Microtel Bloomington

... room and a kichenette. After check-in we went to the mall and had a great time.

The next morning we went to IKEA by the mall and then to the local casinos. No luck on winning but it was fun. After the casinos we started to head back to Milwaukee.

... we had to weave through the other drivers. We met Aleen for dinner at Trieu Chau, a local Vietnamese restaurant in St. Paul. I ate Bun Rieu while Susan had Bun Bo Hue and Aleen ate the vegetable soup. We made it to Hung and Lien's at 8:30 PM exhausted but ready to see what Minneapolis has to offer since this is our first time to go sightseeing here.

We will be seeing the Mall of America...

Today I traveled via e-mail from home to Kampala, Uganda. Because of the 8 hour time difference, I didn't arrive in Kampala until the next day though. Boy is that a long trip! I was so tired and went straight to bed. I got to sleep ...

I'm frantically trying to work through my 3 page list of things to do before I go. Setting up a travel blog was one of the things on my list. Hopefully this will work as a great way to share stories and photos will all our friends and family back home. This seems pretty easy so far. My next task is a little more complicated...buying another swim suit. Why did I wait until 48 hours before departure to tackle this monumental task?

Off to MOA!

Mary

Here are links to over 800 photos I took on the trip. They are in chronological order.

1st set

http://www.facebook.com/albu m.php?aid=2743654&id=13903381&l =6484cf32ac

2nd set

http://www.facebook.com/albu m.php?aid=2743677&id=13903381&l =21fa01c9dc

3rd set

http://www.facebook.com/albu m.php?aid=2743705&id=13903381&l =8604f37db0

4th set

http://www.facebook.com/albu m.php?aid=2743712&id=13903381&l =1612875889

Hello, all, I'm sorry that I haven't written in a terrible amount of
time, nor did I post the photos I promised I would.

BUT,
now I have gotten it together and made two albums. It's hard to try and
distill 1245 photos into 120, but I think I did ok, if you have any
questions or want to see a different photo, email me at ...

That is what greeted me as I entered the gate area, where everyone was preparing for the first non-stop flight to Paris on Northwest Airlines. I admired the ice replica, and noticed that they had every facet and detail chiseled into the ice perfectly. Northwest airlines went all out for this one. All the news channel were there to cover the ribbon ...

... sides and addictions. In this context, the Mall of America was in one the cause and the end of our chat, as it highlighted the fact that in the US size matters. Almost everything, and everybody, seems carved to match and sustain a widespread larger-than-life attitude. What follows is a loose summary of some of Stephanie's best comments on this topic: "This nation is too big, its government is too big, its population and ...

... as mediocrity and life's hardships, botched love and incomprehension. The above all reconnects in many ways to state of minds I have myself been through fairly recently, feelings that made me feel uncomfortable with my life, skills and that cast doubts on my very determination to to become a journalist. At some point I was spiraling down an excruciatingly dim tunnel of self-pity with no end in sight. This is exactly how Flawed Genius begins ...