#4thOfJuly Weekend Festivities

After an insane winter, the warmth of summer feels so incredibly nice. I'll even take the humidity! There is nothing like falling asleep to the hum of the air conditioner, having sunnies permanently affixed to my head or long naps in the sun. Better yet, was having all this glorious weather present for the long holiday weekend! 

Friday started with a Starbucks fueled ride up to Door County with my sister and her family, keeping north until we hit the top of the peninsula. The most I've ever seen of  the islands off the tip of Door County was in the distance, but on the fourth a 45-minute ferry ride fixed that. And let me tell ya, it's not easy keeping a gaggle of 5-7 year olds entertained in all that time either... which is why I left that up to the captains. On both trips. Yes, those kids weaseled their way next to the crew twice!

On the island, the first stop was to get some food and join the infamous Bitter Club. After much debate with my sister on what bitters actually is, we took the challenge of taking a shot! The second it went down I wiped my mouth and it looked like I was bleeding from the mouth. It was disgusting. That little business-card sized piece of paper was totally worth it.

After our induction the club of all clubs on the island, we went to the beach of all beaches. Schoolhouse beach is known for it's rounded, white-pebbled beach, which is a dream if you're the type of person who never seems to be able to get rid of sand even weeks after last visiting a beach! 

As I mentioned, the winter was loooong and cold, leaving Lake Michigan in a chilly state, still. That didn't hold me back from at least a few solid minutes of snorkeling around the rocky beach. I can confirm there is not much to see except for large, white rocks of varying size. 

 

The trip wasn't without some thrill, for the kiddos at least! One stop had them strapping up and zipping down a 30ft tower. While I've never been zip lining, I had jumped off cliffs higher than this tower. I figured I'd save my first time for something special and exotic. Recommendations are always welcome!

Of course the 4th isn't complete without ending the night with a series of incredibly bright and loud bangs! Our chauffeur drove us back down to Kewaunee where we hung out in one of the old, industrial buildings near the lakeshore until dusk, mostly to avoid the chill of the lake breeze (anyone who's been around the Great Lakes knows what I'm talking about).

When dusk approached, we headed towards the beach, arguing along the way on where the fireworks were going to be shot off. Turns out, they weren't launched from the usual location and our view was initially obscured by trees. They were not distracting us enough from the bumps arising on our skin from the cool night air and accompanying mosquitoes. We started heading back to the car when we thought they were finished and ended up watching the rest in the comfort of the car. 

Saturday made up for the lackluster display in Kewaunee as my very large, extended family gathered at my aunt's annual 4th of July party. As always, there was plenty of food, fireworks and drunk relatives. I self-proclaimed myself the event photographer for the night and literally took hundreds of photos of fireworks. Without fail, if there are fireworks, I cannot stop taking photos. I have a problem. 

They're just so pretty though! Aren't they!?

Hope you had a great holiday weekend!

 Here's the the 2nd half of summer,

Cheers!

#Travel // Introducing Europe, Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord

I know, I'm still in the never-ending process of posting about my other two road trips taken in 2013 (Tasmania and around the Great Lakes), but I just had to start posting about the trip I took this time last year! It was the first time Torsten and I had been reunited after he left Sydney 8 months earlier. 

After seeing flight deal I couldn't resist, I decided to book a two-and-a-half week trip to be with my favorite German. I arrived in Dusseldorf on March 1st, and from there Torsten chauffeured me around Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. In all honesty, I always mention how I went to Germany last year, but I really saw much more of the other two countries than Deutschland!

I'm still searching for any photos I have of Dusseldorf, which is how we spent the day, but towards the evening we headed to Duisburg, where a true hidden gem of Germany is located! 

Landschaftspark in Duisburg is an old, abandoned steel and coal production plant that has since become a public park in efforts to understand it's industrial past rather than rejecting it. At least that's what Wikipedia told me. When I went there I just knew it was a giant industrial ground that is know for being lit up at night. Sounded cool enough and I was totally in!

The rusted steel and old brick alone was pretty cool, but being a legit attraction is has it's own gift shop, information center and restaurant. We didn't really bother with any of those, especially since we arrived

My absolute favorite part was climbing the old structures and admiring the view from above! It was sooo freakin' cool I really don't have words to express how amazing it was climbing up the old, rusty staircases and weaving through old structures to view the park and the neighboring villages. You'll have to do with these photos! 

Being the beginning of March, it was cooold. As cool as climbing all of this was, I shiver whenever i see these photos as I remember how my hand was going numb on the rails and how insufficiently I had packed. Aside from being home for a week, this was the first bite of cold weather I was experiencing in years. I had just left summer in Australia where I also ventured around New Zeland and Hawaii before taking this trip. I really wasn't prepared in many ways for hours of wandering outside in late, European winter. Fortunately there was enough to distract me! 

Again, these views! I'm getting to the night scenes that the park is known best for, but I really can't stop starring at the image directly above this text. I just find it fascinating in so many ways. Fortunately I'm with an engineer who wouldn't object to having a giant print of this hanging in our apartment one day!

This post wouldn't be complete without these photos. We held out until was saw the park lit up, even with chilly winds! Being the off-season, the park was only partially lit, but it was still gorgeous! The anticipation of darkness spreading over the park and waiting for the first light was excruciating! There was probably a solid ten minutes I thought nothing was going to happen. Eventually they started to flicker on!

The park is still pretty dark with only some of the structures getting lit up, we stumbled around, covering some ground we hadn't seen before heading back to a warm car. The park is pretty large, becoming a maze at times. At one point we found a playground with a slide, this was when it was nearly pitch black, and went down a slide that ended up being way faster and more thrilling that either of us were anticipating!

Both Torsten and I loved this park and would definitely take any opportunity to see it again, especially in warmer weather! While I don't want to give away too much, with nothing be definite, there is a good chance we'll both be brought back to this park at the end of summer! *Fingers Tightly Crossed*

#Travel // Buildings, Boats & Beer in Toronto

After many glorious days exploring the countryside along the Great Lakes, our road trip led us back into civilization, starting with Toronto.  The highway bringing us into the city became busier and the stations started playing copious amounts of Metric's new song, much to my delight. We arrived late, with just enough time to watch the sunset over the skyline and to grab some ethnic food at a fancy mall's food court. The perks of being back in a city!

Like with the majority of this trip, we had no idea what we were going to do the morning we woke up in Toronto. This was a city I was actually really excited to see, but no idea why. I've met cool people from here and I love the band Metric, so that alone should make it a city to see right? Well, we started walking around, looking at buildings and asking "what are we doing" about every ten minutes. 

Along with Torsten's admiration with all things transportation, he loves his harbors. Naturally, we found ourselves in front of the ferry gates, debating if we should hop on the next boat over to Toronto Island. It was already getting close to noon, but being early autumn, we still had plenty of day light to work with, meaning a few hours running around the island couldn't hurt!

So there we were, barely a few hours back into a city and already leaving it to explore somewhere less inhabited. Majority of the attractions on the island were closed, even with a fairly large crowd joining us on the ferry. It was easy to see we arrived too late in the year to really experience the full vibe of the island, but getting to see some cute animals at the small petting zoo and amazing views of the city skyline was enough to please us. 

Back in the city, we walked along the wacky walkways that lined the waterfront, checking out the fun looking buildings and attractions we wouldn't be able to afford on this trip. Though the sun was bright, there was a chilling wind that put us in the hunt for a local watering hole with Canadian beer on tap.

Our hunt led us to a local joint that was better than what we were expecting, Amsterdam Brewhouse. We were planning on just finding a small pub for a Canadian beer we never heard us, but a brew house was even better, more expensive, but better. Being right on the water, it had a gorgeous view, but also the prices that go along with harbor views.

We settled with a beer each, planning on getting more fancy food-court ethnic food later in the evening. The hour we lazied away here (service was a little slow, trust me, it doesn't take us a hour to drink a glass) was nice break from our "roughing it" days in the van. It felt good to be back among the chatter of other human beings with a nice, cold beer in hand! 

After our beer tasting, we went more into the touristy part of the city where all the major attractions that are typical of most cities are located. The only ones we really considered was this rail museum and the sky tower. Unfortunately we arrived too late for the museum, and the tower was more than we were wanting to spend to see a city we barely knew. When we lived in Sydney, we went up the sky tower there, loving to see all our favorite parts of the city from above. But when it's somewhere we barely know, it just wouldn't live up to our previous experience.

We happened to walk past the stadium as a Toronto Maple Leafs' game was about to start, making a slight detour through part of the stadium mandatory. As much as we wanted to join the crowds, we weren't nearly enough ice hockey fans to dish-out the couple hundred dollars to see a game. We debated going to see the game at a local bar, but there was some driving I had to do that night. We were also pretty excited for getting more our our fancy mall food court meal, can you tell we were happy to eat something other than sandwiches?

Around dusk we approached the Nathan Phillips Square , with all the most stunning buildings surrounding. We were bummed we were missing out on the ice rink that pops up in winter. There were a few art installations there were interesting and fun to play around with, including this large-scale bicycle frame piece. Never thought spinning wheels of a hundred bikes would be that much fun! 

They next day, as we were leaving the city and en route to Niagara Falls, we came across this old, large engine room that is now a museum. Somehow we accidentally found ourselves with the paid tour group (that we didn't pay for) and were lucky enough to see this huge engine in motion. We left as soon as we realized we were crashing and continued to play with a few industrial art pieces in the lobby. 

Considering our minimal time and money for the day spent in Toronto, I'd say our trip to the city was pretty good. I'd still like to go back one day for a weekend and see some of the other attractions, but we still had a lot to look forward to and were coming close to our most anticipated destination, Niagara Falls!