Statement of the Day – Chris Corner: Cookies (12/17/12)

It is Christmas time and what belongs to Christmas besides a tree, carols and presents? Sweets and cookies! So due to my time off after finishing all finals I decided to bake some nice cookies for Christmas. Again, the hardest part was recalculating the measures for the ingredients and finding all needed stuff for the recipe. It seems like marzipan is not really common in the US for baking but fortunately I was able to find in the last corner on the bottom self some raw marzipan dough. Ok, it was $5.95 for 200g but well, I wanted these cookies :D The final touch to them was a chocolate coat which made them sooo delicious. Enjoy.

Statement of the Day – Chris Corner: Leaving Omaha (12/16/12)

Finals are over! Of course, this is the best time in all semesters while studying, no matter where you are. But nevertheless there was no time to relax. My apartment needed some cleaning before I could head to Iowa City as one of the last stages during my stay in the US. Also all my household items needed to be sold. Fortunately Jan was already able to sell the microwave to our taxi driver 2 weeks ago. My extra bed found a new owner last Wednesday and the same guy bought also all my pots, pans and the casserole (the bad thing about that: I spent the whole afternoon before that with grocery shopping for making some good noodles with Carbonara sauce; I didn’t had anything to cook in xD ).

I made another ad on craigslist with all the remaining items and 5 minutes later somebody already called in and made an appointment for the next day. The great thing about it: he really showed up and I could sell all the things for $65 instead of throwing them into the garbage can.

The cleaning itself took me much longer than I thought. I am usually not a really messy person, but getting everything totally shiny was kind of importable. Jan always said the bathroom and kitchen look already cleaner than they were when I moved in. But I didn’t wanna risk not getting my security deposit back. 

After all the work was done and some pf the packing also was accomplished we went out to grap our final dinner in Omaha. At in-gre-dient we had a good pizza and a goodbye cocktail in the Glo-Lounge made the last evening in Omaha quite delicious and enjoyable. 

Because our bus was leaving at 9:10am I had to pack everything in the night before. It sounds so easy. Considering that I arrived with 1,5 bags, one nearly full bag was already shipped to Iowa via Jan on the last weekend and now 2 empty bags remaining for all the things made me feel quite secure that I won’t have any trouble getting everything quick and easy into these two bags. You have no idea how much more little things you have after living some months at one place… But ok, it worked out all right. 

Good bye Omaha. It was quite an experience here. I learned a lot, not only in school but also about a different culture and ways of living.

Traveling through the US - Concert in Des Moines(12/14/12)

As some kind of reward for all the hard work Jan and I went to the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines to watch a concert of Hunter Hayes and Carry Underwood, a former winner of American Idol. Due to her style of music, a mix of pop and country she might not be as popular in Europe as she is in the US. Our seats were really cheap, so was the view we had. But the music was easy listening and even if she had a really bad cold she delivered a really good show. It was really amazing how she was able to sing with a good voice, but not able to talk long sentences. And no, it wasn’t playback; we would have recognized that.

Fun facts in the US - New windows, finally (12/08/12)

Today I finally got my new windows built in. I was quite happy in the beginning but after the handyman left and I saw their so called “cleaning” I was quite pissed. My sheets where covered with saw dust and dirt, so was the carpet and all the areas not directly under the windows but in the closer environment. Without a vacuum, cleaning up that mess was kind of impossible. 

However, the windows looked quite ok in the first place. But having a closer view at the work I discovered many little things that I would have complained about. Have a close look at the pic. The new frame is stapled into the wall without hiding the nails, the silicon is not smooth and even if the new ones are double glassed windows they are still not closing tight because of the moveable elements without any sealing. Seems like I should finally give up on finding some high quality construction and engineering work on normal buildings in the US.

Traveling through the US - Minneapolis (11/22 – 11/24/12)

It is Thanksgiving weekend and instead of going home to our families like all American people Jan and I decided to use these holidays for some vacation in Minneapolis. Our first adventure started already at the rental car company where we got an upgrade from an economy car (I don’t believe they even have one economy car) to a huuuuuge Chevrolet Suburban. We had DVD players in the back, more space than ever in any other car and felt like driving a panzer. The bad thing about it: its gasoline usage => “affordable” 18l/100Km.

We made it safe and sound to Minneapolis but during our trip to the north the temperature decreased on and on. When we arrived there it already came down to nearly 0°F and during the night it should get even colder to a minimum of -6°F (roughly -17°C?). Because of these low temperatures and the wind which made it even colder we decided to explore the city via the skywalks. It was too bad that a lot of doors there were closed due to Thanksgiving and in the end we had to go back using the streets in the cold. 

Back in our hotel we changed our minds and ordered a pizza for delivery instead of using the reservation for a traditional Thanksgiving meal. We simply didn’t wanted to go back into the cold again that night. And in addition in that way we were able to relax a little for our planned shopping tour on Black Friday in the Mall of America (see extra article). On Friday it was still cold but not that bad as it was the night before. We explored the city and its shops; I found my absolutely favorite of Minneapolis: the Frozen Yoghurt Lab where I got a bowl of Vanilla- and Nutella-Yoghurt with crushed KidKat. That was so good, I really hope that I will find something similar again back home.

Later we went to the Mall of America again, this time with the train. The funny thing was that there were less people during the day there than in the night before. After finishing our shopping we watched the “Hollidazle”, a Christmas parade in downtown Minneapolis.

We finished the day with some really good Greek food and some wine. On Saturday we already had to go back to Iowa City in the early evening. So instead of spending another day exploring the city and its stores we ended up at Ikea to find out, if the store is similar to ours in Germany. And yes, it mostly is ;-) In the afternoon we used the remaining time to visit the science museum of Minnesota. It was quite interesting but a lot of parts where more prepared for a younger crowd than us. A lot of school classes and teachers visit the museum and the kids can do some small experiments to teach themselves about several fields of science.