Thursday, August 27, 2009

Home to Michigan!


Finally, I have a chance to sit down and write a little bit about the last few weeks of my life. I feel like I have been so busy already and we haven't even left yet! As you can see from the title of this post and the picture above, my mom and I made it home to Michigan in Justin's little Yaris. This little car was PACKED FULL! This car is just a little bigger looking than a smart car to me, only with a backseat. Just to give you an idea of its horsepower, the engine is something like a riding lawn mower. (just kidding, it's probably not quite that big) But this car had trouble going up the 405 to get into the valley in LA. We drove it this full through mountains! It was the little blue engine that could. After a very long 3 days of driving, we made it to Michigan on Tuesday morning at about 2 am. It feels nice to be home but weird to be homeless at the moment. Since getting home, we have been spending time visiting with family and friends around Jackson.

It is hard to believe that we are leaving for Italy in less than 5 days! I think we have just about everything ready that can be at this point. I was nervous about getting my visa in time, but I was woken up early Tuesday morning by the beautiful sound of the fedex man ringing the doorbell with my visa in his hand! On top of getting my visa, I also received a refund for the culinary school in Parma that I originally wanted to attend, but was denied a visa for. I was really not counting on receiving any money back from them, so I am very glad. (I promise to write an entire new post about my visa fiasco, since some of you probably don't know what I am talking about.) Anyways, WHEW!! I am relieved to have that in my hand!

Let's see, what else have I been up to? HAWAII!!! My mom, dad, sister and I spent a week on the big island of Hawaii with the excuse of doing some geology research. We did do a lot of geology research, but also had a lot of fun. It was really neat to see Hawaii from a different perspective than that of a typical tourist. We learned a lot about volcanoes and lava and got to help katie with some research that has never been done before. It was pretty cool, or should I say HOT! We spent 3 days working on a lava flow from 1990. And when I say lava flow it was just miles of pa'hoehoe, (is that right Katie?) a sharp, uncomfortable lava rock. It was probably close to 95 degrees with 90% humidity, no breeze, no shade, working on black rock. Have I mentioned yet that it was hot?!

Besides for the lava, we got to see a lot of scenic beaches, palm trees, mountains, fish, sea turtles, and other things you might think of when you think of Hawaii.

I took a lot of pictures on this trip, and these are only a small portion of them. To see more, check out the Hawaii album on my facebook.

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