Thursday, July 29th

First of all, the students in last week's accident are fine, nothing was more serious than a dislocated shoulder.

With only a week & ½ left in  Mérida, I plan to spend the last couple weekends getting to the places in town that I haven't made time for yet. A few more souvenirs to pick up yet as well (most will come from the markets, too bad about fresh fruit, though). A few more pics in this slideshow than normal, a little bit of most of the things I've gotten into since coming to Venezuela. I definitely want to give Ysaac a big pat on the back! He took care of almost all of my travel arrangements while I was here, & got us into a lot of things that would not be a part of any normal tourist program. Possibly the best parts of the trip, thanks! 

The teachers and staff at Venusa have been great. I've had very few snags while here, but they've always been friendly & quick to help with whatever has come up. A huge thanks to Joan and Yiya - the cooks here at Venusa. Great food & variety, I'll be bringing a few ideas home with me! It was nice meeting my homestay family, too. More time together would have been nice, but schedules here are just as hectic as they are in the states & finding time is never easy.

Anyway, with all that, I really miss my wife & kids and am very much looking forward to seeing them (a week from Tuesday!). I don't know if I'll be posting next week or not, it'll be busy. A couple papers to write, a presentation to prepare, a couple more tests and I'll be done with my study-abroad term in Venezuela. I realized last night that this is the first time in twenty years that I've been out of Minnesota for more than a couple months at a time. It's been great, but I'm ready to go home.

Take it easy! 

Monday, July 26th

First, I'd ask anybody reading this to keep the other traveling group of students in their prayers. The bus they were in while returning from the beach last weekend missed a curve & rolled a few times. From what I've heard, it sounds like there was nothing more than minor injuries - bumps, bruises, maybe a few fractures, but nothing requiring hospitalization. Thanks. 

OK, enough of the serious stuff. Saturday morning we left Mérida heading (more or less) North toward Lake Maracaibo. We made a few stops on the way: lagoons, sugar cane farm/refinery (briefly there), a few markets & restaurants, as well as driving through miles and miles of fields. The fields here are a bit different than in the states. I did see some corn, though very little, no soybeans at all. Mostly bananas, but quite a few palm oil trees too. Later that day, we stopped at a river that feeds into the lake (I don't remember which river - there are a lot of them & names are something I've never been too good with). This was a fairly small town, the pier seemed to be the busiest place from what I could tell (even saw an offshore oil drill that had put in for some reason). From there, it was down the river by boat - very interesting trip & beautiful scenery. We saw a few families of red howler monkeys, but I really didn't notice much howling...

It wasn't a tight river, but I don't have any idea how that drill made it through. Anyway, after awhile - really not sure how long, we made it to the mouth of the lake. From there it wasn't far to the house we would be staying in. It was on the lake, but not like the houses in Minnesota are on the lake - this was on the lake, stilts instead of a basement. If you would have rolled out of bed, instead of a thump there would have been a splash. Actually, no, there weren't beds - we slept in hammocks, details...

Uh-oh, it's 3:45 already. Sorry, but I'm going to have to be a little more concise. Safari, trip around (part of) the lake, night safari, Italian roommates - & Hungarian (Euro version of Peace Corps), woke (too) early, back up the river, more driving - more bananas, spelunking, chewing coffee beans, didn't do the trick, had to stop for real coffee, through a cloud forest, insanely dense clouds, couldn't see the painted lines on the roads (where the roads were paved), washed out road was open again, saved a long detour, more mountains, even less visibility, and eventually back into Mérida. Very interesting, time well spent. Lots of homework & finals next week, so I should do something a little more productive. Later!

Friday, July 23rd

Last trip up to Mucubaji was today. This was the fourth in all, so I've posted about it a few times before, I don't know if I can add much of anything without being redundant. Still, I had to put up a final batch of pics. It would have been nice to have spent some real time in this area, maybe a weekend camping trip or something, instead of just a couple hours at a time. I don't think many people from here would have been interested, though. It gets pretty cool at night, a light frost even this time of year isn't uncommon at all. Personally, I find cooler weather - especially when camping, to be best for sleeping, but I might be in the minority with this opinion.

Tomorrow we're off to Zulia - the state where the Catatumbo meets lake Maracaibo. Quite a bit is planned for the weekend & I think it will be very interesting, but instead of talking about what might happen now, I'll just post again on Monday about what did happen.

Have a great weekend, take it easy! 

Tuesday, July 20th

Nothing new to post really, just looking over some of the pics from the past month or two & after considering the landscape, I wondered: ¿Why I haven't seen any dinosaurs yet?

(click on any to see full-sized) 

I've seen the movies, well, not all the movies, but enough to know that places that look like this are where the dinosaurs are.

Oddly enough, very little has been heard from the students who 'allegedly' returned to the US a couple weeks ago. Might be that something funny is going on...

I'm not saying that there has been anything unusual that was covered up or hidden from the press or anything like that (you'd need some pretty solid evidence to make a claim like that...). I'm just saying something seems funny & what little I do know (very little - nothing new there) all seems to point to the same thing...

(Seriously - If I'm not back by the middle of August, send a search party!)

Viernes, 16 de Julio

Well, it's been a week since I've posted. I probably should have posted sooner, there must be something interesting that I could have said, but no matter what might have or could have been, I didn't & that's all there is to it I guess. This is the end of the third week of 'B' session, which meant midterms. They weren't called midterms, but the tests we had were cumulative & did cover ½ a semester of information, and since this is, in fact, the middle of the accelerated term, 'midterm' seems to fit.

We had a field trip today (test was yesterday) in botany. Very interesting, but I just can't remember the name of the place. It was meant to be an example of a dry environment. To be fair, there were plenty of cacti & it was technically in a rain shadow, but honestly, dry for Venezuela is not terribly dry (you can see in the pics above that it was raining while we were there). Maybe Dakota dry, but certainly not Arizona dry. Details. It was considerably drier than the surrounding areas.

Hmm, so far the tone of this post feels a little cynical, not my intent, I'll try to fix that. Full week next week, classes M-Th as usual. Friday will be another trip to Mucubaji (very good news), and Saturday & Sunday will be spent at Catatumbo. That means I might have a short post next Friday the 23rd, but probably little if anything sooner than that. Hopefully it also means I'll have quite a bit to post on Monday the 26th.

Friday, July 9th

A field trip into a cloud forest this morning, Monte Zerpa, actually. Very interesting, I have been looking forward to this one for quite awhile. I know, your looking at the pictures & saying 'If that's a cloud forest, where are the clouds?'. It isn't always cloudy in a cloud forest, just usually - besides, if it were cloudy the pictures would have only shown a few feet into el bosque before everything was covered by the clouds. We didn't see many animals - the vegetation really is very thick in there, but we heard quite a few: monkeys (I don't know what kind); toucans; & some kind of a mountain-jungle turkey (no, really!). I'm getting hungry & don't feel like sitting at this keyboard any longer, so that's it for now. I know I didn't write much, but the pictures are more interesting anyway. Oh, that shot of me swinging in a vine - it isn't photoshopped, just weird. Hasta la tarde...

Tuesday, July 6th

Yeah, I know it's been awhile since I've posted, but I do actually have work to do sometimes. Session 'B' started last week which means all new classes & turnover of about ½ of the exchange students, maybe a little more. Didn't do anything for the 4th of July - it's just another day here. However, July 5th is the Venezuelan Independence day - how's that for weird? They don't get into it as much as we do in the states, it's kind of like Labor Day - many (most?) people have the day off & everybody seems to be happy about it, but nobody seems to quite know, or for that matter even care, why...

I've got some writing to do & should get going, but will put in one quick clip first (OK - I am talking in this one):

Tuesday, June 29th (give or take...)

Interesting weekend. We took a trip to los llanos. While in Venezuela, I'm living in Mérida - which is the capital of Mérida state (better site, but non-English) - in the Andes, so the altitude keeps the temperature bearable. Hot, but not unreasonably so. Los Llanos are a grassland area - sort of a cross between jungle & savannah, depending on where you are. The particular llanos we were in are in the state of Apure (another non-wiki but non-English option), South of the Andes & West of the Orinoco. To get there took a ten hour jeep ride. Once there, we got around largely by boats or on horses. This is about one mile closer to sea level, and it is the rainy season , so between the two, temperatures were quite a bit higher than they are in Mérida. Oh well, nobody melted, so it wasn't too bad.

Since it is the rainy season, there is much less dry land than the dry season, in fact, much of what would have been dry was covered in up to 3 feet of water! Because of this, it can be more difficult to find many of the animals this time of the year - although that really did not seem to be too much of a problem. Living at the camp were a macaw and an anteater - besides quite a few more traditional pets & animals that would be more familiar at home. There were cebu & burros in many places, horses & pigs too, but again, they are a little more familiar. As far as wild animals (the interesting part?), we were not disappointed there at all. We saw several caiman (even caught one!), many capybara - and this surprised me a little. I thought that capybara were somewhat rare and elusive, but we saw them fairly often, even herds of them. I guess some people think they are very tasty, but most the people we traveled with kind of thought the idea of eating a rodent was repulsive (I would have tried it...). We also caught an anaconda. The snake we caught was about 3.5 meters, so it was noticeably bigger than the garter snakes back home, at least most of them. While on the river, the trees were full of iguanas, really full of them. Some trees would have three or four of them. I don't know why this surprised me, I just didn't expect to see so many big lizards in the trees. Occasionally they seemed to fall out, but I guess they would jump. I don't know why, apparently it would be time for a dip. We saw a few different kinds of turtles & a couple fresh water dolphins, although I never did manage to get a picture of the dolphins. We also fished for piranhas. They look an awful lot like sunfish - tasted like them, too.

I'm sure there is more that I'm forgetting, but that's enough for now. I'm tired of writing & getting hungry. Feel free to comment or ask any questions.

Wednesday, June 23

Last Saturday I took a walk up to the top end of town (long walk). I had been hearing for a couple weeks that there was an artisan fair on some road just a little way past the bullfight arena & was curious so decided to take a look. I did take the trolley the first third or so, but the line has not been completed yet. Very convenient that what is done is running though, & the price is great (free).
At first it might look like a much bigger difference in the standards of living from one part of town to another, but if you really think about it that may not be the case. You can see houses here that would probably fall somewhere into an upper-middle class range in Mn, and you can see houses that seem to be a bit below any standards of living in our area. However, I have not seen any homeless here at all. I've asked & have heard that there are some here, but very few compared to large cities in the States.
The markets are also very interesting. The actual art fair that I was heading toward was rained out shortly before I got there. A few vendors were still there, you can see some of them selling paintings or puppies (?!). Since coming here, I have  seen quite a few open fruit vendors, but the pics above were taken where an entire street was closed for several blocks for herb, vegetable & fruit stands. Smelled great!
Y'know, the connection is poor today (I've restarted this three times now) & I'm kind of tired. I'll post again Monday - off to Los Llanos (after a nap, of course). 

Tuesday, June 22nd

Tuesday June 8th (I think - no longer sure of the day or date) was appreciation night. This was when students prepared meals at Venusa for their host families as a way of saying thanks. There was a very good turn out, dishes were pot-luck style, although there wasn't a lot of organization regarding who brought what. I think there were about 25 pasta salads, 20 deserts, & maybe ½ a dozen potato salads. All very good, at least those I tried were good, just a little funny. I can't say I did much to sway the variety. I wanted to bring something that was easy to prepare - our kitchen is very basic, a couple frying pans, a can opener & a few spoons (no mixing bowls) - so nothing requiring baking or any sauces was an option. It also had to be something that would not spill, splash or burn on the trolley on the way to school. The trollies are normally very, very crowded, room to stand only and carrying a bulky item would almost be certain end up in it tipping or dumping at some point. Finally, it had to be something that would not go bad after sitting out all day without being refrigerated (food poisoning can be such a drag). Remaining options? People chow. I know, most people call it puppy chow now, but the first time I ever had it was in a boy's home in the late 80's. It was people chow then, a play on words with puppy chow (the dog food). Sometime during the mid-90's people started calling it puppy-chow, I'm probably just being stubborn, but I'm sticking with the name people chow & do not have any inclination at all to start eating dog food, so there it is.

Anyway...

The markets here are a little different than markets in the states. This is a very simple recipe with only four ingredients, but not quite so available here. On a recommendation, I had brought peanut butter along to Venezuela, so that was not a problem. Rice chex, or something vaguely similar did not seem like it would be too difficult to find. Wrong on that one, corn flakes were as close as I could get (yeah, I know). Semi-sweet chocolate chips? No, not here. I went with some dark chocolate bars intended for making hot cocoa. I added a little sugar & some dry milk once melted, it came out really close. Powdered sugar, that they had, although it was nowhere near the other baking ingredients. After wandering around in the store for ½ an hour or so, I finally asked somebody. It was in the aisle with the nuts.

Even after all the weird accomodations that had to be made, it was pretty popular - there was none leftover at all (good - trolleys were done running & I didn't want to have to carry anything on a bus). Fun night, but I don't know what I'm going to make for session B - I'm almost out of peanut butter.

Wednesday, June 16th

This is a little older, maybe from two weeks ago (actually closer to three) - I'm not quite sure. I was hoping to find a Scout Troop while here to spend some time with. Mostly curiosity, to see what is different, what is the same & spend some time with people outside of a tourist or student setting. The first or second day here I noticed a lot of people - kids & adults wearing their Scout uniforms, but at that point I was still trying to figure out where I should be, when and how to get from one place to another, so I really didn't have the opportunity to talk to anybody. The following week I saw people with their uniforms on again, and by that point walking up to somebody I didn't know & blurting out a few simple questions was almost standard procedure for any situation. I found out that Tuesdays are when all Scouts wear their uniforms, and that they meet for three hours on Saturday afternoons. I made it to the first meeting, a few of the more noticeable differences between Scouting here and at home:

• Scouting in Venezuela (like most of the world) is coed. There are not separate Boy Scout and Girl Scout organizations.
• Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts are distinct groups within Scouting at home. Here the older kids & younger kids are together in the same Troop. I don't know enough about Girl Scouts to say whether this is the same or different. 
• Kids are kids, no matter where they are or what language they speak. If there is a new face, they'll do everything they can to make sure they get noticed.

I was invited to an awards ceremony the following week. Unfortunately that weekend was right at finals for one class & midterms for another, so I wasn't able to make it. I missed last weekend, too (Jesús' first communion - a couple posts back). Oh well, there are still ½ a dozen or so Saturdays left before I go home, I'm sure I'll be able to get back at least a couple more times.

Tuesday, June 15th

Last Friday we went back up to Mucubaji, a páramo about a mile up, roughly an hour & ½ by bus through a cloud forest & quite a few winding mountain roads. Beautiful area, couldn't have asked for better weather - well, for me anyway. A few others who went on the same trip thought it was a little on the cold & damp side. It was a nice change from the sun, though. I'd guess it was around 65ºF, give or take, with a very light rain, not much more than sprinkling most of the time. I suppose though, it's pretty easy to get acclimated to the constant 85ºF & sunny, so any change could seem like a big change.

A little quick background, the páramo is above the cloud forests, but below the tree line. It is cooler because of the altitude (a light frost at night is not uncommon), & somewhat damp. There are a lot of bogs in páramo areas. The deer in the pictures is a páramo white-tailed deer, or la chuleta, native to the area, but very rare, we were lucky to see it. Enjoy the pics!

Monday, June 14th

Wow, full weekend!

Well, Saturday anyway. Jesús had his first communion at Parroquia Santiago de la Punta (Jesús  is 12 years old, the youngest of my homestay family). Not too different from a first communion at a Lutheran church in Minnesota, but the family gathering afterward lasted all day & part of the night instead of just a few hours. Most of my homestay family does not speak any English - at least not enough to be comfortable trying. The only one who does, Raphael, was out most of the day. I was a little concerned about if I knew enough Spanish to get through a full day in a house full of people (roughly a dozen, give or take - I didn't get pics of everybody). For the most part I was keeping up with conversations. Sometimes I would understand most of it, other times I was just completely lost - but not that often, much less than I expected. The food was great, though way too many sweets for me. A lot of fun, great chance to put my comprehension to the test (I think I passed), but way more tiring than I expected.

Thursday, June something or other...

Just fiddling with settings. Seeing what works & what doesn't. It'll probably be Monday before I get another real post up. If it works, this is just a short clip looking out a bus window from one day last week. Nothing unusual, but it shows what the town looks like a little more than a still pic can.

I guess I did get a haircut today. It's a little warm here, so I got rid of most of it, I really wasn't using it for anything anyway. Got rid of part of my beard, too (just shaving - didn't pay a barber to do that). On the way back from the barber, I was caught in quite a downpour. It's only 5-6 blocks from here, so I decided to go through instead of waiting it out, sometimes the rain lasts for a couple hours. Got completely drenched, & the rain quit maybe 5-10 minutes after I got back. Oh well, I seem to be reasonably water resistant, so no harm done...

Wednesday, June 9th(Looks like it worked)

Nothing to say right now, just putting up a few pictures.

I don't even know if this will work...

Tuesday, June 8th

It's been a couple weeks. Not on purpose - really, I've been busy. Since my last post I've gone through ½ a semester of biology & a full semester of Spanish. I should be working on a presentation on the Páramo right now, but I think it can wait a couple minutes (45 minutes - its interesting, but that's a lot for something I just heard of for the first time 3 weeks ago...).

The picture above is from May 30th (there is a short video of my landing at the bottom of this page). We went para-gliding (parapente) at Tierra Negra. Of course every flight was a little different, but at least for mine, from jumping off until touching ground again was just under 45 minutes. I think we were 900 meters above the river below, roughly ¾ of a mile? - I'm not sure exactly.

 There are quite a few parks, squares & plazas in town that I'm hoping to get to in the next couple weeks - I will only have biology until the 20-something of June, so there should be a little free time to explore. I plan to post a little more often here, too. Hopefully twice a week, but realistically, maybe weekly...

Anyway, back to that presentation. 

Tuesday, May 25th

Time for a new post? I suppose I should. Finally found a pair of sunglasses on Friday, but they broke on Monday. Oh well, at least I know where to find them now.

Sunday afternoon we went out to the country house - beautiful place. Fruit trees everywhere, mangos, avacados. bananas, plantains, 2 different types of coconut, several that I'd never heard of & can't remember right now. The pic above is looking out from the edge of the yard.

Also needed laundry detergent on Friday, maybe not quite as exciting, well, maybe it isn't even a little exciting, but I had to do it anyway. I'm hoping to sneak in a bite to eat before class, so that's it for now. :)

Sat, May 22 (I think)

I haven't had much of a chance to post yet. This first week has been crazy, travelling, figuring out housing, figuring out schedules & transportation. I certainly haven't settled into any kind of a routine yet, but I generally know where I'm at & where I should be next (usually in class). This post will be brief as I'm still working on getting pics online - I'll probably be posting several times this coming week to get caught up on things, but in summary:

• 
  
  The trip here was uneventful (a good thing)
• 
  
  The housing situation was a little confusing at first. It's still a little confusing, but at least that much has been accepted. Mostly.
• 
  
  Classes are long & difficult. Three hours of biology (Tropical Ecology of the Rainforest), followed by a three hour lunch - everything in town, even the trolly system closes for 3 hours. Then six hours of Spanish.
• 
  
  Transportation and directions for getting around are simple - whatever it is, it's either uphill or downhill.
• 
  
  There is only one post office in town - and it is uphill from everything.
• 
  
  Internet connections, cell phones & electricity all seem to work most of the time. Not great, but good enough. They go in and out with no apparent rhyme or reason, but it keeps things interesting.

I'll try to fill in a few blanks later. It's mid afternoon & it sounds like the town is waking up again so I'm going to get moving.

Wednesday, May 12

Looks like it's been a few weeks again since my last post. I don't really have much time now - 2 papers to wrap up, a final in about 4 hours and one more tomorrow. The most hectic part of finals week is over, but this afternoon & tomorrow will be the most difficult.

I finally got the rest of my flight confirmations (at least for the way there - still a gap or two on getting home again). Homestay info hasn't been sent out yet, but it sounds like that should be Thursday or Friday. Had a few more snags in financial aid a couple weeks ago, I'm still not quite sure what's going on there, but everybody I've talked with has been very helpful, I think it'll work out fine.

I should get a few details worked out in one of these papers, so this post is just going to have to be short. I plan to post regularly beginning next week.

Hasta la próxima ...

Sunday, April 18

OK, real post, sort of, though still not a whole lot of content. A few people have asked about where Mérida is, so - here it is! Mérida is in the Northern part of Venezuela (West by NW, I suppose). It is near the top of the Andes, just South of Lake Maracaibo. Even though it is pretty close to the equator, the altitude keeps the climate reasonable - a little on the warm side, but not too bad if you aren't spending your days splitting wood or working in attics. 5,348 ft - as a point of reference, Denver is at 5,280 ft (close) & Minneapolis is at 830 ft (not so close).

I suppose though...
I really should be doing homework now. I've got a few more pages of Hume to get through before I can call it a day (philo major, remember?). Interesting stuff even if some parts seem to be way off the mark (some of what he wrote is great, I'm not arguing against that, but other times, well, wow). I'm just not in the right frame of mind for it right now.
Que lastima - ¡Hasta luego!

Saturday, April 17

I realize it's been a couple weeks since I've posted, but I just don't know anything. Dave had a birthday (he's getting old). Lots of writing to do with the end of the semester coming up. Got a little stumping to do before we can till the garden (small expansion). I haven't seen any aliens or bigfoot - at least not since my last post. Haven't bumped into Elvis recently, although I did talk to a guy who looked like him, just with a lot less rhinestones...

Whatever, I should probably get off the keyboard, well, away from the keyboard & off my bum. It's Saturday, I'm going outside to play. (and stump, and till ...)

Friday, April 02

This Warden Message informs U.S. citizens traveling to and residing in Venezuela of the ongoing security concerns on the Caracas-La Guaira highway, en route to the Caracas Maiquetia International Airport. This highway is known to be particularly dangerous, and highway robberies occur at any time of the day and at any place along the highway. The general modus operandi of the criminals is to cause a roadblock with either trash and debris or vehicles, particularly at chokepoints at the tunnels on the highway. Once traffic has stopped, travelers are robbed and/or carjacked, often at gunpoint. There are also credible reports of arriving travelers being targeted in the airport, to be later robbed along the highway en route to Caracass.

Well, at least it shouldn't be a dull trip!

Friday, March 26

MEFLOQUINE:

This medication may cause stomach upset, stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, hair loss, ringing in the ears, dizziness, drowsiness, headache, insomnia, strange dreams, or lightheadedness. If these symptoms persist or become severe, contact your doctor or pharmacist promptly. Tell your doctor immediately if any of these side effects occur: fast, slow, or irregular heartbeat, seizures, muscle pain, loss of coordination, numbness and tingling of hands or feet, vision changes. If any of the following occur; call your doctor immediately; you may need to stop using mefloquine and start another medication for malaria prevention: unexplained anxiety, mood changes, depression (sometimes severe, including rare thoughts of suicide), hallucinations, restlessness, confusion. A serious allergic reaction to this drug is unlikely, but seek immediate medical attention if it occurs. Symptoms of a serious allergic reaction include: rash, itching, swelling, severe dizziness, trouble breathing. If you notice other effects not listed above, contact your doctor or pharmacist.

Y'know, I might just take my chances with malaria...

Friday, Mar 19

Spring break is about over, so much for cleaning the garage. I've been looking for a map of Mérida - it doesn't look like something that has been widely published . So far this is all I've found, & it's been out of print for quite awhile. I guess I can keep looking. I did find this, though. Click on the calle link, the school is about 3 blocks South of the airport.

I think all the paperwork is complete now. Well, current anyway - there'll probably be more as things get closer. I also finished my entrance essay for Luther Seminary, but I'll have to wait a couple weeks before sending it. If everything falls perfectly into place I'll wrap things up at UMM Fall '10 semester - but only if everything lines up perfectly & that's with the maximum credit load the university allows. Otherwise it'll be a little over a year from now (but with a much more manageable load). The entrance essay is sent with the candidacy application, but without knowing when I would be starting, I can't quite complete it. Details...

Thursday, Feb 25

No big updates at this point, still shuffling through paperwork (if it hasn't become obvious by this time, I'll just point out that paperwork really really isn't my thing).

I did find the newspaper from Mérida, the Frontera. Well, duh - of course it's in Spanish. If you'd like to take a peek in English, try here (Google comes in handy for things like that). Interesting, not quite ready to commit to ordering a subscription though...

Friday, Feb 12

OK, finished the next batch of paperwork & got it sent off. I've been out of the country a few times before, but the amount of paperwork for a school trip is ridiculous!

½ a pound of paperwork to the Twin Cities campus, another ¼ pound to somewhere in Florida, & another smaller pile to somewhere else in Florida.

It was supposed to be at all of those places by the fifteenth - cutting it close, but I didn't even know about it until a few days ago, so the USPS got a few extra bucks since things had to go priority.

And no, that isn't my own picture, just something I found through Google (the actual pile was much bigger).

Saturday, Feb 6

About a week ago my trip to Mérida, Venezuela (last Monday, actually) was approved, and since I'm not too bad about taking pictures, but not too good about sharing them or writing letters, I thought I'd give this a shot.

This is a study abroad trip for school. I am currently a Philosophy major at the U of M, Morris campus. You don't have to click on every link - I just put them in in case any explanations are wanted - & not everybody will want them.

Last year I tried to get into three different trips, the first two were canceled & the third was full by the time I had applied. I'd had enough pointless paperwork & wasn't about to try for #4. I was looking into a few this year (school year), but when I started looking at what was offered at other U of M campuses, this opportunity really stood out. It runs about 3 months, & in that time I can get in an entire year of college level Spanish (in addition to the immersion of living there) as well as finishing off my science requirements.

How is it possible to have an AAS in CVN with 80+ science credits & still have more needed? I don't know - still scratching my head on that one, but as it turns out I'll be taking Tropical Ecology (in a rain-forest) and Field Botany in the Andes (do I need to point out that this is in The Andes?). I'm really not too upset about getting in a little more science, especially considering the circumstances.

Anyway, since it looks like things will work out, I've got quite a bit more paperwork to fill out & most of it needs to be completed this weekend so I better get to it...