Geoverse

I couldn’t leave Minneapolis without having experienced the Minnesota State Fair. I went there with two colleagues from the lab; Amanda and Ayako. In short, it was the biggest fair I’ve ever seen and I haven’t even seen all of it that night. The fair goes on for two weeks so I can imagine that you really need that much time to experience it to the fullest. After having tried the Australian chips with sour cream and chili sauce (ha ha) we watched a free horse jumping show in the hippodrome. That was my first time ever so it was really good but did get boring quite quickly. We then walked to the part of the fair where the rides were. We only bought tickets for one ride which was the most insane thing I have ever tried and that was quite enough. You can see it in the photos. Basically you are strapped in a seat and then the big wheel starts lifting up and rotating. The arm also rotates and the individual seat rows also rotate. That is three modes of rotation! Needless to say, I felt dizzy and sick afterwards. It not scary, mind you and if you have the bodily resistance to being thrown upside down and around quickly then all the more power to you 🙂

By sheer co-incidence we met up with a girl, Beke at the fair whom I know from the place I was staying at. If you image that at the fair there were thousands and thousands of people, the odds were amazingly small. For some reason though ive defied the odds so much with Lynn that i was hardly surprised ha ha. The fair was heaps fun and would love to check it out again someday.

I then flew to NYC and took a 5 hour train to Boston. There I met up with one of my phd advisers and stayed a night at his place. He has a really nice house on the outskirts of Boston near a shallow lake. His two daughters and wife sometimes go canoeing on the lake with their own canoe boats. My talk at Boston University the following day went well and the discussions with the group researchers/students were interesting.

I am already back in NYC now and taking an easy day off. Tomorrow is my flight to England and a conference awaits. Still gonna be busy, but I cant wait to relax when i get to the Netherlands 🙂

Photos -> http://picasaweb.google.com/robertfarla

Well, my time here in Minneapolis comes to a close. My latest experiment was glorious and successful. Here is the showdown of the three rocks I deformed in torsion.

SC = San Carlos olivine (natural olivine from a locality in the US, know as San Carlos).
SG = Sol Gel synthetic lab made olivine

The thicker sample SC6688 did not deform but cracked instead. A sad sad ending for that one.

And here you can see the actual rock (ignore the white bits, that’s Alumina):

There is one more thing to do here. That is the Minnesota State Fair. I’m going there tomorrow with some colleagues. Should be fun!

Hello dear readers, this is my third and last weekend in Minneapolis but it was a great one! Not heaps to say. I had some failures in the lab but at the end my efforts paid off and I successfully deformed one of my long rock specimens. It’s a beauty! See the photo below. You cannot see the rock directly because it is enclosed in the metal but the metal (and hence the rock) is nicely twisted in the middle. The experiment occurred at 1250C and took most of the day until 8pm.

This weekend an old friend of mine from ACAT, the international school of Turin, Italy came to visit me here in Minneapolis. He and his pal Nick came driving all the way from Kansas City, Missouri which is about 7 hours from here. They drove through the night and arrived here early Saturday morning. After a short powernap, we strolled into the city and had a look around at the famous Guthrie Theater. We then went back to Dinky Town, had lunch and I showed them around the university campus and the lab i work in. We then took the train to America’s (and possibly the world’s) largest shopping centre, the Mall of America. Is was… huuuge. There is a whole theme park inside it with rollercoasters and everything. Legoland was the highlight of the mall for sure. We also went to see a truly great movie called District 9 directed by Peter Jackson. You must see it.

Today we had brunch at an Irish pub in Dinky Town and then Adam and Nick said farewell and left. We had heaps of fun. Until next time.

This week I will carry out one more experiment and on Tuesday I will give a seminar of my research in front of the group. My days of tourism are over here. I will catch a flight on Saturday morning back to NYC and on Sunday a train to Boston to briefly catch up with one of my advisors. Busy schedule ahead so I will be a while until I can post another update.

Photos:
– Picasa
– Photobucket

On Saturday I decided to finally see some of the downtown area of Minneapolis. So I headed out in the late morning by foot. It’s not a long walk, maybe 30 minutes to get to the city centre from here. As I got closer and closer I didn’t really get the feeling I was in the heart of Minneapolis despite the towering skyscrapers. I guess the feeling was accentuated by the wide straight streets and generally not seeing a whole bunch of people.

I walked past the cinema and decided to have a look what’s on. Once inside it then occurred to me that all the skyscrapers are connected by walkway bridges. It’s basically one giant interconnected shopping centre! But there was hardly anybody around so I figured that they must have build this for the cold winter days when it gets down to -30C here.

I headed back outside and got to the city square where there was a gathering of Asian people. Finally something to see! 😀 I put myself down and watched the performances that were put on. Judging from the flags I guess most of them were South Vietnamese. There was singing, the children were dancing and a bit later on there was a fashion show behind the stage. You can all see it in the photos in the links below.

I checked my watch and realised it was already 15:30 and I still wanted to go to the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) so I walked for about 15 minutes south until I saw this massive building with two Chinese dragon statues. No mistake, that was it. Admission was free but i had to leave my bag. Luckily they let me keep my camera so I cautiously took some photos of the interesting Chinese art on display. Lynn, you help me with the Chinese characters on the stone doorway. I forgot why it was so important hehe

I spend most of the time looking at the Jade sculptures, one is a giant block carved with the gathering of poets. Another is two layered jade, white and red carved beautifully into a vase. Then there was of course the porcelain or otherwise known as china. The Dutch and English were once the most prominent traders in the East Indies and much porcelain was shipped from China to the Netherlands. To my knowledge, the Dutch then copied the blue designs on the porcelain to make it our own and we call it Delfts Blauw (or Delfts blue – Delft is a town in the Netherlands).

The third floor had a bunch of paintings. Two whole rooms contained paintings by Dutch artists I’ve already forgotten. Nonetheless, I decided I liked them a lot more than the Italian art always showing God, angels and other religious rubbish. And, somebody tell me what is the deal with naked boys in these paintings? No wonder the Vatican church has a problem with pedophilia….

The museum closed and I decided to head back to the cinema. There was a really good movie showing called “Moon”. It’s a classic sci-fi that reminds you of 2001: A space Odyssey. I will not reveal what it’s about. You have to trust me it’s really good and go see it yourself 😀

I came home all wet because it started raining like crazy and just as i was about to enter the guest house lightning struck real close! After the initial shock I ran inside and took a shower. It was a really good day nonetheless but decided to make Sunday a boring and quiet one at the guest house he he. I’m starting a new experiment on Monday. I hope this one will work! I didn’t have much luck last week.

Cheers to everybody!

Photos
Picasa

Photobucket (for Lynn):
Minneapolis
Vietnamese music
Art museum