the coach was scheduled to leave. I had booked tickets online (in an effort to make things as easy as possible) but it turned out we were supposed to arrive at least 1 hour early to collect our tickets. The woman behind the counter was the grumpiest person I've ever met and the fact that I was late was obviously the straw that broke the camel's back because she was very annoyed, if looks could kill I wouldn't be here now! So, as we waited for the tickets to come through with no guarantee that they'd be sent in time I realised that I had left one of my bags in the car that had dropped us off! After some frantic phone calls the bus ended up being an hour late, which meant plenty of time for the tickets to come through and for my bag to be brought back down to tme. We missed our connecting coach on the way to Philadelphia so had a 3 hour wait in Scranton (where the American version of 'The Office' is filmed) before finally arriving in Philadelphia at around 7pm.

The hostel we had booked was a few miles out of the city centre in one of the parks and was generally very nice (apart from the mattresses on the beds, they were so thin, fortunately there was an empty bed in our room so I stole the spare mattress and had 2 on my bed!). On Saturday we borrowed bikes from the hostel and rode into downtown Philly, we first met Maria and Sonja for brunch. They were en route from Ithaca to Germany and so only had a few hours in the city. The rest of the day we spent doing general sightseeing, we visited the liberty bell and went on a Duck tour (like an open topped bus tour but in an ex-army amphibious vehicle (Duck) which goes in the water as well as around the streets). we finished the day by visiting the Rocky steps (if you've seen the original Rocky film you'll have seen him run up them) outside the Art Museum. We joined in with everyone else who was running up the steps and celebrating at the top, a la Sylvester Stallone. On our second day we were lazy and got the bus into town. I went ringing while the girls did a bit of shopping. Later in the day we played crazy golf and then ate at the Hard Rock Cafe before finishing the night with some ten pin bowling and pool action.

Next day (Monday morning) we flew from Philadelphia to Chicago, landing at lunchtime. A quick update on American geography... Philadelphia is in the state of Pennsylvania,which is below New York state and the city itself is not far from the east coast, north of Washington DC. Chicago is in the state of Illinois, west of New York and Michigan, the city is on the south-western tip of Lake Michigan, essentially an inland freshwater sea (the city centre has beaches!). We stayed in a very nice hostel in downtown Chicago and our stay included lots of walking, visits to the planetarium, institute of art and natural history musem, a trip up to the top of the Sears Tower (very tall) and a couple of films (Rush Hour 3 and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the second one being part of the Chicago outdoor film festival). I really enjoyed Chicago it is a very vibrant and beautiful city so if anyone is ever in the area make sure you pay a visit!

Up until this point all of my US tourism had involved cities and big tourist attractions, so, for a bit of a change and on the reccommendation of Miriam (who grew up not too far from Chicago) we rented a car and drove up into the countryside for a few days. We stayed in Door County (in Wisconsin, Door County is the Peninsula of land north of Chicago that separates the body of Lake Michigan from Green Bay). On the way up we stopped in the town of Green Bay and visited Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers (an American football team, who happen to be my favourites). We stayed at a very nice (budget) hotel in a little town called Sister Bay. Highlights of the stay included Pirate Adventure Golf, eating at Al Johnsons Swedish Restaurant (complete with a grass roof grazed by goats!) and a trip to Washington Island and Rock Island State park. The scenery was stunning and all the people were really nice, it was obvious that not many British tourists head up there because everyone wanted to know where we were from and why we were there! Also the weather was much cooler than it had been in the other places we had visited and very windy, we felt quite at home!

After driving back down to Chicago on Saturday morning we all went our separate ways, Mihai flew to New York for a couple of days before heading back to England, Fi has gone to visit friends in Virginia and I got on a coach to Georgia. It was a very long journey (left at 4:15pm Saturday and arrived at 1:20pm Sunday) but now it's over and I'm in Athens, Georgia with Miriam. So far I haven't done much but it's been so nice to be able to relax after the hectic week I've had! It is very hot here in Georgia (over 100 degrees Farenheight) but thankfully the house is nicely air conditioned :). Iam here until next Wednesday and then I fly back from Atlanta to Gatwick. I will try to get round to updating before I head home, but if not then I'll see everyon really soon!

Thanks for reading :)

Stephen

Fiona and I with Rocky Balboa in Philadelphia

Downtown Chicago

The Chicago skyline reflected in 'the bean'

Me outside Lambeau Field with a giant inflatable Packers helmet

Beach on Rock Island, Door County

Finishing at Cornell

Time for another update!

Well, it has been a while since I last wrote here but I did warn you last time that there wasn't much going on. Actually, I have been keeping myself busy. The last couple of weekends have been less hectic than the ones before but I think I needed some time to just relax before the final 3 weeks of travelling. I have now finished in the lab, my project turned out alright although I spent a lot of time trying and failing to get techniques to work. However, the lab project was not the main reason I came over here so I'm glad that it's over but at the same time it was quite interesting. Outside of lab we've been doing plenty of fun stuff. We went up to the campus observatory the other week on a celar night and got to look through their telescope, we were able to see Jupiter, the telescope was powerful to show some of the cloud features and we could also see the 4 largest moons (just as specks of light).

Fi's boyfriend (and my old housemate) Phil came to visit for the week so we had fun times then including a basement party and a trip to the cinema to see Die Hard 4 (which was great). We have also recently seen Hot Fuzz and The Bourne Ultimatum. I had already seen Hot Fuzz so I knew it would be good and The Bourne Ultimatum was also enjoyable, if you like the first two then it's a must see. We have also made a couple more trips to Monday-night karaoke in Collegetown and other time has been spent working on presentations, having BBQs, watching DVDs and other every-day activities.

Having been in America for a couple of months now I have to report that many of the prejudices I had before I came have been dispelled, it's really not that bad over here. Having said that there are a few things that lived up to expectations and a few others that I have uncovered. I can think of 4 main ones.

1. There really are a lot of FAT people over here. Now, I don't mean to be nasty, but in most cases there really is no excuse for it, just eat less and exercise more! It's a sad thought that we're going the same way at home

2. Related to number 1, food over here is rubbish! Generally it comes pre-processed and in massive quantities, my biggest issues with food over here are a) bread, here (unless you buy freshly baked bread) it is stodgy and sweet and horrible. b) Chocolate, Hersheys is just nothing compared to Cadburys (although on the plus side the 1Kg bar of dairy milk that I got from duty free on the way back to Cornell from RVC lasted me until last weekend!) c) Squash (i.e. juice drink), they don't have it over here so I'm forced to carry gallon bottles of fruit juice and 12 packs of cans back home from the nearest shop (about a mile away).
Food, is redemed by restaraunts though, all of the restaraunts I have been to have been really nice and you always get value for money. Maybe I just need to shop in expensive organic shops over here to find the nice food

3. Television. We haven't really watched much TV over here other than movies (mainly because all that ever seems to be on is Baseball, news and non-funny comedy (Friends (it's finished, get over it!), Everybody loves Raymond, Will and Grace etc.). But when you do find something that you want to watch it is interrupted by adverts every 5 minutes. And the adverts are awful! In the US they are allowed to advertise prescription medicines on the TV so 50% of adverts are for medication of some kind (diabetes, pain killers, viagra (accompanied by a load of 50 year old men singing 'Viva Viagra!' etc.) but even worse are the adverts for local companies, which are all filmed with camcorders and feature the most wooden acting you have ever seen. In addition to being on every 5 minutes the ads often tend to be repeated, so you end up seeing the same advert about 10 times an hour. Even when the program you are watching starts the networks are constantly advertising their new 'hit shows' along the bottom of the screen. GRRRRRR!!! Can't wait to get back to the BBC! But while we're on the subject of the BBC, there is a channel over here called BBC America, so, they have the opportunity to show America the best programs that we have to offer. What do you think they show all day? Antiques programs! Just like daytime BBC1, Bargain Hunt, Cash In The Attic, Car Booty. It's a crime! No wonder all Americans find us Brits slightly amusing, the only thing they've got to base their opinion on is David Dickinson!

4. People clap at the cinema. Something I'd never experienced before and it really get's on my nerves. We went to see the Simpsons movie, I thought it was very funny but people were clapping at every little joke! I really don't understand it. You don't clap when you are watching the TV, why do it in the movie theatre? Almost as annoying as when you get a bunch of chavs in the cinema in England making noise the whole way through.

Well, the idea of tha was to pad out this post a little bit but I ended up writing more than I intended I think! Like I said, I've actually quite enjoyed it over here so don't get the wrong impression ;)

As of Friday morning I'll be off on my travels for a few weeks and then I'll be heading home, landing in Gatwick on 30th August so I'll see all you guys at home in the not too distant future! I'm sure I'll have plenty to write over the next few weeks. And just because I havent been doing much for the past couple of weeks doesn't mean I don't have any photos to share! Here are a few from around the campus.

Stephen xx

McGraw Tower, this has a carillon in it and plays tunes
One of the many towers on campus

This is the waterfall down from Bebe Lake (complete with traffic cone). I walked past here every day on my way to lab

Another building I walked past a lot, this one has an amazing garden

Good old Zeta Psi