Back to Champaign-Urbana

We spent the weekend at the University of Illinois with our good friends, John and Linda.  It was homecoming weekend and the Fighting Illini played our other Alma Mater, Wisconsin.  Fortunately for us, one of the schools we attended one and unfortunately, one lost.  In case you don't rabidly follow college football, the Badgers were the winning team.  On the fun side, we both made the Jumbotron during the third quarter Shout (the Illini's equivalent to the Badger's Jump around), we figured the camera person was amazed to old people like us to actually jump up and down, either that or they liked our matching sweatshirts.

We arrived in town Friday night just in time to enjoy some Papa Del's pizza - which we both realize we are little fanatical about.  But since we don't get that nuts about too many other things, might as well be pizza.  On Saturday, we had a great time walking around campus before the game; enjoying the views on the Quad, walking through the Union (where we first met each other), and reliving old memories (which are much better now since we have colored them with lots and lots of time).  We purchased a few Illini themed clothing items since we are working at having every piece of casual wear we own to have a college logo on it somewhere.  We also toured the Noyes Chemistry building (for those who aren't chemists in the know, we always pronounced it No-Yes Labs) and found the laboratory where I took introductory organic lab - the summary, it needs some serious renovations (it probably needed the same renovations when we were there because I don't remember it as being a cutting edge facility).  We also took the obligatory picture with Alma Mater which is still one of the coolest college statues around.

After the game we followed the Marching Illini (John and Linda's daughter is a proud member of the band's saxophone section) to the Education building for a post-game concert.  Just a side note for all those Illini graduates reading this, the Marching Illini are going to be in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade this year and have managed to get the coveted spot right in front of Santa - don't forget to set up your DVR's.  After the concert we headed out for a nice dinner and a little warmth since while the start of the game was comfortable we were all chilled by the end.

After brunch on Sunday we ordered our three party size Papa Del's pizzas to go (it is about 15-20 lbs of pizza) and headed home to stuff our freezer with a couple of months worth of pizza slices - yeah, we know it's nuts but we have fun doing it and we have great pizza until sometime around February.

Birthday Girl

We celebrated another birthday last week.  I decided to go a different way for Jo's cake this year and baked baklava to help remember our recent trip - although it is a lot harder to stick candles into baklava than icing.  In addition to the usual mix of presents, we also enjoyed a wonderful dinner downtown at Bacchus for which I even donned a a suit and tie.

I promise, this is the last posting for today.

Trips to Madison

Since we returned from our trip, we have made to visits to Madison and our home away from home.  First up was a short trip so Jo could participate in her chemistry department advisory board.  It was nice for me since I had an entire day to hang around the condo and do some future renovation planning as well as catch up on some sleep after our trip.  No trip to Madison is complete without Bucky Badger somewhere.  Saturday morning we were up early to get some breakfast at the Farmer's Market along with fresh apple cider for the week at home - before heading back to Milwaukee to continue to resettle from our vacation.

This last weekend we headed over to Madison to take in a Badger football game.  Friday we were able to attend the Badger basketball teams practice (one of Jo's colleagues at work is a former player and nicely offered to get us in).  We met the coach, Bo Ryan, as well as toured the facilities and coach Ryan's office.  It was very interesting listening to the challenges of coaching a bunch of young players to get them to play basketball your way.  It will be fun to watch some of these players in the upcoming season.

Saturday morning it was time for another stroll around the Farmer's market for breakfast and more apple cider before bundling up for the game.  The weather cooperated nicely by dropping the morning temperatures into the high 30's to really provide the full fall football experience.  Fortunately, the sun was out for the entire game so we didn't freeze.  The Badgers held up their end of the experience by winning over Purdue - although it was a bit close at times.  After the game, we headed over to Kathy's to celebrate John's 50th birthday with some of their friends.  Sunday it was time to get home and catch up on some chores around the house before the work week starts up.

Fun Signs

We just wanted to post a few of the funny signs we saw during our recent trip.  These just made us laugh.

At least they're honest about it

When you really have to go

We never figured this one out

Istanbul to Athens

Suleyman the Great Mosque

We recently enjoyed a vacation and cruise in Turkey and Greece.  We flew into to Istanbul, after a long overnight flight from Chicago, to spend several days touring the town.  Jo had previously been in Istanbul for work back in May 2009 (you can check out the blog post from that time here) but it was my first visit.  I hadn't appreciated how large Istanbul was - over 16 million people call it home - and it was fascinating to hear about its diverse history from ancient times, through the Roman empire, Byzantines, Ottomans, and finally the independent nation it is today.  Some of the highlights of our visit was touring the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque, the Topkapi palace, seeing the whirling dervish's, and snacking on baklava - which our guide insisted was invented in Turkey - not Greece.

Whirling Dervishs

Roman Cistern

Next up was boarding our cruise to several of the Greek islands.  We had stops at Kavala (to see the ruins of Phillipi - which was the site of one of the pivotal battles in the Roman civil war, but got very little discussion from the guide), Rhodes, Santorini, Crete, and Mykonos.  We also stopped in Turkey to see Ephesus.  Along the way we saw a lot of ruins which always leave me overwhelmed by the ability of people 3,000-6,000 years ago to construct massive buildings without the use of motors or hydraulics as well as the exquisite sculpting that was done on columns and statues.  Also, left us both with a feeling about how often wars result in the destruction of cities, homes, and people since many of these cities were abandoned as a result of a battle.  We also enjoyed seeing the beautiful white and blue cities of the Greek isles, especially Santorini where people decided to build their homes perched on the side of a cliff in an earthquake prone zone.

Santorini

We ended our cruise in Athens and spent a couple of days there touring the Parthenon and acropolis buildings along with many other of the ancient ruins scattered about town.  This was the first visit for both of us to Athens and we really enjoyed the city, sites, and food.  We came home exhausted but with lots of great memories - along with another 800 photos to sort and store.  I've included just a few photos here, if you want to see all of them you have to visit.  I also tried to talk Jo into taking a vacation without any photo capturing device just to see what it would be like - she didn't seem convinced, yet.