My vacation in the US Part I: Iowa

I just got back from my 2 week vacation in the US, which was a lot of fun. Seeing HeeRa, Seve and HyeWon again was great, and I hope it won't be three years again before I see them again.

My first stop in the US was in Chicago, where I had to transfer at O’Hare International Airport to Des Moines. Before I went through Customs, I had to fill out an immigration form. One of the questions was whether I was a terrorist. They must have caught hundreds of terrorists already. That form has definitely made this world a safer place.

I wouldn’t recommend O’Hare Airport to anybody. It took me about 1h 40min just to get to gate where my next flight is. Part of this however, is due to Chicago being my point of entry in the US, so I had to pick up my luggage, have security check all my bags, and I had to check in my luggage again. And the train connecting the different terminals was pretty bad. You only have a couple of seconds to get in before the doors close again, and they are usually fully packed. They actually have employees there shouting behind us when the doors open. *You only have a couple of seconds before the doors close!!* *You have to hurry up!!* God! I’m already fucking irritated as it is. I don’t need those people shouting at me while I'm fighting through the throngs of people in front of me. Fortunately, I always pick a connecting flight which gives me a couple of hours to check out the airport. If I have picked an earlier connecting flight, I would’ve been totally stressed out. Which brings me to the terminals. They have the worst terminals of any airport I’ve ever been to, in terms of eating and chilling out when you have time till your next flight.

But anyway, HeeRa and Curtis picked me up at the airport in Des Moines, and I stayed at their house for a couple of days. They made me some typical Midwestern food, and some of those dishes were good (I liked the green bean casserole for example), though I didn’t care much for the Rice Krispies Bars.

HeeRa and I went to Minneapolis the next day, where we went to the Sculpture Garden and met up with Ryan, a friend of HeeRa’s. Afterwards, we went to the world famous Mall of America, which is in fact the largest mall in the US. After that, we had dinner at Hooters. After all, what is a trip to America without going to Hooters, which is a shrine of American culture. Seriously though, the whole concept is as brilliant as it is ridiculous. And you’d have to admit, anything that manages to pull that off should be admired. As for the food, it was way too greasy for me (welcome to America!). I just felt unhealthy after a while, and I wasn’t able to finish my order.

We went to the Iowa State Fair the following day, which was pretty cool. Agriculture plays an important role in Iowa, which is reflected in the fair. We saw plenty of livestock, including the world’s biggest bull, pig and sheep. They were enormous, though all they did was lie around all day, which I suspect is about the only thing they are capable of due to their size and weight. Other attractions included the butter cow and the butter Harry Potter. If you ever need to come up with Iowan stereotypes, the state fair is the place to be.

We went to a Barnes & Nobles afterward, which had been a lifelong dream of mine, and it was everything I expected it would be. They actually let you take books from the shelves and just read them in one of their comfy chairs, while enjoying a nice cup of coffee from Starbucks. People actually stay there for hours reading without buying anything, and the staff don’t even get mad! This is truly a bookreader’s heaven.

On a sidenote, even though HeeRa already mentioned it in her blog, I want to express my outrage that the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die does not include anything from Korea. Surely the DMZ cannot be excluded from a Top 100 list, much less from a Top 1000. It does include the hawker centers in Singapore though, so I can’t stay too mad about it, even though I’m way too biased about this. And it has a couple of entries from the Netherlands, i.e. the TEFAF (in Maastricht!!) and the Red Light District.

The day after, we met up with another of HeeRa’s friends. We walked around the Iowa State University campus (where she attends college), which was huge. After that we had lunch at a place whose name I can’t remember (Update Aug 29: it's called Hickory Park, a tradition in Ames -- thanks to HeeRa!) . But I just wanted to say that I had a huuuge lunch. I was already full before I was even halfway through my order, but then the waitress called me out by bringing us take away boxes *before* we asked for them!! And 2 minutes later, she brought another one, and again, *without* us asking for it!! I guess I just had to prove myself. It was one of the toughest challenges I’ve ever taken on, but I finally managed to eat it all! After lunch, we looked around Drake University, where HeeRa works. We also visited Curtis at his office, which is in the only tall building in the whole of Des Moines.

Which concludes my stay in Iowa, since we would head out to Denver the next morning…


High Point: The State Fair
Low Point: The humidity

P.S. I watched 2 movies during my stay at Iowa, Hot Fuzz and Napoleon Dynamite. If you haven’t watched them, go rent (or download) them. They are absolutely hilarious.