The Last Two Weeks
This weekend ended up being rather dull doing nothing really other than work, which is really slow since the county fair that's going on always kills our business. But as much as I'd rather not work, I need the money...especially since I spent quite a bit these last couple of weeks.
Friday morning I dropped Rune off at the airport and said good-bye. His flight was ridiculously early (6:25am), so we both only got a very brief amount of sleep. Afterwards, I went straight to bed despite that the sun was already rising. In the weeks before Rune arrived, I was a bit worried there wouldn't be enough for us to do...Boise isn't exactly a big tourist city. But in the end, we managed to keep ourselves pretty busy. Plus, now I know how to get around my city better than I ever did before...
On August 5, we didn't do a whole lot. Though Rune's plane arrived twenty minutes early, it was still quite late. I admit the moments before meeting, I was quite nervous. After all, it's not every day you pick up someone from the airport you've never met. But that did not last long once we greeted each other. His outgoingness helped relax any nerves I had and wipe away my shyness. By the time we had him checked into the hotel and went out to eat, we were getting along like old friends.
Monday: The first thing I did was take Rune out to lunch at a 50's diner....oh so American. Then we visited the old Idaho Penitentary. The place is over 100 years old and full of displays, including a side museum that housed nothing but weapons. I've never actually visited the place myself, so I found it to be rather interesting as well. The evening was spent at my house where we ate dinner with my parents. It's funny...my dogs don't always take well to male strangers....they often find them as a threat. But after fifteen minutes with Rune, they were playing with him and by the end of the evening, sitting on his lap...that was quite a sight. Oh, and my parents liked him too, which is always good.
Tuesday: Rune wanted to see what the American mall was all about, so I took him there. Our mall isn't small, but neither is it anything special. We mainly just walked around, skipping most stores, browsing through a few. We ate lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, where ironically we did not eat any cheesecake. In the evening, we went to the Idaho Shakespeare Festival (an outdoor theatre) where we took food for a picnic and watched Measure for a Measure, which was an enjoyable play set in modern times. Unfortunately, the wasps were impossible...swarming around anyone with food, and you could even swat them away (two little girls in front of us were stung). So...we weren't able to enjoy our food until after the sun had set.
Wednesday: I don't think we did very much that day. We were both tired and had a late start (like most often, probably my bad since I often don't arrive at the hotel until early afternoon), so all we really did was go out to lunch then in the evening, hang around my house. Yep, pretty much a do nothing day...which was fine by me.
Thursday: We firstly went to the Idaho Historical Museum. It's a tiny little place, but with some interesting artifacts. Rune got excited when we found an old rifle once owned by a Danish man who lived in Idaho for a time. Haha, I didn't see that coming... :P The next thing we did was visit the Discovery Center, which is basically Boise's science museum. That was a lot of fun...so many things to do, and so many little kids. I had to work that evening, so I left Rune behind. And I guess he got a good look at the Boise nightlife, which is something I couldn't entirely do anyways, since I'm still underage and can't go inside the bars.
Friday: We finally did one of the essential things to do in Boise....go on a bike ride along the greenbelt (a pathway along the river). In Idaho, bike riding is something we do for recreation and sport. While in Denmark it's something you do to get around. Admittingly, I haven't biked in years, so I was bit slow...plus having bad knees didn't help. So while Rune had to slow down to keep at my pace (I felt kinda bad about that), we still enjoyed ourselves and the nice weather. In the evening, once again I had to work, so we split up and didn't see each until the morning.
Saturday: Our trip to Idaho City, a historic mining town...once bigger than Boise. The drive there took about an hour and a half, and once we got there we spent a few hours looking at the old buildings and such and visited the old cemetary. All in all, the trip gave a small taste of what old Western life was like in Idaho. The evening was spent in downtown Boise where we saw Stardust (I liked it), then went out to eat at a nice Chinese restaurant (PF Chang).
Sunday: One of the must-do's in Idaho is go camping, and that we did. The first half of the day was spent packing, and afterwards I drove over three hours past Stanley to a campground. Now understand that right now Idaho is in a really bad situation with forest fires. We have the most acres burning in the country. From a satellite, the state is entirely covered in smoke. It's so bad that smoking and campfires have been banned in half of the state. I admit, I was pretty disppointed about not having a campfire, but I quickly could see why with my own eyes. We hadn't driven far from Boise before we saw a huge fire burning in the foothills. We drove right past it, and actually saw the flames, which were only yards from the road. Luckily, that fire had mostly already burned and was pretty much under control, which was why the highway wasn't completely closed. We didn't arrive at the campground until the evening, so we set everything up and fixed dinner. Since we couldn't have our campfire, we chose to stargaze instead. A good choice as there was a meteor shower that night. We saw some pretty impressive meteors.
Monday: The interesting thing about camping is that you tend to go to bed earlier and get up earlier. Now, we didn't have an extremely early start, but earlier than normal at least. The first thing we did was go to Custer...an old ghost town. Back in the day, Custer was another mining boom town, which only lasted thirty years. Most building today are gone, but there are a few interesting ones still standing which are always fun to look at. Later, we relaxed at the natural hot springs. It's next to the river, so a bunch of rocks are rearranged so the cold and hot water flow evenly. Of course, that doesn't mean you'll sometimes hit super cold or super hot currents...ouch.
Tuesday: In the morning, we packed our stuff and left the campground. We went over to Redfish Lake to eat lunch then drove home. The drive back was much smokier than before. Reaching the town Garden Valley, we couldn't even see the trees across the river. Yep, the fire situation was pretty bad.
Wednesday: One of my friends really wanted to meet Rune, so we met at the Olive Garden for lunch. Afterwards, we went to the Co-op and Rune bought some Danish beer which my parents tried at dinner. That night I took Rune to his first baseball game. The Boise Hawks won, and we enjoyed the game talking to people.
Thursday: Our last day was probably one of the most fun days. We headed over to Boondocks, which is an awesome place where you can do such things as miniature golf, bumper boats, laser tag, and arcade. Rune enjoyed the batting cages...I didn't so much when a ball hit my hand, which later gave me a nasty bruise. We got soaked in the bumper boats and enjoyed the go-carts. Laser tag was lots of awesomeness....we played twice. We spent hours playing arcade games...and only ended up with a few hundred tickets. :P We ate dinner at a great local restaurant...the Ram. And I finally got my swimming in for the summer after checking out the pool at Rune's hotel.
So, we kept ourselves busy and had lots of fun in the meantime. And now I'm more sick of driving than ever. Of course, I didn't let Rune go before stealing some of his music (and he stole some of mine). And now I'm totally in love with this Danish band called Alphabeat....I checked their music videos out on YouTube and they're pretty awesome. :)
And so, I'm sure you guys want to see some pictures of us, so here we go:
Rune leaning on...something invisible...
At my house.
Redfish Lake...squinty eyed.
We look ready to take over the world. :P
There's quite a few more pictures, but I think I'll just upload those on Facebook...
In other news:
I got my passport while Rune was here, so now I can finally start pursuing a Schengen visa. Also, my sister and her fiance just arrived (the wedding is on Saturday...so soon), so for the next week I'll be busy doing wedding stuff.
Friday morning I dropped Rune off at the airport and said good-bye. His flight was ridiculously early (6:25am), so we both only got a very brief amount of sleep. Afterwards, I went straight to bed despite that the sun was already rising. In the weeks before Rune arrived, I was a bit worried there wouldn't be enough for us to do...Boise isn't exactly a big tourist city. But in the end, we managed to keep ourselves pretty busy. Plus, now I know how to get around my city better than I ever did before...
On August 5, we didn't do a whole lot. Though Rune's plane arrived twenty minutes early, it was still quite late. I admit the moments before meeting, I was quite nervous. After all, it's not every day you pick up someone from the airport you've never met. But that did not last long once we greeted each other. His outgoingness helped relax any nerves I had and wipe away my shyness. By the time we had him checked into the hotel and went out to eat, we were getting along like old friends.
Monday: The first thing I did was take Rune out to lunch at a 50's diner....oh so American. Then we visited the old Idaho Penitentary. The place is over 100 years old and full of displays, including a side museum that housed nothing but weapons. I've never actually visited the place myself, so I found it to be rather interesting as well. The evening was spent at my house where we ate dinner with my parents. It's funny...my dogs don't always take well to male strangers....they often find them as a threat. But after fifteen minutes with Rune, they were playing with him and by the end of the evening, sitting on his lap...that was quite a sight. Oh, and my parents liked him too, which is always good.
Tuesday: Rune wanted to see what the American mall was all about, so I took him there. Our mall isn't small, but neither is it anything special. We mainly just walked around, skipping most stores, browsing through a few. We ate lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, where ironically we did not eat any cheesecake. In the evening, we went to the Idaho Shakespeare Festival (an outdoor theatre) where we took food for a picnic and watched Measure for a Measure, which was an enjoyable play set in modern times. Unfortunately, the wasps were impossible...swarming around anyone with food, and you could even swat them away (two little girls in front of us were stung). So...we weren't able to enjoy our food until after the sun had set.
Wednesday: I don't think we did very much that day. We were both tired and had a late start (like most often, probably my bad since I often don't arrive at the hotel until early afternoon), so all we really did was go out to lunch then in the evening, hang around my house. Yep, pretty much a do nothing day...which was fine by me.
Thursday: We firstly went to the Idaho Historical Museum. It's a tiny little place, but with some interesting artifacts. Rune got excited when we found an old rifle once owned by a Danish man who lived in Idaho for a time. Haha, I didn't see that coming... :P The next thing we did was visit the Discovery Center, which is basically Boise's science museum. That was a lot of fun...so many things to do, and so many little kids. I had to work that evening, so I left Rune behind. And I guess he got a good look at the Boise nightlife, which is something I couldn't entirely do anyways, since I'm still underage and can't go inside the bars.
Friday: We finally did one of the essential things to do in Boise....go on a bike ride along the greenbelt (a pathway along the river). In Idaho, bike riding is something we do for recreation and sport. While in Denmark it's something you do to get around. Admittingly, I haven't biked in years, so I was bit slow...plus having bad knees didn't help. So while Rune had to slow down to keep at my pace (I felt kinda bad about that), we still enjoyed ourselves and the nice weather. In the evening, once again I had to work, so we split up and didn't see each until the morning.
Saturday: Our trip to Idaho City, a historic mining town...once bigger than Boise. The drive there took about an hour and a half, and once we got there we spent a few hours looking at the old buildings and such and visited the old cemetary. All in all, the trip gave a small taste of what old Western life was like in Idaho. The evening was spent in downtown Boise where we saw Stardust (I liked it), then went out to eat at a nice Chinese restaurant (PF Chang).
Sunday: One of the must-do's in Idaho is go camping, and that we did. The first half of the day was spent packing, and afterwards I drove over three hours past Stanley to a campground. Now understand that right now Idaho is in a really bad situation with forest fires. We have the most acres burning in the country. From a satellite, the state is entirely covered in smoke. It's so bad that smoking and campfires have been banned in half of the state. I admit, I was pretty disppointed about not having a campfire, but I quickly could see why with my own eyes. We hadn't driven far from Boise before we saw a huge fire burning in the foothills. We drove right past it, and actually saw the flames, which were only yards from the road. Luckily, that fire had mostly already burned and was pretty much under control, which was why the highway wasn't completely closed. We didn't arrive at the campground until the evening, so we set everything up and fixed dinner. Since we couldn't have our campfire, we chose to stargaze instead. A good choice as there was a meteor shower that night. We saw some pretty impressive meteors.
Monday: The interesting thing about camping is that you tend to go to bed earlier and get up earlier. Now, we didn't have an extremely early start, but earlier than normal at least. The first thing we did was go to Custer...an old ghost town. Back in the day, Custer was another mining boom town, which only lasted thirty years. Most building today are gone, but there are a few interesting ones still standing which are always fun to look at. Later, we relaxed at the natural hot springs. It's next to the river, so a bunch of rocks are rearranged so the cold and hot water flow evenly. Of course, that doesn't mean you'll sometimes hit super cold or super hot currents...ouch.
Tuesday: In the morning, we packed our stuff and left the campground. We went over to Redfish Lake to eat lunch then drove home. The drive back was much smokier than before. Reaching the town Garden Valley, we couldn't even see the trees across the river. Yep, the fire situation was pretty bad.
Wednesday: One of my friends really wanted to meet Rune, so we met at the Olive Garden for lunch. Afterwards, we went to the Co-op and Rune bought some Danish beer which my parents tried at dinner. That night I took Rune to his first baseball game. The Boise Hawks won, and we enjoyed the game talking to people.
Thursday: Our last day was probably one of the most fun days. We headed over to Boondocks, which is an awesome place where you can do such things as miniature golf, bumper boats, laser tag, and arcade. Rune enjoyed the batting cages...I didn't so much when a ball hit my hand, which later gave me a nasty bruise. We got soaked in the bumper boats and enjoyed the go-carts. Laser tag was lots of awesomeness....we played twice. We spent hours playing arcade games...and only ended up with a few hundred tickets. :P We ate dinner at a great local restaurant...the Ram. And I finally got my swimming in for the summer after checking out the pool at Rune's hotel.
So, we kept ourselves busy and had lots of fun in the meantime. And now I'm more sick of driving than ever. Of course, I didn't let Rune go before stealing some of his music (and he stole some of mine). And now I'm totally in love with this Danish band called Alphabeat....I checked their music videos out on YouTube and they're pretty awesome. :)
And so, I'm sure you guys want to see some pictures of us, so here we go:
Rune leaning on...something invisible...
At my house.
Redfish Lake...squinty eyed.
We look ready to take over the world. :P
There's quite a few more pictures, but I think I'll just upload those on Facebook...
In other news:
I got my passport while Rune was here, so now I can finally start pursuing a Schengen visa. Also, my sister and her fiance just arrived (the wedding is on Saturday...so soon), so for the next week I'll be busy doing wedding stuff.