Knoxville

Friday afternoon (after a week of hell with Hubble proposals), I got the Megabus down to Knoxville, Tennessee, to meet Caroline for the weekend. The bus was late so when she picked me up from the bus stop, we headed straight into downtown for food. Once we found somewhere to park, we headed to Market Street, which is a pedestrian area with lots of bars and restaurants.  It was really nice and the weather was amazing! I forgot to take any photos though. :-( We were so hungry. We ended up putting our names on a waiting list for a nice vegetarian restaurant and going to get a glass of wine first. But the food was nice and we scoped out some places to try later.

On Saturday morning, we wanted to go to an old house with some tulip gardens. At first we went to the wrong house and quickly escaped, saying we would come back for the tour (but we never did). Once we finally found the Crescent Bend house (the right house), it was a bit confusing. It looked like they were setting up for a wedding so we were a bit worried about gate-crashing. And there were 3 girls dressed up wondering around. We thought they were for the wedding but apparently they also just wanted to see they gardens (making us feel very underdressed!). We ended up feeling like we were sneaking in but we found the gardens.

Top of the gardens

Tennessee river

Fountain

Looking down from the house

Unfortunately we missed the main tulip time as most had flowered and been deheaded. But it was still really pretty. We didn't get to go into the house (we couldn't figure out how to get in!) which was a shame.

Tulips 

More tulips

After Crescent Bend House, we headed to Knoxville zoo and had a great time wondering around. Plus the first ice-cream of the year! The weather was amazing and in the 80's. So nice. A lot of the animals were either sunbathing or chilling out in the shade. Caroline and I got a little burnt too.

Black bear 

Furry Armadillo! :-)

A baboon giving his opinion.

Sun bathing lion

Monkey and his friend

Playing 

Gorilla helpfully sleeping near the window

Posing Rhinos.

We must have been amazingly efficient as we were finished by about 2pm. On the way in, we had seen a sign for the botanical gardens. It was more of a field and we were just trying to find somewhere quiet in the shade to sit and chill out. But it seems to be very popular with photographers and we seemed to be getting in everyone shot so we decided to give up and headed back to the hotel for a rest.

We chilled out for a bit before popping out to find a liquor store as we both wanted to try proper moonshine. The store was amazing!

Moonshine!

We selected 3 little ones, 1 classic and 2 flavored (strawberry and apple pie). We have only tried the apple pie so far.

Classic, Strawberry and apple pie moonshine.

Caroline preparing

Ready

We both decided it would be better chilled with some ice! A lot of ice! I'll let you know what the others taste like.

A little too strong!

Not so good.

After the moonshine tasting and we were sure we weren't going to go blind, we got a taxi into town so we could both have a few drinks - nicer ones. (When we booked hotel, the site said it was downtown, but it lied! It was a 10-15 min drive from downtown! :-( )

Knoxville was pretty busy this weekend. They had a football game by the Tennesse Volenteers (the collage team) so there were lots of people dressed in orange. (It felt very similar to Blacksburg at times.)

We went to the Sunsphere (which was part of the 1982 World Fair) and were really happy we hadn't gone during the day. The observation deck was shut for renovations. But the lounge bar was open. Perfect!

Sunsphere.

enjoying the view, drinks, and company

Drinks in the sun.

After some wine and nibbles, we headed into downtown. They had closed off Gay Street for the Rossini festival. We have no idea what it was for but it was fun to wonder around. There were lots of street performers, food vendors, and craft stalls. So we had a great time checking out all the jewelry stalls.

View down Gay street of the festival

Tennessee Theatre.

We decided we wanted to sit down with a glass of wine for dinner so headed back to Market Street. Everywhere was packed so we put our name name for an outside table and went into the bar. We ended up getting bored waiting and eat inside instead, before heading to the Hilton to get a drink there (as we figured there would be taxi's there). We had one drink and still no taxis so we had to cheekily ask them to order us a taxi to go to another hotel. :-)

Last drink of the night at the Hilton.

RAD class

The past few weeks I have been taking a self defense class through the uni, called Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) and I convinced Cissi and Cait from work to come with me. It is for women only though there are some places which do a men's only class as well. It is a 3 part course. The first class is a classroom style class, where they take you through the basics of safety. What to and not to do. Most of it is just common sense but there were some useful tips like how best to hold your keys to use them as a weapon.
And we got little police badges. Which sounds silly but they are cool! :-)





The second week and third weeks are more practical. On the second week, we attack bags. They showed us the moves and we then practiced with the instructors holding punch bags. Me and Cisssi got the big male police officer. He was about twice Cissi's size but the look on his face when she hit the bag was priceless! He started bracing himself really well after that! I don't think I need to worry about her getting beaten up. Her beating other people up, now that is a different matter ... :-)

In the final week, we get to attack cops! Well, they attack us and we defend ourselves. They talked smack talk and got in our way, and then they attack, grabbing us, picking us up, throwing us onto the floor. We all wear pads, especially the police as we beat the hell out of them. It was pretty emotional and scary to be honest at the start. The head pads restrict your view and there were 2 of them against one of you. We each did 2 different scenarios and a couple of people went for a third.

Our police attackers

Cair getting ready

Cissi rearing to go!

Our police attackers looked exhausted and a little banged up at the end, bless them. They also recorded our "attacks" and we got to watch ourselves kicking butt at the end, which was a strange experience.
Once you have done the course once, you can go to any of the classes again. Whenever you want. For free. So Cissi and I are going back again next week to practice the moves again. And we meet some other very nice people there. The atmosphere was great with everyone supporting each other. (Though I don't think any guys would have liked being there - they would probably wince! A lot! We got vicious.) There are RAD courses for men only as well though.
If your uni or police department offers a RAD course, take it! It is really useful, and whether you need it or not (and hopefully not!), it worth it and fun. And a good work-out. 

April fools prank

I saw this walking from the 7/11. That took some serious dedication and some people with too much time on their hands!

Busy few weeks

The past few weeks since I got back from the UK have been busy. Though thanks to a cold (got to love airplane air), sorting out my USA taxes (VT HR have done a wonderful job of screwing up every part of my papers), and just work in general (and until Hubble proposals are done, that will probably not change), I haven't done anything fun. Unless you count food shopping. Which I don't.

But this weekend I have finally managed to start a version of Friday pub. Not sure if it will last but it's worth a shot. I only managed to drag one person from the department this week, but she brought some others so I also meet a few new people. After a few glasses of wine at the Cellar (I never knew it actually had a Cellar bar!), 4 of us went to the opening of an art exhibit at the MOSS centre. The art was interesting though some not to my taste. I love the big bedazzled pictures though. After, 2 of us went for a few more drinks at the London Underground, which is as close to a pub as I am likely to find here.

So needless to say on Saturday morning I was not feeling at my best. But I headed out early with Cissi and went to get my driving license renewed. Not exactly exciting but needed along with more food shopping.

I am hoping things with start picking up, fun things at least. And hopefully the weather will improve (though it is supposed to snow again this week). But it will be spring soon. And I am hoping if my travel plans pan out, my summer is going to be amazing!

Worst flight home.

On Saturday I started the trip back to Blacksburg which meant a very early morning to drive down to Heathrow. I ended up taking an additional suitcase back as I had brought so many clothes and gifts. So after checking and paying for the suitcase (and arguing that the website said it was cheaper than they charged me - and losing), we went to Weatherspoons for breakfast and watched the groups of people drinking pints at 9am and running off to the loos holding hands over their mouths. Before coming back to drink more beer. So entertaining at least.
There were lots of tears as I left but that was expected. I have had such a good time at home, meeting up with friends and spending time with family.
The first part of the trip, Heathrow to Chicago, was ok. Though the snack for GF was nasty. I was looking forward to getting something real to eat before my next flight. It took over 1.5 hrs to get though immigration. I have never been at a worse airport then Chicago when it comes to immigration queues. They had taken my suitcases off the conveyer belt as they needed to for the next flight before I was half way through the queue! (But meant I didn't have to brag them off the belt so saved me some bruises.)
Then I got to handing in my baggage for the next flight, only to be told my flight was cancelled due to bad weather. At the desk they then spent an hour trying to find me another flight. He offered a flight to Detroit on Sunday and a possible flight 8 hours after that to Roanoke. But the weather there was even worse. His expression suggested that was not a good option and I would rather be stuck in Chicago than Detroit. So I was put on standby for Sunday and booked on a flight for Monday. And then given a piece of paper with a number to call for a hotel. The airline won't help if the cancellation or delay is due to weather. :-(
So after some wrong numbers, I got a hotel and found someone else going to the same place.
The hotel was actually very nice and had a restaurant and bar. Which was very needed.

Nicer than the airport floor!

 I had dinner with the guy I meet at the airport staying in the same hotel. Which was fine. But he insisted on paying. Which was nice. Except he obviously thought that entitled him to more, even though I had told him I was seeing someone and that someone was a Marine Sniper. (It's always good to have a large dangerous boyfriend "around", even a fictitious one.) So this guy was either very stupid, didn't believe me, or had a death wish.
So between the fact that this guy who grabbed and tried to kiss me and unfortunately knew where my room was (as his was 2 doors down) and the fact that the hotel had double booked my room (luckily I was fully clothed in the room when both parties realized this mistake), I didn't really sleep very well.
Thankfully we did not get the 18 inches of snow in Chicago that was predicted over night.

View from my window the next morning.

I spent Sunday morning chilling around the hotel and then headed to the airport to sit and wait and pray for someone else to miss their flight so I can steal their seat. I got there early to make sure I was on the standby list and first. I ended up at a sushi place for some average sushi and a nice glass of plum wine. I have never tried it before but it was very nice. Sweet and lovely as a desert. So the wait in the airport was quite nice.

View from the sushi place

I got lucky and someone missed their flight. When my name was called out to go to the desk to get a real boarding pass, I practically sprinted to it, jumping over bags, suitcases and in one case, a sleeping passenger, just in case in the minute it would take me to get there, they changed their minds. I was so happy. (Though I did panic when they scanned my boarding pass as I get onto the plane and it made a nasty screaming sound. But the lady who scanned it had given it to me previously so she just waved me though.)

The flight was very boring, in permanent cloud and it was raining in Roanoke, though very warm which is nice. (It's snowing now!) And due to the short notice of my flight, I couldn't get a lift from the airport. But I found 2 others going to Blacksburg, and we shared a taxi so it was a lot cheaper than it could have been. And they were very nice people so the trip was entertaining as well.

It's nice to be home. (I even got my suitcases carried up the stairs for me by the sweet lad next door - who says students are nice?) However the moral of the story is do not fly via Chicago in winter!