Captain's log

Stardate 020080329: Colorado

2008-03-29T16:49:00.006-06:00

In Spring Break, in Finland I guess it would be "hiihtoloma" we went to Colorado, to go snowboarding and a bit of sightseeing. Here they have all these holidays from the university :P Not like in Finland, that you just have to take your own holiday if you want to go somewhere :D hehehe. Anyway, this trip was another road trip, since we drove to Colorado and eventually all the way to Denver.

First stop was Durango, a small town close to the border of Colorado and New Mexico. We stayed in a cheap motel there and went skiing in a place called Purgatory. Quite funny name :P The slopes there were amazing! I rent a snowboard and Gerardo got skies, and we were enjoying the sun shine and snow for two days there :) I burned my face completely though... :P The sun was a bit stronger than the spring sun in Finland... hehehe

View from Purgatory

That was my snowboard in Durango

American flags...

Having lunch and enjoying the sun :P

The resort was really high! About 3 km... :P

Me and Gerardo

Chillin..

After Durango and Purgatory we headed to another place called Pagosa Springs. Near that there was a skiing resort called Wolf Creek. It was also a really cool place! Although I think I liked Purgatory more... This one had too many pumps all over :P No coolio... But, the weather was amazing also there all the time. Sun shine every day, more burning my face :P

In Pagosa Springs we also went to some natural hot springs! There were like small pools like in a spa (like Eden or something) outside but it was all natural heated! It was really cool to thing that we were sitting in a water that had come from deep underground and was heated by magma... :P Some of the pools were as hot as 45 degrees (celsius)....oh my god :p I couldn't stay in all of those really long since they were soooo hot! But it was really nice and relaxing experience, a bit like going to sauna after snowboarding the whole day. We payed about 17 dollars to go in, not so bad.

Well, here are some pictures from Wolf Creek.

Gerardo

Take a look what the sign says... hähähähä

After skiing in Wolf Creek we drove to Denver. It was a nice city, didn't appear really big though. We were walking like insane there (of course). The first day was sunny and warm, but the other one was kind of cloudy and crapy... Anyway, we were walking in downtown in this pedestrian area with all the shops. Then we walked some 4 miles to a City Park which was really beautiful place. There was also a Museum of Nature and Science which had really cool exhibitions. We went to one about Space, one about Egypt and then there was a special exhibition of Gold. It was interesting too :)

But, I think the most cool thing about this museum was the Space part :P We could see ourselves in infrared, you could see the body heat and so on as red. And....my fingers were completely blue!! :( Well, it's not really a surprise, but it was kind of shoking to see it :P Even some couple were commenting about my cold hands but warm heart! :D hehehehe

Well, here are some more pictures.

From the way to Denver...

...From the road as well

Downtown Denver!

Denver..

From the City Park..

...Some weird pictures with my shoe :P

And finally, a view of the city!

Stardate 020080315: VLA (Very Large Array)

2008-03-15T14:30:00.006-06:00

The reason for my existence, the one reason why I wanted to come to New Mexico in the first place.. Yes, it indeed sounds geek. I wanted to see the Radioantennas in Socorro, the same ones appearing in many movies, such as The Contact, 2001 Space Adventure etc. And yes! I finally did it and went there! :D It was reeeeeally cool! The antennas are insanely huuuuge. We were driving about 3 hours from Las Cruces to get there but it was all worth it to me at least :)

The VLA site had a small museum telling about the construction and history of the site, a small gift shop, walking tour and god damn strong wind :P Well, maybe for many people it wouldn't have been sooo special...but for me, woooow, I loved it :D

So, here are some pictures from there:

A sign beside the highway

You couldn't use the cell phone and yes, well, it was good that we didn't take our microvaweoven with us....hmmm

Gerardo in front of one antenna

And that's me! Damn the thing is huuuge!

There's just something about the restricted areas that appeal to me...

....Yeah...well...hehehe

This was kind of like a "garage" for the antennas

On the way back to Las Cruces we noticed a ghost town near Socorro. It was called Kelly Mines. We decided to see how it was, and it was really a ghost town... no people whatsoever.. All the buildings had been torn down, the only thing remaining was an ooold mine tower or something and some ruins. Well, I wouldn't want to be in that place in the dark :P The view from the Kelly Mines was amazing. The location was reeally high..

Kelly Mines

A view from the Kelly Mines

Stardate 020080306: Hiking and Snowboarding in NM!

2008-03-06T08:59:00.004-07:00

After the party party party end of December it seems that my life has settled down again. I haven't been doing much anything else but working every day until late. Actually it's really nice because my job at the Astronomy department is in fact really interesting :) And plus I'm feeling more geek every day...so I guess I'm fitting in to this department quite well :P hehehe! Although I wouldn't have guessed that I would be programming ever in my work, but well...you learn something new every day!

Besides working I've gone hiking two times and even snowboarding once during these two months! We went hiking to the Organ mountains, just next to Las Cruces. In fact you can see the mountains every day just walking anywhere here :P The view is nevertheless really beautiful, and like I probably have said before, the weather here is always nice, always sun shine and no clouds. So you can imagine how beautiful the view is from up there! Or wait, you don't actually have to imagine because I have some pictures from there :D heheheheh!
Oh my god, my jokes are getting worse every day...

Me enjoying the sun shine in our hiking trip

View from the mountains..

God damn bugs spoiling the fun..

More view from the hike

Well well, as hard as it seems to believe, I did go snowboarding here in New Mexico! How is it possible? Well, in America everything is possible :D hehehe! Just kidding.. Anyway, the state is actually quite big and when you drive up north it actually gets cold! Yes, there can be even snow up there :D We went to this place called Santa Fe, which is by the way also the capital of the state of New Mexico. There's a really nice skiing resort there, really really high...feels like you are above the clouds or something. I don't know if you can notice it from the pictures but it's damn high :P

Thinking that it would be summer all year round here, I hadn't brought my winter clothes, my snowboarding jacket or anything with me here initially :P So (what a pity) I had to go shopping :P heheh :) I bought some really nice snowboarding clothes and payed maybe third of the prize I would pay in Finland... Yes, it's ridiculous how cheap it is around here... Not to mention the hair cutting in Mexico... can you believe that I paid only 7 euros for it... :P

Anyway, here's pictures from Santa Fe, the "pro-snowboarder" :D

Oh! And yes, it was freaking cold!! I was freezing to death there :P I guess I've used to warmer climate here already or something...or it's just my normal freezing always.. heheh!

Stardate 020080123: Mexico & Cuba

2008-01-21T11:54:00.001-07:00

During the holidays over Christmas I was traveling with Jaime and Hide for 4 weeks! 3 weeks in Mexico and one week in Cuba :P On December 16th, me and Jaime packed our backbags and headed to Juarez to take our first bus of so many. We met Hide later on the way. The idea was to travel mainly by bus and stay few days in each city we would reach. So, our first goal was Puerto Penasco, a city on the west coast of Mexico in the north... Well... everything didn't really start smoothly... During our bus trip (that was btw something like 12 hours) we got to an immigration check point. An officer came to the bus and asked everybody's ids. I showed my passport and he was taking a look at it a looong time. He asked me where I was going and I said that around Mexico for the holidays. Well, he gave me back my passport and it was fine. Or was it :P It was something like 2 in the morning and Jaime has decided to sleep on the bus floor with his sleeping back. He came in the front to get his passport...soon he came back again and said that the officer had said that we have to take our stuff and go with him! I was like what the fuck!! So, there we were in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, freezing to death, and had no clue what was going on, and the bus left... Well, we ended up in a border patrol office and were told that we should for some reason have a visa.. we thought that we would have to pay him something or he would take us back to US :P We ended up paying something like 20 dollars, got our visas, and were taken to another bus. So it ended up ok, although the impression of the trip wasn't so good in the beginning :P

Finally we got to Puerto Penasco, stayed there for few hours and took another bus to Hermosillo, the capital of the state of Sonora. We were staying in a cheap hostel, had some hot dogs from the street, and went to the zoo. I saw for the first time of my life a giraffe! It was cool! :D

Sunset in Hermosillo

Hotel Washington D.C. in Hermosillo :P

After Hermosillo we took a bus to Bahia de Kino, a beach resort quite close to Hermosillo. The place had amazingly beautiful beach. Although it was crowded by American tourists with their fancy beach houses. There was also a small village with locals. We were staying over night at some woman's place who rented rooms. It was really nice because she gave us many good tips! Next day we wanted to visit an island near by and decided to ask some local fishermen to take us there. Eventually we ended up hiring one the fishermen to take us to the island. It was really nice day, warm and sunny, and most of all with amazing view!

Some pelicans and the island where we went in the backround

Same place in Bahia de Kino, with the boat and dude who took us to the island

Me and the lady at who's house we were staying in Bahia de Kino

From Bahia de Kino we went to a place called Guaymas, a small town in about 5 hours away from Hermosillo. It was not touristic at all, although we did find a tourist information. Jaime decided to introduce himself as a Creek so that the people would speak English to us :D hhahaha It was quite funny :P From Guaymas we went for one day to San Carlos, another beach resort. It was about one hour away from Guaymas. Another resort concorred by the Americans :P In San Carlos we run into an American guy called George. He was sort of a funny guy. Well, he wanted to take us to a tour and took us to his truck and drove around. We got to really nice spots. He thought that we are both from Spain, and the fact that we spoke English to each other didn't raise any suspisions in him :P heheh! Yeah, we'll always remember Georgie from Iowa :P

View from San Carlos

Sunset in San Carlos

Jaime and George, our amigo americano :P haha

Next we went to Los Mochis. The plan was to take the only train in Mexico, to Chihuahua. First we took a look at the city a bit and went also to Topolobampo, quite close to Los Mochis. Another beach place... well, we had a nice nap in the beach and afterwards we were watching a Christmas parade there. People were driving with their boats that were full of Cristmas decoration. It was quite cool :) After we came back to Los Mochis to take the train next morning. Well, we didn't want to pay for housing so we decided to sleep in the train station. We weren't the only ones since there we quite many other people too :P In the morning we took a second class train, got some student discount and felt quite happy about the trip.

The best part of the train trip was the amazing view! The tracks went through huge canyons. People were taking pictures from the windows and as a proper "Japanese' I also did my share :D Well, the minus point was that the trip took 18 hours.... you can imagine how boring it was in the end to sit there... it was already dark and we couldn't enjoy the view anymore...

View from the train to Chihuahua

View from a small place in the middle of the way where the train stopped

We finally got to Chihuahua and were really tired and dirty from the trip. We checked into some cheap hostel. I felt really crapy the whole night, my stomach was hurting and I felt like throwing up all the time... Eventually I was so sick in Chihuahua that I spent the whole day in bed and I couldn't eat anything, do anything else but lay down. The worst part is that that day was Christmas eve... I don't think that I ever had so crapy Christmas, in a cheap hostel room and sick. Although Jaime was really nice and brought me some pudding and sprite to eat something. Eventually we ended up eating in Burger King and watching a film in that day. Well, Burger King junk food really didn't help my stomach ache, but at least it was something to remember :P

In Chihuahua we visited eventually quite many museums and sights, since we were staying there 3 nights because I was sick.. One of the museums was the house of Panco Villa, a famous man in the history of Mexico, a guy who was fighting in the revolution. The house was really cool!

From the house of Pancho Villa, the car where he was shot

Finally we left Chihuahua and had another looooong bus ride ahead, to Monterrey. I was feeling really shitty but we took the bus anyway...I think it was the worst bus ride I ever had! I was feeling really sick the whole way. In Monterrey we were staying at Cesar's "kingdom". Also we finally met Hide, who joined us for the rest of the time in Mexico. It was extremely nice to stay at Cesar's after traveling for two weeks and sleeping where ever, in the bus, in the station.. It felt like I got a touch of the civilization again :P heheheh

In Monterrey we saw many nice places. Obviously because we had a local to guide us :) We went for a walk by a river in the middle of the city. We saw some beautiful water falls and breath taking mountains. I have to say that Cesar was an excellent host :D The food was great and also the "program" was very nice! On top of all that his sister is a doctor and examined my stomach problems. I ended up taking medicine for 10 days and having sort of diet for my stomach to get better :P In the end it helped and I was fine again :) Although I couldn't drink coffee or eat chocolate for 10 days....... :/

From Monterrey

An exhibition of statues in Monterrey

Evening walk view..

...Christmas tree made of used laundry buckets

From the water falls

The spectacular mountains circulating the city of Monterrey; Cesar, Jaime and Hide

Jaime, me and Hide in a view point in Monterrey

After enjoying Cesar's hospitality, getting some Christmas presents from his parents and tasting some excellent Mexican barbeque the three of us headed down to Mexico City. The insanely huge city with 20 million people :P There were so god damn many people that we thought that we couldn't even walk there properly :P

We were staying in a very strange place there. It was a hostel owned by Japanese people and also full of Japanese people. Jaime had stayed there in his previous trip and we decided to go again since we had a Japanese representative with us :D We stayed there two nights and I managed to freek out some Japanese girls because I woke up in the middle of the night screaming like hell because of my nightmare :P hehehe, I think they thought I was completely insane :D

Anyway, in Mexico City we visited a cathedral, a huge park and the Anthropology Museum which was really impressive. We also stayed there for the new year's eve. Eventually we were in a wrong place when the year changed but we found "the party" later on and it was full of people. In new year's eve we also went to Teotihuacan, an ancient mayan city close to Mexico City. It was really amazing place!! We climbed two pyramids up and were enjoying the perfectly warm weather there for the whole day :)

Mexican flag in a cathedral in Mexico City

Me and Jaime in Mexico City

From the Anthropology Museum

Me and the Sun pyramid in Teotihuacan!!

Hide and Jaime and the "ISEP picture"...

Jaime and Hide in front of the Japanese hostel (looks like a garage, doesn't it :D)

Our initial plan was to travel to Oaxaca from Mexico City but we figured out that we really didn't have time to do it. Instead we found some cheap flights and flew straight to Merida to meet Luis, another Mexican friend of ours. Surprisingly in Merida I was sick again.... this time I had fewer, and a lot! I was almost burning because my skin was so hot :P Anyway, the weather in Merida is always either hot or very hot. It's also very humid there so we were just wearing our shorts in the middle of January :P That's when I thought that something might be wrong when I was really freezing during the night :D hahah!

Luis took us to a tour in the city and also to the beach. The weather was kind of crapy because it was raining and really windy. In the beach it felt like there was a hurricane :D The wind was really strong, but at the same time it was very warm :P We also went to Chitzen Itza, a mayan city as well. I had a bit of fewer there but it was really impressive. And by the way it's one of the wonders of the world!

Jaime, me and Hide in Chitzen Itza

Luis, me, Jaime and Hide

After Merida we headed to Cancun, our last stop in Mexico. We only stayed there for one day but I think I really have to go there again! The beaches are amazing...white sand, green water, summer always...wow :)

Cancun

From Cancun me and Jaime continued to Cuba. Hide stayed in Cancun and was going back to Merida and Monterrey later. Cuba was something completely different... First of all the plane that we took there was this Cubana Airlines...using ooold Russian planes. Let's say that I was a bit scared when I couldn't even lock my seat belt :P Well, we stayed alive so that's all that matters I guess :D

We were first staying in Havana. In Cuba it's common to stay in local's houses which they call "casas particulares". So, we were staying in one of those, in an old woman's place. She was really nice and gave us lots of good tips. In Havana we visited some museums, and were walking around a lot. The thing that you can really spot there are the old cars and the propaganda (literally) about revolution and propaganda against USA :P

Some propaganda in Havana...

Patriotism or death...next to US embassy

Plaza de la Revolucion

In addition to all the propaganda Cuba has also reeeally nice beaches. From Havana we took a bus to Verdadero. It seemed like paradise. It was really hot day, in the middle of January! I was swimming and everything there. It was great! We just stayed in the beach the whole day chilling out :D

Verdadero

Next stop was Cienfuegos. If you don't want to take a bus it's also possible to take a "taxi" anywhere. There will be many people offering you to take you basically anywhere as long as the price is negotiated :P We ended up going to Cienfuegos in one of these "taxis" :P We were staying in another casa particular and only for one day. It was nothing really special, we were just walking around. The funny part is that we had left some of our stuff to Havana to this old woman's place because we were going back there in the end of the week. Well, we had for some reason decided to leave our passports there too.. But we needed the passport numbers for the accommodation.. It was kind of a mess but eventually we could stay when I searched me mails to find my passport number :P

Cienfuegos

Last city we visited was Trinidad, very small town with narrow streets. And amazingly many people trying to sell stuff to you. And of course it was full of tourists :P The strange thing about Cuba was that it was really difficult to buy food there. You basically couldn't find a supermarket, only some small kiosks where you can buy chips and cookies. So you can imagine what we were eating there for one week :P Well, of course we also ate in restaurants but still :D

In Trinidad we rented bikes and went biking to the beach to see the sunset. It was really beautiful! In the las day we went horse riding to a national park to see water falls. We hired some dude to take us there. It was really great :) I can't remember when i had been riding the last time :P My ass hurted soooo much afterwards..could barely sit in the plane to get back :D heheh

Biking in Trinidad

In a beach, Trinidad

Still the same beach..

From the water falls, we went swimming here :)

Finally after 4 weeks of traveling, sleeping where ever, eating sometimes, walking like crazy, we returned to VDM. And it actually seemed really nice to be back home after so long time. Although the trip was indeed really great :D

Me, Maria Luisa (the woman whose place we were staying in Havana) and Jaime

Stardate 020080119: News Finally...

2008-01-19T18:11:00.000-07:00

Finally after almost two months I'm able to write some updates here! First of all, my computer broke down in the beginning of December...now I have a new one to use, it took a while but I'm back again :D Before Christmas the whole VDM (Vista del Monte, where we live) went partying. We had two big parties at our place and had lots of fun! Before that we went to some theme parties. Here are some pictures from the parties. The first ones are from "glow party". We were wearing all white and writing to each others' shirts greetings for memories from the semester.

Franco, me and Julia

Me, Julia and Fernando

On December 6th me and Saara decided to throw an Independence day party for our friends. We baked some korvapuusti, cooked karjalanpaisti and had some candies and of course Finnish music! It was really fun party, people got drunk like in a good Finnish party you should ;)

The last weekend in December, before everybody left home was just partying. I think people were even more insane than normally... Maybe it was because everybody knew that they were most propably ever going to see each other again. It was like saying good bye parties. The funny part is that in both nights the parties were at mine and Julia's place, and we didn't even plan it! Suddenly there were just lots of people, and they just kept coming :P Before the party we had a banquet for international students. We got diplomas about our exchange and were having dinner.

Me and Julia in the banquet

Luis and me

Yo Cesar! :D

In my room, most of my best friends, Jaime, Ansgar, Julia, Hide, Luis and Cesar

Finally, most importantly, I'm staying in New Mexico for the spring semester too! That's right, I'm still here :D Everything is a bit different, not the same people around...missing my friends, my roomie, my Julia :/ But I'm really sure that this semester is going to be great too! There are new people to meet, new challenges to face and new trips to make :) For the spring I won;t be studying because I got an internship from the Astronomy Department.

For the holidays I did damn lots of traveling, but that's another chapter, another story... Will be posting that soon ;)

I miss you guys!

My current and previous roommate :)

Stardate 020071202: California trip

2007-12-02T18:31:00.001-07:00

Thanksgiving break was something that everybody was expecting for. People made plans to go on trips to California, New York etc already months before the break. I ended up going to California by car with Jiang (from China), Seth (American) and Coco (from France). We rented a car and drove first all the way to San Francisco, about 20 hours! We were staying in the most dangerous area in the city in a crapy hostel. But San Francisco is really an amazing city! It's very small in area but so dense that it's crazy. The houses are very tightly close to each other and the blocks and areas change suddenly when walking in the streets.

Me and Jiang on the streets of San Francisco

San Francisco at night

The city hall

Some houses..

In San Francisco we were walking quite a lot because the parking was a bit problematic. Even so problematic that we ended up getting two parking tickets...in total worth 100 dollars... It wasn't really funny at the moment :P Anyway, we were walking around the city, in Chinatown, Golden Gate Park and Fisherman's Wharf. Especially the coast line was really amazing. We found an ice ring too but didn't go skating eventually. On the last day we went to Golden Gate bridge and were walking on it. Then we drove outside the city and went to kind of a national park, called Muir Woods. It was really beautiful place, very peaceful, like a contrast to the busy city :)

Japanese garden in Golden Gate park

Some downtown view

The trams are one symbol of San Francisco

The Golden Gate bridge

Coco, me and Seth

There were some strange signs for suicide seekers..

On the way to Muir Woods; Seth, Jiang and me

Muir Woods

Some traffic in San Francisco

After three days in San Francisco we started driving towards Los Angeles. For some reason we decided to take the coast road because we thought that the view would be nicer that from the big freeway. Result: the view was indeed really nice, although it was dark but still you could see the Pacific Ocean in a moonlight, but the road was horrible, very small full of curves and I ended up feeling incredibly car sick. Plus I noticed that I had lost my glasses in San Francisco.

After hours and hours we finally reached Los Angeles found a parking lot and slept in the car. We thought that the parking tickets were worth so much that we should save on something :P Next day we went to walk in Hollywood and saw some beaches and visited the Griffith Observatory, but basically we were just driving around and being stuck in the traffic. Overall LA was quite disappointing.. Very polluted and the traffic...it's just awful! It took us hours to go very small distances and the whole city is so spread out that it was difficult to visit much any places.. So, to sum it up, we really didn't like LA so much..

Los Angeles

Hollywood

View from the Griffith Observatory

Jiang, me and Seth

Los Angeles is incredibly polluted.. there were no clouds and sun was shining, but still we couldn't see any of the landscape because of the smog!

Telescope in the Griffith Observatory

In the beach during sun set..

"The Baywatches" :D

On the second day in LA we went to Universal Studios. The parking itself cost 10 dollars but it was free to walk in the street where the gift shops were. If we wanted to enter the actual studios, we should have payed about 65 dollars.. We ended up not going.. But instead we went to see a film in the iMax theater! We saw Beowulf in 3D and it was quite cool :) Even the price for the film was cheaper than in Helsinki...

The Universal Studios

Coco, or Forrest Gump?

Me, Seth and Coco

The street in the Universal Studios

After the Universal Studios we were heading to San Diego, the last city in our road trip. In San Diego we were staying in one local aiesecer's place and it was really nice after sleeping in a car for two nights in LA. Taking a shower and just sitting in a sofa felt extremely comfortable. Emerald was really friendly and let us stay at her place for 3 nights. We had Thanksgiving dinner with her and her friends and it was really nice :)

In San Diego we visited the San Diego Zoo and we walking in a really nice park, went to downtown and some beaches. San Diego is a really friendly city, very different from LA for example. One day we were having luch in the beach and a couple started talking with us. We ended up having dinner in the house of the parents of the guy named Steven. They were really tipical American family :P We had a prayer in the beginning of the meal and the father seemed really to be the head of the family. But it was really nice :) I even tasted pumpkin pie for the first time in my life! :D And it was amazingly good!!

Some pictures from Balboa park in San Diego

The whole group! Me, Coco, Seth and Jiang

San Diego Zoo

Jiang, Coco and Seth...

A panda!!

Sunset in a beach

The Old Town of San Diego

Another beach...

...and some view of the city!

On the way back to Las Cruces we stopped in Joshua Tree national park. I think we didn't go to nicest place because for us it looked more like Las Cruces with all the desert! hehehe :D The trip was in total long, tireing, very interesting and also fun! Above all California is really cool place where I definately want to visit again!! :)

Stardate 020071202: Roswell & Carlsbad Caverns

2007-11-28T19:28:00.001-07:00

Roswell was one of the cities that I absolutely wanted to visit during my stay here in US. So one weekend we decided to rent a car with few people and drive there for a day :P It seems that in fact there's really nothing to see in Roswell... heheh.. Many people already said that there's nothing to see so we could already kind of expect it :D Basically we just went to the UFO museum and local Wal Mart. The UFO museum was really lame... I was expecting something a bit better than just some pictures and text on the walls.. And plus you had to pay 5 dollars for it. I wouldn't recommend. Besides the museum was really small and the gift shop expencive and crapy. Anyway, we went to see the local Wal Mart because we were told that it would look funny outside with the ufo stuff. And it seemed that Wal Mart of Roswell had the best souvenirs we could find and the cheapest ones too :)

Streetlamps in Roswell are shape of ufo :D

Everything in Roswell is about UFOs :P

Me and Julia hugging an alien!

Thomas, Julia and Cecar in front of Wal Mart

On the way back to Las Cruces we stopped in a ghost town called Lincoln. It was in fact quite creapy :P It was already dark and there was absolutely nobody, we could only hear dogs barking. Not even any cars were passing by... :P I took a small video there, you can't see so much, but listen carefully ;) It's like Blare Witch Project :D hahaha

Next day we drove to Carlsbad Caverns, a really amazing network of caves that was formed during millions of years. It was like mines of Moria from the Lord of the Rings! Really cool! I took lots of pictures but most of them are too dark or blurry, but I tried to select here some of the best ones.

On the way to Carlsbad we stopped in a national park entrance.

View from outside the caves.

The natural entrance, it was also possible to go there with an elevator

Inside the caverns...

Here's a video from the caverns!

On the way back we went to see some small waterfalls and were also hunting some other ghost towns. We kind of found one but then we got lost on the way :P We wanted to get back to the highway to El Paso but we ended up to some very strange and small road which seemed like not a road at all. It was full of huge stones and we could only drive like 10 miles per hour and in addition to that we were running out of gas.. We decided to turn back and ended up in a camping area which was the end of the road :P We were guided to drive back to Carslbad, the city and take the highway from there. Well, we just managed to go there with the gas that we had left :D In total we were lost for hours and decided to have dinner in Carlsbad. So that the story wouldn't get too boring, we came back to Las Cruces something like 1 in the morning and plus I got some strange stomach ache and was throwing up the whole night! hehehe

The waterfalls

Polish people in the water falls

Queen, the ghost town we found! After this we got lost...

Stardate 020071128: Halloween and barbeque

2007-11-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

Halloween was already a long time ago but here the time seems to fly in a different speed than in Finland :P It seems that there's no time to do anything, always something to do, people visiting.. But it's really nice! I've made many nice friends here and it seems kind of sad to think that within only few weeks I won't be seeing them anymore daily.. One of the best friends I got here is Julia, my roommate. She's from Spain.

But about halloween! It's really important to dress up in this celebration here :P There are special stores dedicated only for halloween costumes. There are also many parties to attend. I got myself a greek goddess dress. Almost all the costumes for girls were something like: naughty police, nurse etc..

Me and apparently some known cartoon caracter here..?

This is my "kummi" Dustin! He has helped me a lot :)

The international ambassadors or "kummis" haven't really been actively organizing stuff for the exchange students.. Mostly we have only made trips by ourselves. But one weekend there was a barbeque in El Paso in one girl's house. There were lots of people and I think it has been the only occasion where I have seen so many of the other exchange students :P Well, one reason might also be that I arrived late and they already had all the orientation and so on...

We had some really good meat in the barbeque :P In fact the meat was so good that everybody wanted to try it :D Usually when Americans have barbeque they eat hamburgers and hot dogs. We instead had some "Mexican barbeque" which is according to Cecar: meat. Afterwards we went to a bar in El Paso and eventually stayed in one ambassador's house over night and enjoyed a nice Mexican breakfast there :D

Some meat we ate

Cheers, Kippis or Salute!

The internationals of NMSU

Julia and Cecar, one of my best friends in Las Cruces :)

Julia, me, Cecar and Thomas in a bar in El Paso

My roommate and me :)

Thomas wanted to stop on the way back to take pictures of the cotton fields...

Stardate 020071104: Grand Canyon

2007-10-24T18:54:00.000-06:00

Weekend trip to Grand Canyon.. 12 hours of driving one way, but all worth it! Standing on the edge of the canyon seems like being next to a painting, not really being there but seeing it as a film. We were 12 people, mostly Spanish, me and Saara, one guy from Japan and two Germans. I really enjoyed the trip but let's just say that sometimes the Spanish can be too much :P Also my idea of a trip is to get everything out of it, meaning not spending my time on "nonsense"... like having luch in a parking lot for two hours :P Nevertheless, I really enjoyed my time there!!

We saw the sunset, the sunrise, went hiking a bit down the canyon.. It's truely an amazing place! To see the sunrise we woke up about 5 and drove to the park from the motel further away. We weren't staying in the park, instead about 50 miles from it.

The national park itself is really full of tourists.. you can't reeally enjoy the peace or the view of the canyon by yourself because you have to struggle to take a picture without any people in it :P The best time to go hiking is early in the morning because then there aren't so many people around, only some crazy ones :P

Here are some pictures:

Finnish girls in Grand Canyon, or was it Polish...

Hiking down the canyon

Oh, and it was cold...was freezing to death :P

The sunset..

...and the sunrise

and people freezing to death :D

Josemi, Lorena, Belém, Esthel, Caroline, Martha, me and Maria

Me and Cecar, hiking down the canyon

Stardate 020071024: El Paso & Juarez

2007-10-24T16:56:00.000-06:00

El Paso is about 70 km from Las Cruces. It's the place where the international airport is and where I arrived in the beginning of September. I hadn't been in El Paso other than one bar one weekend and in a concert other time. El Paso is in Texas and just next to the border of Mexico. The city on the other side of the border is called Juarez. When you cross the border you can really see the difference between these two countries. The traffic changes immediately to "everybody is on their own" as soon as you cross the border. To go to Mexico is very easy, you just basically drive through the border. But to come back...well it's a bit different :P Americans seem to be really paranoid about letting people cross the border. They stop every single car in the border and ask IDs or passports from everybody. Occasionally you can get into an inspection where they search the whole car. So you can imagine that the lines to cross the border to US are huuuge, you have to wait every time something like one hour to get back to El Paso...

Anyway, I really liked Juarez. Although everybody said to me that Juarez isn't real Mexico because it's in the border and that I should go further down to experience the real Mexico. It's good idea to go to Mexico with a Mexican because you never know what's going to happen. So it was good that we did go there with one :D We went there two days, had really nice dinners, went to the market and glow bowling :D First evening we had dinner in a really cool restaurant:

There were shows, dancing etc with a host, some traditional Mexican things. It was really cool!! And plus the food was excellent, some meat and tortillas :P

The second night we went to a sea food restaurant. I can't remember how the fish was called but it was really tasty :P We also had some oysters:

Franco eating some fish :P

We were going to vip movie theater to watch a film. The theater was really cool, because the were waiters to get your order inside the theater. So you could just lay back and relax when wiaters bring you sushi, drinks or whatever you want. The chairs were like huge arm chairs where you can lift legs up, really comfortable! Sound nice doesn't it? Well, there's a but...As soon as we got inside the electricity went down from the whole movie theater :P They couldn't fix it so we couldn't see the movie :P heheh Instead we went glow bowling which was really fun! :D

Here are some pictures from Juarez:

Franco, Ansgar and Saara..

..and me

Stardate 020071006: Bike trip #2

2007-10-06T12:38:00.000-06:00

Bike trip #2!! This time a bit longer than the previous :P The same group, me, Saara and Jaime. We would have had a new member in the biking group but he was busy with school and couldn't join (or just lazy? ;)). Anyway, we went now toward the mountains, biking next to the highway, no idea how far again.. But we were estimating some 50 km maybe...it took us 5,5 hours and we didn't make so many or long breaks...

Jaime is excited about the trip!

The "official guide"..

...in trouble with the wind :P

In the middle of the highway..

After the highway we turned to a desert road, literally. It was a road going just in front of the Organ mountains, no houses, nothing, just desert. I was kind of sure that the road would lead us back to campus :P Luckily I was eventually right but the road seemed to continue forever and ever and ever and ever and ever...

In the desert

The Organ mountains

Some view from the way..

Stardate 020071006: More Las Cruces

2007-10-06T11:39:00.000-06:00

mSome more stuff from Las Cruces.. Last weekend there was another football game where we went. This one was not soo crowded than the previous one but this time I watched the whole game :P I also added some videos from the game for people to get an idea how it is :D

Polish people watching football...

One day me and Saara went for a walk again. This time we headed to the only lake that Las Cruces has.. We were quite excited to go there since we are from Finland and of course used to have lots of water around us.. Well, the walk was quite nice but the lake was..well..I would say more like a dirty pond next to the highway :P Anyway, it was quite impressive to see even that much of water here in the desert :D We could even spot some ducks, which looked like suffering.. Some kids were feeding them with chips..I guess American ducks have also different diet than Finnish ones! hehehehe :)

Opening hours for a lake?

Clean water...

American ducks eat chips...

Then something else. For the curious people who want to see how my apartment looks like, here are some pictures :D

My room

The living room..

....combined with kitchen

Stardate 020071006: White Sands

2007-10-01T14:39:00.000-06:00

The Activity Center of NMSU arranged a White Sands Overnight trip last weekend. Me and 6 other exchange students decided to go there, sleep in a tent and enjoy the view. White Sands is a a huge area of white sand dunes, people can go there camping or just visiting. The dunes reach as far as your eyes can see... There's also some NASA missile test place around :P Here's a link for more information if someone wants to check it out: http://www.nps.gov/whsa.

In total we were something like 19 people, most of the Americans.

Although the trip was quite short and we were basically just walking to the camp site and enjoying the night sky, something "historical" still happened :P Ansgar (the German guy) told us a story about his Polish friends who showed him pictures about them traveling. It seemed that the Polish guys were quite stiff in all the photos... So we decided to try also making some pictures like that :D So until now on we created the so called Polish pictures and our goal is to travel and take "Polish" pictures where ever we go :P (no offense of course to anyone from Poland, I'm sure it was only these guys who pose like this ;)) Important is also not to show any emotions in the pictures.. We found it quite hard not to laugh :D

"Polish people" in White Sands

Otherwise camping there was really great! We could see so many stars and the moonlight was extremely bright! So even though it was night, we could see everything because of the bright moonlight. Also all around White Sands we could see thunder storms :P We were a bit worried that the storms would reach the White Sands but it seemed that they were just circling the area where we were staying and it appeared like we would be in the eye of the storm.. We were eating some marsmellows and just enjoying the night! It was reeally great! The night was a bit cold but nothing compared to Norway for example! :D

Here are some photos!

More "Polish people"...enjoying the sun set

Our camp

Walking back to the car in the morning

Stardate 020070930: Las Vegas

2007-09-28T14:04:00.000-06:00

When I was asked whether I want to go to Las Vegas for a weekend, I could say nothing but of course! When you think all those movies and tv series that are made in Las Vegas, the place seems so far away and distant. Couldn't imagine yourself there walking in the streets, going to casinos and hotels. But that's excatly what we did last weekend, we went to Vegas! Two cars of exchange students, from Austria, Spain, Germany and of course Finland ;) The age limit in US for drinking is btw 21, so quite many of the exchange students are actually not allowed to consume alcohol and therefore couldn't even go to Vegas.. Well, I don't have that kind of problems :P

Las Vegas group ready to go

We rented two cars and headed off to Vegas, about 11 hours to drive. Lukily I had made some long car rides in Finland and Norway before so it wasn't too bad to drive there. And we had many drivers, so it was just fine. We left on Friday afternoon and arrived to Vegas around 3 am on Saturday. It was quite extreme that nothing had really stopped there, people were just gambling all over and didn't care about the time. But I think that's what they say, that Vegas never sleeps. And it's really true.

The way to Vegas was full of excitement :P

Some landscape from the way

Welcome to Las Vegas!

When we arrived everybody was really tired and I would have just wanted to go to sleep.. Instead we just parked in one of the hotels and went to the casino :P We were told that we could get our hotel room only about noon in Saturday and it was early morning still. We stayed at the casino about two hours and decided to try to get to the hotel anyway because everybody was so tired. Luckily we got in and managed to rest a bit. During the day we were walking a lot, just going in to all the casinos, taking insane amounts of pictures and also me and a German girl, Caroline, went shopping :P There was a huge outlet mall just near the strip (the main street where the hotels and casinos are). Wow, we could have spent days there :D

Me, Saara and Ansgar (from Germany)

In Vegas everything is bigger... or was it smaller?

My camera's battery died three times during the trip and eventually I couldn't even take any more pictures :P I think I was all the time holding my camera, being the Japanese tourist or paparazzi, taking pictures of everything that moves :P It seemed so surreal to be there. One car of people left already on Sunday afternoon, but rest of us stayed until Monday, and it was really worth it! I think there was still so many things to see, didn't even go to all of the hotels. We went to ride in a roller coaster in New York New York, went all the way up the "Eiffel tower" in Paris, went partying in Palms and Hard Rock Cafe, just enjoyed walking in the streets, with the breathtaking view of the insanely huge hotels. One thing was a surprise for me though, I thought Vegas would be much bigger. Instead it's basically only the strip with the hotels. If you go a bit further, there's really nothing to see.

View from the Eiffel tower, Paris

The Bellagio

The Paris

Me in the Venetian

The hotels had the most amazing attractions, lions, roller coasters, shopping centers, gondolas from Venice, Trojan horses and much more. And everything in a huge scale, everything massive.

Inside the Venetian, people can take the gondola and go along the river

Needless to say that Las Vegas during the night was breath taking. The way they illuminated the hotels and everything was amazing. The same buildings that looked not sooo special during the day, were coming to life during the night. Everywhere huge lights, advertisement for the casinos and night clubs, streets full of people walking, drinking.. I didn't really want to gamble not to loose all my money but just for saying that I went to Vegas to gamble, I put some 2 dollars and of course lost them :P But hey, I went to Vegas and gambled!!

New York New York

Me losing my money in the Palms

MGM, propaganda

On the way back we stopped at the Hoover dam, which was amazing! Sooo huge that you can't imagine! I wonder how much power they generate with it :P I think the dam is also the border for Arizona and Nevada. At least there were two huge clocks indicating the time for both states..

All together, the trip was really amazing! I still can't believe that I was really there :P I had so much fun, could see so many amazing things and enjoy. The hotel was also quite nice, just in the strip. We shared on suite with 5 people, so eventually we were sleeping like 4 people in the same bed, but we didn't go there to sleep! hehe :D

In front of our hotel

Soon entering the Hoover dam

From the Hoover dam

View from the way back

Stardate 020070918: Sport maniacs

2007-09-18T19:59:00.000-06:00

Me and Saara are already known as the crazy people who walk everywhere.. Now we have made an advanced step and bought bikes. That would of course mean that we go everywhere by bike now :D One of these days we decided to go biking "a bit". We took a look at the map and eventually ended up making 30 kms or more..and during the worst time of the day! I don't think that I ever drunk so much water..

We crossed the Rio Grande river and were taking some small roads with very nice view of the mountains.

Me and Saara

Jaime and Saara

Rio Grande

No trespassing...this time we followed the rules :D

My bike

Like I told already earlier, people here are quite sport maniacs and the university has several teams of all kinds of sports that compete. Last Sunday we went to a football game...and it was really a huge thing! Loots of people everywhere and everybody wearing their own team's colors and shirts. Before the game people gather to parking lots and drink and eat. I was told that the idea is to get drunk before the game starts. People call this gathering tailgating. It has something to do with the trucks that almost all Americans have. Well, we were making some barbeque, having lots of meat and drinking beer before the game and it was really fun :D

Even the game was quite nice and interesting. I was told that it's very boring to watch but I kind of liked it for some reason :) First I didn't understand anything what was going on, but eventually learned some rules of the game.

Tailgating :P

I was told that the NMSU Aggies suck... But this time they won! People went crazy as you can see from the picture :D The game was against the team from El Paso, the UTEP team. I guess it was an important victory since the other team was from a neighbour city :P

Anyway, lots of fun, lots of people and lots of new stuff!! :D

Stardate 020070912: Getting settled

2007-09-12T21:59:00.000-06:00

After being in Las Cruces about one and a half weeks it starts to feel more home :) I know how to lock my room door, use the tap in the sink and drink enough water during the day not to dehydrate :P Me and Saara (the other Finnish girl here) have been making more of our insane walk trips and I guess people really think that we are grazy! Today we walked again to Wal-Mart and bought bikes! We went quite long trip biking after that and it was really great to be able to get from one place to another in relatively short amount of time.

This weekend there will be a football match where everybody should go :P The idea is to get as drunk as possible and then see the actual match later... Let's see, I should also buy a t-shirt to support the Aggies (which is the NMSU team). heheh

Next week we'll be going to Las Vegas with few people! Wow, it's going to be great :D We don't even have to pay much anything for the hotel and the car rental was also quite cheap.

Other things: everything is going really well. The weather is still great, not sooo hot anymore and we even had some rain for couple of days. My roommate Julia (from Spain) is really nice and I also met many other people here. "School" is really school here though.. It reminds me of high school or something like that... with all the homework and compulsary classes and so on. Everybody even calls the university school instead of university :P

Well, here are some more pictures from here!

Americans need clear instructions...

Good to know I guess...

From Mesilla.. notice the rainbow!

Chili is a really local thing, they have huge fields full of chili growing!

Chili fields everywhere!

Visiting the Space Mural Museum

An evening view

Stardate 020070907: Las Cruces, NM

2007-09-07T12:02:00.000-06:00

Las Cruces, New Mexico, 32,3 degrees North. Let's say, a bit different place than Oulu in Finland :D First of all: the weather.. Wow! It's basically sun sun sun every single day and also hot hot hot every day :) I already discovered that I don't have enough shorts. Like today, sun shine with almost no clouds, some plus 32. What more can you ask :D

Me in the campus

Still from campus

Second: the university.. The whole idea how to arrange the buildings.. I think it's really "cute". For me a univeristy building is some massive and huge looking like some insitution or something :P But here the university is scattered to a wide area and each department has it's own tiny biulding with no more than two floors. In fact I don't think that any building in this city has more than 3 or 4 floors! Well, of course the city of Las Cruces is quite small, with only some 80 000 people living here.

More campus area with some observation towers
and the "Aggie hill" behind where we climbed

Third: sports.. Everybody does some sort of sport, football, vollyball, swimming etc etc. And there's this whole huge fuss around sports everywhere. It's called the Aggies. Yes, all the teams of New Mexico State Unversity are Aggies. Go Aggies, Aggies this and Aggies that all over the place. And I'm not kidding or exaggerating..*everywhere*. Well, for me it's something quite different.. and kind of funny too :) Plus I heard that the team itself is not so good anyway :P

Go Aggies :P

Outdoor swimming pool just next to my home :P

So, there are some things that I have noticed so far. Of course there are many others but here's something for starters. Then, what did I manage to do within these few days here.. Well, I went to all of my classes some 2 weeks late so I guess I have to catch up quite a bit on those. Also I have been a "Japanese tourist" taking pictures of everything :P I managed to go to the Wal Mart and a mall already too. Plus did some crazy walking with another Finnish girl here called Saara. We climbed up a small hill above the city one night and did some 20 kms in total. Plus we walked to the mall, which was also some 10 kms... Some more walking on the way I think! Until I get a bike or car at least :P

Next to the desert...

View of the city

A party. Yes, there are some parties going on all the time. I managed to go to one of those so far, which was a birthday party of one exchange student from Austria. Well, it's not so good idea to throw a party in this place because the police might interrupt you and take you to jail if there are some underaged people involved. So it happened that suddenly a policeman came and pointed a flash light to everybody's face and told no one to move. Then he went around and checked everybody's ids. Quite funny :P Nothing else happened in the end except that we had to finish the party.

On our walk to the Aggie Hill

There would be many other things to describe but I'll leave to another time then!

My home

A panoramic view of the surroundings in Las Cruces