murtys blog

murty said on May 22nd, 2008

murty can has holiday?

well hi there (said in american accent),
ok, even that was too much american for me. i hope i find you all well and working hard (unlike me)

it is currently day 3 for me in america, i am sitting in the beautiful sun room of the swanson abode. the house is surrounded by a foresty type of environment and probably about 50 metres away is a lake, lake titloe :P. the sun is shining, the birds are singing and i am home alone listening to hamish and andy! enough of that, now i will update you on day 1 and 2.

tuesday was a pretty uneventful day, we slept in and had lunch and organised a few things. annika was very keen for us to meet her friends and people she worked from hosanna. hosanna is a lutheran church with a twist… it has over 5,000 members. so the church is huge! there are roughly 150 staff working there, 7 full time pastors and another 5 volunteer pastors. so annika showed us around the place and introduced us to a heap of very cool, loving people. apparently the church was started off by a pastor walking around the city, knocking on doors and asking them to come to the church. that was about 20 - 30 years ago. it is amazing to see how much it has grown, the facilities that are there, the services that are available, the passion people have and how modern it is, even though it is a lutheran church. i had a great chat to the worship leader there (he’s in his mid 20’s i would say) and am going to keep in contact with him in the future.
we then drove across to caribou coffee and had a hot chocolate and enjoyed the free wireless internet. it was great! if i could i would work there! this is something i really think is a great idea and cafes and coffee shops in australia (or particularly barossa valley) really should take hold. i know it is a very american thing to do, but sometimes we should learn from our allies rather than avoid them.

we then headed off to the grocery store to do a spot of shopping. american shopping centre’s are similar to australian ones, except they have so much more variety, prices are significantly cheaper and the whole store is laid out in an easier format. we checked out the meat section, oh my gosh, the meat is huge and cheap! (adam please don’t pull anything out of that.)
so we went home and had some tea (not dinner). then off to a friends place to watch ‘kenny‘. only the aussies (and annika) got the humor that this movie produces. oh well, i think its hilarious and would recommend it (if you don’t mind a bit of crudeness).
so after tuesday, i felt like i now knew some more people and already started some relationship building.

annika and i stayed up until a ridiculous hour chatting back home to some of our friends online, and got very little sleep that night. tuesday morning hayley was picked up around 10am by a lady who was heading down to okoboji. we then spruced ourselves up and headed off to teresa’s. it is a mexican restaurant, and it was so cheap and tasted amazing! this was also my first opportunity to tip… i was kind of freaking out, but all you have to do is leave like 10 - 20% on the table as you head off.
speaking of heading off, we headed off to the mall of america… good segway murty, good segway.

for those of you who don’t know, which is probably most people, apparently the mall of america (situated in minneapolis) is the third largest mall in the world. so it is big! i was interested in this mainly because it has a theme park inside the mall. so basically its like elizabeth shopping centre (a big square) but it has 4 stories and is a lot bigger, and in the middle, there is a huge theme park! the theme park (nickelodeon universe) has roller coasters, log water rides, mini golf, small kiddy rides, the place is amazing! of course i’m all mature and stuff now, so i don’t do “rides”. but i was just awestruck with all the shops that are there, they really go out of their way to make it “themed”.
also, i went to my first ever apple store! it was pretty cool, like 10 people standing around just waiting to help you out with anything. i really like apple and what they do and the way they do things. so i got to play around with the iphone, which is very similar to my ipod touch, but non the less, it was fun.
i also bought a new pair of asics sneakers, for $65! normally i would pay about $100 - $120 for the same pair in australia.

we then shot home, packed up and went to an adults service at hosanna, which was really good! got to meet some new people and remeet some other people. then we headed up to gaylord, which is where i am now!

well there is so much more i want to talk about, but we are just about to sit down and eat “dinner” (tea for us aussies), so i will leave it there. make sure you check out my pictures on flickr from day 1 and mall of america

blessings to you all!

love murty!