One word at a time.

Been reading lots of good books lately... Night (by Ellie Wiesel), The Kite Runner, Ireland, Memoirs of Geisha, Intrepeter of Maladies (won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize). Among those titles, my personal favorites are The Kite Runner *grin* and Interpreter of Maladies. The first one has unbelievably great storyline, plus its protagonist is a writer... and I’ve always wanted to be one so I can easily dive in to his way of thinking and perspective.
Night, a Noble Prize winner, carries a powerful record of the Holocaust by the Nazis in Auschwitz. It is a true personal account of the writer’s experience himself so every single details of the book gave me a strong chill down the bone. Knowing that all those cruelties beyond words did happen, and knowing that this kind of genocide still happens today, even as I write this blog.

Coming my way in the next few days: The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger),The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)and To Kill a Mockingbird, a classic by Harper Lee. I've never watched the movie, but I heard raving reviews on its controversial subject (at least when it was first published)...so that should be an interesting read.

And next on my list:
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Everyman by Philip Roth
Waiting by Ha Jin

I know! You can officially call me a voracious reader now! But reading is truly a great way to spend your time. You can learn boundless of knowledge, meet different people (or characters!) or fly around the globe! Spend an hour in Africa, France or New York... anywhere you want to go. One word at a time.

The state of 10,000 Lakes

I’m in Minneapolis – St. Paul, the amazing twin cities. One thing that captured my attention, and a bit of my heart when I first landed was how lively its airport is. You can see a lot of people from France, Russia and other countries swirling here and there with their luggage, something that I don’t see very often in DC or O’Hare. And surprisingly, the signs in the airport are written in two languages, English and No, not Spanish or German, but Chinese. Probably that is exactly why I like this city, or at least its airport to begin with, it has a huge international ambience.

I flew in by Northwest Airlines, which has its hub right here in Minneapolis. Apparently there are a bunch of big companies that planted their headquarters here in the 10,000 lakes-state. Best Buy and Target are one of them.

So far I’m loving the place. Haven’t got a chance to see the downtown, but I did go to Mall of America, the biggest shopping mall in USA. It is HUGE. I went there twice and can only cover half of its ground. You can find almost any major brands/store there, that plus AMC theaters, a fun park, Dinosaurs museum and an aquarium. My legs are pretty sore right now from walking from the East side to the West side, so here I am at Gate 13, recovering myself. The first day I went there, the Minnesota Vikings (football team) was there and that drew a pretty big crowd. It turned out that they were introducing their new uniform, which I don’t really like. Purple is just not my color, y’know.

And in case you're wondering, that title is correct. Minnesota has approximately 10,000 lakes, spreaded all over the place. I've been to only one so far ^_^*, but when I took off last night, I did spot at least 8 small-medium lakes from the air. From above, they almost seem like tear drops that have fallen to the ground.