Kvinglish Literature

Biking in Minneapolis

kvinge — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:57:32 +0000

I went on a ride around a 20 mile loop of paths in Minneapolis today. It was amazing weather, and the trails were full (but not crowded) with plenty of other Minnesotans out for Sunday ride. It was great exercise, and beautiful scenery. I’ve moved down to my new apartment near Uptown, and I love the location. Easy access to entertainment, groceries, bus stops, and a really active community that was absent from the suburbs of St. Paul and suprisingly Ames, IA as well.

Right now I’m using an old mountain bike that I bought off of Craigslist for $100. It works pretty well as a short commuter, but for longer rides it gets heavy and is not that comfortable. I’d really like to buy a serviceable road bike, and join in some of the packs of spandex clad riders that I see zooming around the Grand Rounds every weekend. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have $750 lying around, which looks to be the cheapest used road bikes of good quality sell for. Things to wish for I guess.

Tornado wedding

kvinge — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 01:20:26 +0000

A week ago I went to Lake Mills, IA to see my good friend and fraternity brother Josh get married to his awesome wife Rachel. It was a great service and I had a great time. The weather was equally spectacular. Right after the service there was a tornado touchdown about three miles west of the church, and some heavy winds that forced us to take shelter in the basement of the Sion Lutheran for about an hour. No damage was done, other than some ruined photo opportunities. However, about four hours later, after dinner at the reception, the rain cleared and we were left with a spectacular sunset that rivaled anything I’ve seen in the last 22 years.

What’s Next

kvinge — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:47:16 +0000

While there haven’t been many updates to this during this semester, I’ve still been plugging away at my last semester at Iowa State. It’s been a great home for me, and I think I’ve had a great education in Ames over the past four years. I’m going to miss all of the friends that I’ve made here, and I’m looking forward to keeping in touch with them and seeing what great things they all accomplish.

As for next year, after a lot of thought, I’ve decided to attend the University of Minnesota Law School. There were lots of attractive options, but after I visited all the schools, it seemed clear that the U of M was the best fit for me. I’m looking forward to moving back to Minnesota, where I have lots of friends and family, and all the comforts of a metropolitan area. If you want to learn more about my new school, you can visit www.law.umn.edu.

Wines of the World

kvinge — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:13:07 +0000

One of my favorite classes this year is HRI 383: Introduction to Beverages. The class covers all sorts of beverages and is aimed at those who will be managing or owning restaurants, but I’m finding it really enjoyable as well. Learning just a little bit about the history and techniques of the wine industry has made me appreciate a glass with dinner so much more. So far we’ve covered white wines, but the next unit is reds, which I have always liked more. The biggest benefit I’ve seen so far has been my increased ability to pick out good wines at the liquor store. Most of the labels tell you a lot about the quality and taste of the wine, but it’s kind of an esoteric art. Getting a book or taking a class about wine will solve a lot of the mystery and make picking out a bottle for a dinner party a lot more fun.

Robocalls

kvinge — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:01:08 +0000

After losing my phone twice in Ghana, I’ve been left trying to recreate my phonebook through a backup I made a year ago, and filling in missing numbers as people call me. Unfortunately, since the Iowa Caucus is coming up in a few days, I get about six calls each day from the 515 area code that are just recordings of candidates asking for my support. Do robocalls work on anyone? Does Joe Six-pack, sitting at home enjoying a frosty Coors light interrupt watching the hunting channel to pick up his phone and think, “Ya know, this recording of John Edwards is right! I should go support him in the caucus. I know it’s been the only thing on the news for the past month, and the political adds come on every commercial break, but this call put me over the edge. I’m going to my caucus location and voting for HIM!” No, obviously not. So stop calling me and let me enjoy my break in peace.

Happy New Year!

My Daily Life in Ghana (when I went to class)

kvinge — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 22:16:16 +0000

As some of you may have noticed, while I was in Ghana on a study abroad experience, the time I spent in classes was usually overshadowed by the time I spent traveling, eating out, dancing, sleeping, etc. When I went to my classes and the professors showed up, a typical day looked something like this. I’ve created this map to help you visualize.
At 6:00 am the sun is just rising over the trees near my hostel. My roommate is waking up to start ironing his clothes, as he does most mornings. My first class is not for four hours, but the sun (and the rest of the residents of my dorm) have other ideas about letting me sleep. At this point I usually pull the covers back over my head or give up and do some reading while I blink the sleep out of my eyes. Roommate Sam is quickly ready and looks at me incredulously as I complain about it being so early.

I eventually do get out of bed and head over to the bathrooms for a cold shower to wake me up. On the days when I have cleaned (maybe 1 time each month) my room looks spacious and not all that bad.

The bus starts honking around 7am to let everyone know it’s time to go to class, and though it is supposed to have a stop every 15 minutes, it rarely is on time. The 9am stop is usually especially crowded as everyone is trying to get the the new N block which is over a mile away from my dorm. I get on the bus and pay the conductor 10 peswas (about 11 cents) for my fare. Since there aren’t any seats left I grab onto a handhold and prepare for the bumpy ride.

The worst part is just down the road from my hostel. There is a 100 meter stretch of road that was never paved, and has developed some of the biggest potholes in Ghana as a result. The area never drains, so if there is a big rain, the water pools up and cars drive through making the potholes even worse. I wouldn’t drive through here with anything less than a landrover, but tiny taxis seem to manage somehow.

When I get to the lecture hall, odds are most of the seats are full, so I’ll typically end up with a seat without a writing surface, or without a back to the chair, or if I’m especially unlucky, no seat at all. Then I’ll have to sit on the floor. About 250 students are taking my foreign policy class. The class is two hours long, and the entire time is spent listening to a professor talk and copying down their lecture word for word, dictation style. I will never again complain about professors who rely too heavily on powerpoint slides.

Since my classes only meet once per week (plus a tutorial section at another time) I’m done for the day after this class. I usually walk home, and stop for some lunch along the way at the Night Market or maybe go across the street from campus for some pizza at the gas station. I repeat the process five more times during the week, and then I’m usually off to another part of the country (preferably somewhere with a beach).

Home

kvinge — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:55:22 +0000

I finally got home last night shortly before 11pm. I was exhausted after more than 30 hours of traveling across the world, but it felt good to be home. The only small hiccup I encountered on my journal was in Chicago when I noticed that my bag had been broken into and two of my ties and my journal were stolen. Of all the things to steal, why a journal? Fortunately, I was horrible about regularly writing in the journal, so I only lost about 20 pages of my personal thoughts, many of which were either 1) whiny, or 2) reproduced on my blog already. When I went to the American Airlines counter to notify them of the loss, first they told me that it probably just fell out, and they weren’t responsible, but I had specifically checked all of the zippers and tied them shut when I put it on the conveyor belt to be checked in Accra. Then they told me that I needed to make the claim in my end destination, Minneapolis.

When I made my claim in Minneapolis, not only was the representative from AA, Melissa, incredibly understanding and patient with me, she wrote me a check for $75 to cover the loss and sent me on my merry way. All in all, a regrettable event, but a satisfying resolution.

In case you are keeping track, that makes $635 in cash that I have made on this trip, and over $150 in accommodation and meals provided free of charge. Not bad for a few days of work.

London Heathrow

kvinge — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:06:47 +0000

I’m stuck at London Heathrow Airport for a delightful seven hour layover. Because everything is priced in Pounds, I have to pay 2x as much for things. This makes me grumpy. Also, I’m a day late getting here, though I am not at all upset about that. Due to an overbooked flight, I was bumped off of my flight leaving Accra last night. The compensation was £250 and a free night in a five star hotel. Since there are people that I wanted to spend more time with still in Ghana, and £250 is about 3 gazillion dollars, I took the bump and enjoyed a really great nights sleep in the hotel M plaza, with a sixty dollar meal and drink budget. Well worth a slight inconvenience.

Now I just want to get some sleep and wait for my flight. I’m trying not to think of food right now, because I can’t afford it.

See some of you soon, others in a few months, and others… well, I’ll see you when I see you I guess. It’s been fun, and look for some good wrapup posts in the next few days with LOTS of pictures.

The Milky Way

kvinge — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 20:06:11 +0000

I woke up and it was pitch black in my hut. I was shivering slightly from the cool ocean breeze, but this was a welcome change from the sweltering heat that left me hiding in the shade of a palm tree all day. This was perfect weather for sleeping, but my bladder had a different idea about priorities.

As I stumbled around in the dark, getting caught in my mosquito net and tripping over a chair, I regretted not bringing my flashlight to a resort that has no electricity. Eventually, I found the latch to the door and walked out into the dark moonless night. My eyes were at my feet, hoping that I wouldn’t step on anything sharp or living, though the white sand beach is mercifully soft and warm. Just as I get to the pit toilet I look up for the first time and literally fall over in astonishment.

In the absence of any electricity, fire, or moonlight, the night sky spread out above me with billions of stars, brighter and more distinct than I have ever seen them in my life. The milky way looked like a strip of mosquito netting that some celestial figure had spread from one end of the globe to the other. Over two thirds of Americans today can’t see the milky way at all due to light pollution in urban areas.

As I lay face up in the sand near the toilet, the smell of human waste became a distant distraction to the shooting stars and constellations that inspired sailors, musicians, poets, and theologians for thousands of years. Tonight, after nearly 21 years of seeing the sky at night, I first understood how beautiful the universe outside of our tiny planet can be. I went back to the huts, woke up my friend, and we lost ourselves in the cold beauty of outer space with our backs against the warm sand. Sometimes, it seems, there are better things to have than electricity.

Need more internet

kvinge — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:16:26 +0000

Sorry for the lack of exciting updates, I’ve had trouble getting my internet connection to work smoothly over the past few weeks. It’s no fun writing posts when it takes 10 minutes for each page of WordPress’s editor to load.

Lately, I’ve been spending more time hanging around Accra. I love traveling, and there are still months of places to visit in Ghana, but every once in a while it’s nice to have a few weeks of just relaxing in a familiar city. I’ve taken a trip to Kokrobite, my team has placed third in Thursday night trivia twice, and I went to do some Karaoke, though I didn’t get a chance to sing. (Not due to any reservation on my own part, I just didn’t have time.)

I only have one more week of classes, and most of my professors decided to end a week early, so I really only have two classes next week. I’m not sure how some of them can justify ending early, when they started three weeks late and didn’t come to a few lectures during the semester, but I guess the privilege to quit whenever you want is part of being a university professor here. As a result, I have several multi-day blocks with nothing to do but study for finals and create adventures. My plans before heading home in a little more than a month:

-Explore more of the western region.
-Attempt another trip to Togo.
-Revisit the Aburi Botanical Gardens and pick up some souvenirs for people back home.
-Hunt down a shirt that I saw that has all of the beers of Ghana on it.
-Go to church (services are over three hours long…)
-A night of karaoke and dancing (I promise to take pictures)
-Cook a western dinner for my roommate (he’s never had steak! And it’s so cheap here, less than $4 a pound for really good looking cuts of meat.)