Finally all of our things arrived and we moved into our apartment. Between all the unpacking, trips to IKEA and exploring the surroundings there was – despite other plans – no time to continue writing on this blog (sorry for that).
Seraina: Exactly a week ago, the truck with our boxes arrived. The three guys from the moving company quickly filled the apartment with our many boxes. The boxes were numbered and labelled… but we could often not decipher it. With the simultaneous unpacking, the apartment turned into a huge mess and in the middle of it, Jerôme had to leave for a work trip. I ended up tired and alone in an apartment full of boxes, and, thanks to a misunderstanding, without the bed assembled. Good that we bought a couch that unfolds into guest bed a few days earlier (yes, we are counting on your visit!). The bed got set up eventually and during the week I spent a lot of time with real-life tetris to put things away. The apartment is big, but the old one in Switzerland was bigger… We needed another trip to IKEA to get a wardrobe, plenty of plastic boxes and office furniture to get things stored neatly. Now we have settled down and with the exception of some of the decoration everything has its place. We even got a nice selection of plants from a couple moving back to Europe – they also left with us lamps and appliances, things we actually needed and that give the apartment a nice touch.
The week before moving into our apartment, we by the way also had a nice weekend! Saturday, we attended Doors Open Minneapolis and were able to tour the FED (Federal administration, where they store aaaall the money), the post office, as well as one of the oldest dwellings still standing in the city (Ard Godfrey House). On Sunday, we hiked to a park in southern Minneapolis (Thomas Sadler Roberts Bird Sanctuary) and saw many birds!, but also a deer and chipmunks.
Thomas Sadler Roberts Bird Sanctuary 
Ard Godfrey House 
Postal office 
FED
The weekend after, while Jerôme was still away, I went for a hike in the split rock lighthouse state park with my friend Simon from University of Zürich. Simon happened to visit the University of Minnesota for a few weeks exactly at the same time than me (we did not plan that!). The trail was going through a nice forest, across a river (with the bridge removed) and even up a hill (rare thing in this area of the US) where we had a beautiful view over lake superior.
Jerome: I don’t really understand what the fuss is about me leaving for this trip in the midst of unpacking – I would even say that Seraina having the upper hand in furnishing the apartment has had its advantages, for example, that there were no discussions (until I returned from the trip).
Of course, I am also super happy with the new apartment and have used the current weekend to also move in. In total, we now made two trips to IKEA and we bought the already mentioned sofa (which I heard is super comfy!), three stools (high chairs), a standing desk for me including a desk side drawer unit, and a lot of containers and boxes.
During the time Seraina did that great job of setting up the apartment, I had to go to Raleigh (NC) to participate in a course about our dryers. The course was from Tuesday to Thursday, and I definitely was able to learn a lot and met many new people (most importantly more of our Buhler team members in Raleigh). Friday and Saturday I was able to take two days of. Friday, I went to Carowinds, Saturday, I stayed in Raleigh and due to the bad weather had only few minutes of time checking out the city itself. Instead, I visited the Natural Sciences Museum as well as the North Carolina Museum of History.
Carowinds (located in Charlotte, NC) was a nicely themed park. It contains 14 coasters, of which 12 were ridable on Friday. Attendance was mediocre. Highlights must have been Fury 325 (B&M), one of the highest and steepest chain lift driven roller coasters of date, Nighthawk (Vekoma), a lie down coaster, and Afterburn (B&M), an inverted steel coaster. The newest addition of Mack Rides called Copperhead Strike was not as great as I imagined to be honest. Finally, I had a great day, food was ok but nothing special, and the park was clean and tidy. Fun fact: Carowinds catch phrase is: “Where the two Carolinas meet.” This, as actually the border of North and South Carolina go through the park, the entrance building is built directly on top of it.
Drive Shack 
Raleigh downtown 
Raleigh downtown 
Carowinds entrance area 
Nighthawk 
Fury 325
Finally, on Saturday, I visited both Muesums in Raleigh and also had time for a small stroll before heading back to the airport. Both museums were actually amazing and to my surprise, completely free! Yes, you could pay extra to watch a 3D movie, but other than that, completely free. The displays were very nice, attendance was very high. The Natural Sciences Museum had displays on basically all relevant botanical zones of NC, be it the ocean as well as the pine forests. Displays showed many animals of these zones in their habitat and were accordingly very big.
After having taken a small break I also visited the History Museum. Detail on a very similar level. Worth a visit 100%. Perfect for a rainy day. The museum told the complete story of NC from the Indians up until the situation in the second world war.
Both: Finally: Sorry for not writing for some time, but we had a lot to do 🙂 And thank you very much for all nice words – we understood that we should write more and will try to do so!