SCIENCE!

My friend Moxey and I decided to spend a free afternoon at the Science Museum in Central today. At first, I thought it was kind of cheesy because the ground floor was basically a giant collection of antiques and I didn't quite understand what most of it had to do with science. But then we went up through the levels and that's where things got awesome.

Firstly, they had a hands-on area where you could see how different things worked. Basically a "Hey kids! This is science! Play with it!" kind of exhibit. And I loved it. But, being a designer, I like to see how things work. The coolest part was a station where you could pour water over a cold surface and watch it freeze through these magnifying lenses with filters on them. It was b.e.a.-utiful.

They also had an exhibition just about plastic, which I found quite enjoyable and Moxey kept laughing at me as I got excited when I knew what the different types of plastics and molding processes were. Like I said earlier: design nerd.

But the coolest (and I seriously me the coolest) exhibit was a special exhibition called "Listening Post". Basically, it's an installation of a bunch of small LED screens that are hung in a grid. And it's on a constant loop of display patterns. It was also called "The Sound of the Internet" within the museum because the screens pull fragments of conversation from the internet in real time. Sometimes it was just words, other times it was phrases. But it was simply amazing.



We ended up sitting in this room for at least half an hour just watching the screens. In fact, it killed most of the time we had left to go through the museum because shortly after we exited the room, they announced that the museum was closing and we had to leave.

I think I want to go back really soon to just watch the internet exhibit again. Seriously.

Stonehenge Stomp

So this weekend I decided to go for a walk. A walk that required me to get up at 5:00am, drive two hours, and pay £3. It took me just over seven hours to complete this walk, and by the end of it, my knee was hurt so badly that I am limping and can barely walk on it*.

I walked for 30 kilometers.



I know. Crazy right? Who does that? Well apparently, a lot of people do it. It's called long-distance walking and it seems to be quite a popular sport for the people of Amesbury.

There are a group of people called the Amesbury walkers and they organize several long-distance walks throughout the year. My friend Cillian told me he was going for a walk around Stonehenge and I decided to tag along without doing some research first.

So I participated in the Stonehenge Stomp - a mapped out walk through the backyards, fields, and farmland of the area surrounding Stonehenge. It was basically organized hiking. But instead of forests, you had giant pigs and hay bales for scenery.

Oh. And Stonehenge. Yeah. That was part of the scenery too.



*It should be noted that my knee hurting is the result of an old injury. In December 2009, I managed to dislocated my kneecap. Despite having no problems with my knee and exercising it for six months, it still seems to hate me. Figures, I injured it in a stupid way originally and I re-injure it by simply walking. Stupid. I'm going to go ice my leg now.

Auld Lang Syne

Happy New Year!

I took a short road trip up to Blacksburg, Virginia, to spend the night with friends at my alma mater, Virginia Tech. We went to the Boogieburg New Year's Eve "Speakeasy" Party. Flappers, gangsters, swing music, and celebrations all night long!

Snowpacalypse

It started snowing Christmas night, so I guess you could say we got a white Christmas. Although 24 hours and 16 inches later... Yeah. We just got a bit of snow.

I'll Be Home For Christmas

My Christmas present from my mom this year was a flight home to the US to spend the holidays with my family.

If there's one thing that sums up the holidays at our house, it's eating. Between all the different family get togethers, we probably make enough food to feed a small army.

But I took advantage of my time at home by doing what I may do best - baking.

I didn't bring over all of my baking tools and supplies to the UK, so I was looking forward to having a mixer and pastry bags at my fingertips! At home, I'd usually bake cupcakes about every two weeks or so, so I had almost 3 months of not baking that I had to catch up on! And I'm pretty sure I accomplished that in spades.

The best part of being home though is spending time with my family and friends.