Michigan part 2

I have had a great weekend in Marquette (Michigan). Actually I wasn’t sure if I was going even the day before we left: Jodi and Scott with whom I should drive to Michigan live in Champlin, a city 30-40 km north of Minneapolis. As Michael was in Denmark I didn’t have a ride to Champlin. The chauffeur in our building apparently didn’t bother to drive “that far”, a taxi would be around $90 and the bus left from downtown only twenty minutes after my class would end 3-4 km from there. During my Wednesday-afternoon coffee with Elisabeth, the Norwegian girl, she tells me that I (of course) can take a bus from the uni to downtown. So I decided to go. Except for the 5 km with my cross country ski and my backpack from our apartment to the uni, it was very easy.

I left my class early and ended up being 25 minutes early for the bus to Champlin from Downtown. Going from the uni to Chamlplin (a trip that takes about one hour) cost me $2.25 – that is 13 kr!!!! – and way easy and on time… Amazing!

Minneapolis to Marquette in Michigan.. If someone wonder why Marquette (being on the Upper Peninsula 
that is not connected to "the rest" of Michigan) is not a part of Wisconsin, I can tell you that Michigan was
founded before Wisconsin (since the settlement/acquisition started from east and moved towards the west)

There was a lot more snow in Marquette than in Minneapolis (where there is no snow…) so we had two wonderful days on ski (we would have had three if it hadn’t been for the accident – I’m not sure, though, that my body would have liked one more day on ski). The weather was perfect and the tracks were ok.

Me, and Tom in the background

The trail head at Noquemanor Trail Network

Scott and Jodi in the nicest tights ever!

Friday after the accident, Cliff, Scott’s father, gave me (us) a guided tour of the area. Marquette is an old mining city, so we saw some of the plants. Michigan is known for their “pasties”, so we went to a local café and had a pasty each. Very nice! I, in return, tried to introduce them to the Danish specialty “Tyrkisk peber”, but they did not seem to like them ;-D

A traditional Michigan Pasty with meat, potatos and rutabaga (Kål roer, hvad end det så er..)

Another thing Michigan is known for is “the Michigan left” which is very odd… They are not allowed to make a left turn in intersections, instead they have to turn right and then make a u-turn, to go left… (freaks!)

In Michigan they recycle bottles etc. with a deposit as we do in Denmark, very nice!

This weekend I have finally seen my first (two!) American homes: Jodi and Scott’s and the parents'. The only difference is maybe that they have carpets here and that they (at least not in the room I slept in) do not use duvets, but apart from that I must admit that they’re not very different from Danish homes (boring I know!). Both home were very nice, Scott parents had had their house build when they moved to the area. They both had an indoor cat, which I, at first, thought was weird, but then when you think about how many enemies a cat has here that we don’t have in Denmark (bears, wolves etc.) then it is a bit more understandable that they don’t let their cats out…

Cliff and Nancy's house