Burlington, Vermont

To try and sum up my last 4 days would be too much for my tired head to comprehend, let alone help you comprehend. Therefore, I'll give you a highlight. I had the priviledge to visit the charming city of Burlington, VT. It is a very nice little city, right on a lake. I was there for about 18 hours.My hotel was right across from this lake, although my room faced the opposite direction into a parking lot. It was nice to go out of the hotel during the day (we arrived at midnight), and see where we actually were.
Then we headed up to the main part of town for lunch. The main portion is on "Church Street", and it is a very fun street with some great little stores, all making a pathway to the steeple at the end of the street, which I never did find out what that building was, but it was pretty.
The funnest part was listening to all the musicians. There was a little boy there about 11 years old playing his violin. He kept making mistakes and having to start over, but once he actually finished a song, he got a resounding applause. I didn't see this particular band, but you can get the idea.
So, Burlington is definitely a place I would like to go back and visit sometime. It was one of those cities that, once you have seen a little of it, you want to see all of it. OH!! And Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream was started there, too. Very famous! :o )

Nagoya, Japan

Ok, so, first things first. Where is Nagoya? Well, it's in Japan, but if you're like me, you don't know the layout of Japan very well, so I found this map online as soon as I got home to help all of us out.

We landed at the airport around 1:30 p.m. Japan time. That is 16 hours ahead of what it is here in San Francisco. That means somewhere over the ocean, a day disappeared in my calendar. Wierd. This is a view of the airport from the cockpit's view. Unfortunately, I didn't even know we landed on the water until we got to the airport TODAY to go home. My tiny little window by my door is either too little or placed all wrong for me to look out! That's ok!
One of the biggest attractions in Nagoya is the train station. Here' s a couple stats:

Nagoya Station is a train station in Nakamura-ku, Nagoya, Japan. It is the world's largest train station by floor area (410,000 m2), and houses the headquarters of the Central Japan Railway Company (JR Tokai). Much of this space is located in the "JR Central Towers" atop the station, as well as in underground concourses. The current station complex was completed in 1999.

So, see that tower on the left? Well, if you go up past the square part to the 15th floor, that is the main lobby of the Marriot Hotel, which is where I stayed. If you count up 14 more floors from the lobby, and almost hit the sqare wall on the left side of the tower, that was my room. I didn't know I was staying in one of the city's most famous landmarks until after I got home, and I found these pictures online. I didn't take any while I was there because I couldn't see anything besides that white wall, and a little bit of the train station below. Not pretty. So, here's the hotel at night!
Remember that 15th floor I was talking about? Well, this is the lobby of the hotel. I came through that little tunnel on the left side.
Then there's the SHOPPING! Did you know Tiffany's largest store in the world is in Nagoya? Well, it is. And I walked right by it. . .on the way to the 100 yen store, which is a dollar store in Japan. That's my kind of price range. BUT, as you read before, the train station is HUGE, so right underneath the hotel, I went to this store, where there are two floors of JUST FOOD!!! There are little booths of different kinds of food all over the place. It's crowded! It's scarey because I can't read anything! And I was there all by myself. Needless to say, I found a bakery (surprised, mom?!!) for which all the products were also written in french. I don't speak french, but I recognized the word, "chocolate" and figured I was pretty safe with that!
One thing that I didn't get time to do this visit (nor did I have the energy to go out in 105 degree heat and 100 percent humidity), was go to this castle. I did see it from a distance, but I would like to see it up close sometime. Apparently you can climb to the top of it, and get a good view of the rest of the city. I'd like that.
Thus ends my saga of Nagoya. Even though I didn't get to see a whole lot of the city, I did have some REALLY good sleep. And that, my friends, is most important! :o ) All for now.

A Wonderful Wedding Celebration

These pictures are from the wedding I went to yesterday. Some of them aren't very good, but its the people that count. I know some people viewing this blog will appreciate seeing whomever they can see.
A few special friends. . .Norm Friesen, Don and Ellie Cordell. Waiting for the party to start.
The other side of the pew. No, we're not mennonite, where women sit on one side of the church and men the other!
A special surprise. . .my girl, Ali Graf, was there to attend the wedding. She also made the wedding cake, some delicious cheesecake.
The bride, Stephanie Capp, and her father, Randy. Gorgeous!
Here's a bit of the view of the church. . .the organ pipes wrapped around the whole stage in a semi-circle. The wedding songs were played on the organ, so that was a great addition to it all.

The happy couple, Chris and Stephanie Kreft. They look really good together, I think!
Special friends. . .Andrea (Peck) MacLurg was one of the bridesmades and used to live in the dorm with Norm and us all. Myself, Ali, and Andrea posing in front of the cake, but the cake was cut off!
A really special surprise--Melissa Taylor, a girl that I lived with in the dorm for one year, came to the wedding, too, with her boyfriend, JR. Fun to see her again!
Rhesa Salstrom either taught or played for all of these girls at some point, so this was a special picture taken for her.

Mr. and Mrs. Ian MacLurg. I didn't make it to their wedding, so I asked them to pose for me to have this picture as a memory of their own wedding 6 months ago.
Special friends, Ali and Norm.
And more special friends. I hadn't seen Rhesa since she left BFA before I left. Fun times!
The bubble send off. It was very fun, but HOT outside, and sticky.
Andrea, Steph, and Emily Shindeldecker (maid of honor). Good friends from BFA times and continuing onto the present.

A relaxed pose after the "official" stuff was over. Whew! We did it!
A father/daughter dance. The two of them were cracking themselves up the whole time with little inside jokes just for them to hear!

Emily and I.
Parents of the bride, Randy and Nancy Capp, now working at BFA.
Moi and the bride. What a pleasure to be there!!!
Oh, and I can't forget about Austin! He was one of the groomsmen for Chris. He's also Ali's brother. He's posing here with Ian, Andrea's husband.

LONDON!!!!

This was a recent working trip I took to London. VERY fun!

The view from my hotel room. . .notice the buses. . .and if you look VERY closely, you can see the London Eye (the famous ferris wheel) in the background.
The London bridge, and the fun people I hung out with all day. Katrina (in the purple) graduated with me from training on the same day, so it was fun to hang out with her a little bit.
You'll have to look sideways, but this is taken on the bridge itself.
And this is one of the two towers of Westminster Abbey. I wanted to go in, but it cost $20.00 US to do so, and I don't have that kind of money right now!! So, that's all I saw.
This is the Duke of Wellington Arch, which kind of looks like the one in Paris, only smaller. This is at the end of walking along the Gardens of Buckingham Palace. You couldn't see in the gardens, however, because there was a huge wall all around them, almost like a prison.

Random Days

My latest trip to Frankfurt. It was a beautiful day, but there were demonstrations happening in the city. I tried to get some pictures of the demonstrators, but they all turned out blurry.
A day in the life. . .my friend, Becky, and I went for a walk together on a day I had off. She took me to this park which overlooked the airport, from top to bottom. This picture doesn't show it very well, but this is where I go to work!
Getting windblown on the coast--another walk along the bay, where we actually fly over quite frequently. Now I know what it is when I look out the window of the airplane!
A special birthday treat for me--the roomates treated me to a pedicure (and themselves, too). Guess who's is who?!!