Travelog for: Weasley

Today we were in Marquette for the day with Melissa.  This is about a 2-hour drive from Hancock.

She says we will probably be here again sometime before we all leave her.

Today we saw the Children's Museum. 



Melissa wasn't sure if she could take pictures while inside, so all we have is me outside.  It was a lot of fun, though!  All the kids loved us!

Today is Melissa's 25th birthday.  She has to work tonight, so there's no big party or anything going on.

Melissa works midnight shift at the local Wal*Mart retail store, so a lot of the time we are awake at night with her and sleep during the day.

We thought we would make a few photo posts showing you some landmarks of her town the way we normally see them - at night.



This restaurant is called the Library and they make their own variety of beers.  The college students love the place.  The joke is that you could tell your parents you're going to the "library" and they think you're going to study...


This is the Dee Statium.  This was built on the site of the Amphidrome, which burned down in 1927.  The hockey team at Melissa's university used to play here before they got their new stadium closer to campus.  The lower level is an ice rink, and the upper level is a skate park (for skateboarders, trick bike riders, etc.).

More sites continuing from last night's "night tour"... today is a tour around the campus.


This is the administration building.  There are offices in here for the Dean, Admissions, Financial Aide, the President and Board of Control and other important people.




Here we are on the west end of campus looking east.  To the left is the Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics building.  It's the tallest building on campus.  Not just on campus, but the tallest building in the county!  On the right, the lights that you can see in the windows are from the Library, which is open 24 hours a day for people who need to get away to study or something.


The white and brown building in the background is the ROTC building, which houses the Army and Air Force ROTC programs.  In front of it, the monument-looking thing and the lit-up American flag, is a memorial that the University built after the events of September 11, 2001.  Every year they do speeches and things from that site.


Here we are on the east end of campus looking west.  The only other part of campus that is more east than this is the Fine Arts building, which is quite a way behind Melissa at this point and hard to get a photo of in the dark (the building is black).  On the right, with the lights on, is the Civil Engineering building.  On the left (hard to see) is the Math/Computer Sciences building.  Way behind in the background is our friend the Mechanical Engineering building (the biggest one).


This little house is the home of MTU's Counseling Services, where the mental health people are.  Like if a student wants to talk to a counselor.  The funny thing about this building is that it is surrounded by two parking lots.  The other buildings on campus have sidewalks and such all around them, except for this one.  It's like the university expanded around it.  The VIPs keep threatening to tear it down (for more parking space) and moving the counselors to s different building and everyone protests.


Finally, this is one of the dormitories, called "Wadsworth Hall".  This is actually a photo of about HALF of the building.  The whole thing is about a quarter of a mile long from one end to the other.  It houses more than half of the on-campus students.  The hallways inside are "riot-proof", which means instead of just going straight, there are lots of zig-zags and turns.  Melissa explained that the building was built around the 1960's and 70's, when hippie "protestors" were pretty popular and this discouraged protestors from "sit-ins".

Hope you liked our little night tour!

Today we went to a small historic town called Calumet.  Melissa explained that a long time ago, when this whole area used to be largely populated because of the copper mining industry, Calumet was once the capitol city of Michigan.


Since then the copper mines have closed, the population has dropped, and most of what remains are abandoned ruins, mine tours and a lot of beautiful old buildings. 

Melissa says Calumet also maintains a beautiful cobblestone road that is older than most of the buildings in town but because of the snow you can't see it.

What we drove to Calumet to see, however, was the theatre...


This is the Calumet Theatre.  Here's a little information about it that Melissa found/taught us:

Quote:

The Calumet Theatre is a theater and opera house which was constructed in 1900. In 1898, the copper mining industry was booming, and the town had an enormous surplus in its treasury. The town council decided to spend some of the surplus on a theater. The theater hosted a large number of famous actors, musicians, and opera singers. [7] With the close of the mines, the theater became a movie theater and fell into general disrepair for many years. In 1975, the town began a large project to repair and restore the theater, which is now used for many local and touring productions. The theatre is a National Historic Landmark.

Melissa says her co-ed fraternity hosts an international dinner-and-a-movie night at this theatre once a month for the local community, and a lot of older people go to it.

We are spending the weekend in Marquette again before me, Teddy, and Winnie all leave for our next hosts. 

We did a lot of sight-seeing and got a few pictures.


This is a shot of the ore dock from a park on one end of town...


And here it is from the park/marina in the other side of town.  The ore dock is no longer used but railroads used to bring iron ore to these docks where it would get put on ships and sent to other parts of the country.  Like copper mining in Melissa's town, iiron ore mining was a big contributor to the former wealth of the Marquette area.




Here's images from another park.  Melissa forgot the name of it.  She talked to someone while we were there and they said that in the summer time high school kids swim out to that big rock on the right and spraypaint it, usually with something like "Class of..." or "Yay Seniors!"

And lastly...

This is the Superior Dome.  This is the indoor football field/etc. at Marquette's local university, Northern Michigan Univ.  Here's some information about it:

Quote:

The Superior Dome opened as the world’s largest wooden dome on September 14, 1991, is a domed stadium on the campus of Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. It is home to the Northern Michigan Wildcats football team, as well as a variety of campus and community events. The Dome stands 14 stories high and encompasses 5.1 acres (21,000 m²) under its roof. Constructed as a geodesic dome with 781 Douglas Fir Beams and 108.5 miles (175 km) of fir decking, the Dome has a permanent seating capacity of 8,000, though the building can hold as many as 16,000 people. The facility features a diameter of 163.4 m (536 feet), and has the ability to withstand 60 pounds force per square foot (2.87 kPa) of snow and 80 mile per hour (130 km/h) winds. The Dome’s features include a retractable artificial turf carpet, the largest of its kind in the world. When extended, the turf has the ability to accommodate football, soccer, and field hockey. Underneath the carpet is a synthetic playing surface that features three basketball/volleyball courts, two tennis courts and a 200 meter track. Twelve computerized winches extend the carpet over a cushion of air. It takes 30 minutes to retract the artificial turf carpet and approximately two hours for full setup to be completed.

We also saw a Maritime Museum, a really cute coffee shop called the "Coffee Cup" where Melissa saw (and then forgot to buy) postcards she wanted to send you - oops!  We also had lunch at an Eastern/vegan-inspired restaurant called "Sweet Water Cafe", and then met up with Melissa's friend Amanda, who we spent the weekend visiting.

Happy Easter!

Today we visited Melissa's mom and we got to play with the puppy Moose again.  Boy is he getting big!

On the way home we got to see a few more local attractions before I leave tomorrow morning.


This is the Quincy Mine (No 2 Shaft House)...

Quote:

The Quincy Mine is an extensive set of copper mines located near Hancock, Michigan. The mine was owned by the Quincy Mining Company and operated between 1846 and 1945, although some activities continued through the 1970s. The Quincy Mine was founded in 1846 with significant investment from Massachusetts (the town of Quincy, Massachusetts lent the mine its name). While many other copper mines were founded at the same time, the Quincy Mine quickly became the most successful, and was the country's leading copper producing mine from 1862-1882. The Quincy Mine is now a popular Keweenaw tourist attraction. The Quincy Mine Hoist Association maintains the buildings and grounds, and provides guided tours of the Number 2 Shaft House and several of the mine tunnels during the summer. There are museum-style exhibits within many buildings. The mine and surrounding areas are part of the Keweenaw National Historical Park.

Due to it being winter, this is about a close to it as we could get (the parking lot isn't plowed or anything).  Melissa says she's always wanted to go on the underground tour and never has - maybe now that she has ToyVoyagers to host she'll go this summer after they reopen!




Behind and to the left of the No 2 Shaft House you can see other buildings (some used, some abandoned, some lost to disrepair) from the same time period.


This is Mont Ripley, the ski hill owned by the university.  It's been warm enough (and when it does snow, there's not much of it anymore) that the hill is closed for Spring now.  But it's a pretty busy place when it's open!







Here are a few photos of what Melissa's pretty sure is an abandoned refinery (where you take mined copper and "refine" all the other things out of it so that you have pure copper without rock/etc.).  You can see Mont Ripley behind it in the background.

Today I'm leaving for home!

I can't wait to see you again - it's been fun but it'll be nice to get away from the snow and warm up a bit!

See you soon, mom!

Well, I made it home after a lovely stay in Michigan. And as soon as I get home, I get stuck back in an envelope. Apparently, I'm going to visit Moshua in India! I'm such a lucky alien. Farewell, America. I'm out!

-Weasley

Wanakkam Zachary!

This is tamil and means "Hello Zachary"... what a surprise, isn't it?!

"Appuram paarkkalaam" is also tamil and simply means "see you!"... on Xmas I guess....

Today I arrived my new hosts home at Chennai, former known as Madras, a 7 million inhabitans city in the south of India.

Wow, I tell you, that was a really long way to get here and it became soooo sticky in that narrow envelope... pfueee...

Some days ago, I played in the snow and now I am sweating under india's hot sun with 35 degree and 65 % humidity!

Your planet is really a strange one!!!

But my new hosts promised me, we will have a lot of fun anyway... There are some more TVs in the house, I will meet them tomorrow.... And all together we are looking forward to the end of may, when we will be at a nice vacation in the very north of india, visiting the Taj Mahal, Jaipur (the pink city), Delhi and the himalaya moutains....

So, stay tuned,
appuram paarkkalaam!

Hey Zachary,

you can't imagine, what I have to force just for you!

Yesterday, for example, I had to look "American Idol" with the other TVs.... I thought, it was a little boring (but I think Brooke White is a really cute girl...)

And today I went with my host outside.... what a horror....
38 degrees, I could hardly breath!!!

We went together to the postoffice, because she had to sent some letters for her friends at home in Germany....
I was a little wired, this postoffice doesn't look very official, don't you think?!

In the pictures you also can see the house, and the street where my host lives. Together with another tv called "Pien" I climb up to the roof of the building, there is a small terasse and you have a nice view.... mmmmh.... Actually the only think you can see, are green Palms and other trees, I recognize now.....

Chennai seems to be a real "green City" if you look over the roofs.... It's because of the high humidity, I guess....

I saw, next to my host house they build a new one, but the workers took a break, I think, it was really hot there....

My host told me, that these workers do not earn a lot of money... Per one day of hard work they get 150 Rupee, which is about 2,40 EUR or 1,50 US Dollar...
In Mumbai the goverment now decided a new minimum salery people should get and it's 150 Rupee PER WEEK....

That's why a lot of poor people live here in india on the streets and they own nothing but their lifes.

Pien and I were very surprised to see some suitcases at the end of the stairs and our host explaned, that the man who is working as a watchman for the building is living and sleeping on the stairs. And he is kind of happy, that he at least has got a roof over his head...

Hey Zachary....

I thought, you might be interested in these things, indian people use to come from a to b.

My absolut favorit: the motorbike!
That was fun, man! And I really look very cool, don't you think.

But the 3 Wheeler are also great. Normally they are yellow, this beautifull blue one, was a private car.

There are also a lot of bikes on the roads and sometimes people tranport really heavy goods with bikes, you cannot imagine that. I'll try to get one photo next time....

The traffic in india is really horrorable and very, very loud, because everybody is using the horn as much as he can....

I'll be probably dull, when we'll meet on Xmas. So you'll have to speak a little louder to me.... ;-)

We also visited an interesting place that day, it's called "Valluvar Kottam", which is build by the goverment and used for special events like expos....

It's looks pretty nice, don't you think?

Later we went to the church of the holy Mother Mary...
But dude, it was sooooooo hot, I got a bad sunburn that day.... pfueee....

Today again and since few days it was around 40 degrees hot outside, but anyway I joined in to visit another, very famous church here in Chennai...

It's name is "St. Thomas Church" and it is the oldest one in the south of india and the legend says, that the body of St. Thomas is laying to it's feed.

And lucky us, as we went in, a very friendly couple were just got married and we all wished them good luck and all the best.

I was even allowed to make a picture o them, to show you a traditional indian wedding dress....

Finally, we all were waiting so long for it.....

Tomorrow we will start our trip into the north of India.....
jiiiipppiiihheee....

Jaipur - Agra (Taj Mahal) - Delhi - Manali - Keylong- Sarchu - Leh ..........

We will be back at the 9th of June.....

Today we all helped packing the suitcase, everyone is now in charge of something.....

I am in charge of Mona's new head, so that she will not forgett it anywhere.....
Don't I look cool?

Thanks to god, we don't have to travel in the suitcase, we have our very own, very comfortable backpack..... (as comfortable as if can be, with such a travelbunch!)

We'll surely have a lot of fun..... I will tell you everything later.....

BYE BYE.....
...we are off.....

Hey Zachary,

yeah, we are back from the big holidays....
that was really amazing and I saw a lot, what I now would like to show you, step by step....

First we had to fly from Chennai to Mumbai (Bombay) and from there to Jaipur. I was allowed to sit in the plane next to my hosts and I had a great view from the window, when we flew over Mumbai. In fact, in this city there life about 19 Million people and all you can see, when you go down to the airport are these slum- houses, where all the very poor people life.

Than we had to wait 5 hours, because our flight to Jaipur was canceled.... how boring that was!!!

We arrived Jaipur very late.
We enjoyed the warm welcome at the beautifull Jai Mahal Palace Hotel, ate something and went straight to bed.

The next day we explored the region of Jaipur.

Near by there is the big fort-palace of Amber, a beautiful, ethereal example of Rajput architecture, rises from a rocky mountainside.

Amber was the ancient capitel of Jaipur state. Construction of the fort was begun in 1592 by Maharaja Man Singh and it was later extended by other rulers, so you can see a lot of very different buildings there.

I also saw in the city of Jaipur the famous windpalace  and the citypalace.

After this exhausting day, I relaxed a little at the hotel's pool.