Big Day

Yesterday I had a very busy day. I spent the day in Burlington on Church St. which is like their shopping district. It's a long street running paralell to Lake Champlain that is lined with shops, resturaunts and other businesses on both sides. At one end is a very big church, hence the name Church St. It's a very cool place, people wander around shopping, sightseeing and sometimes just hanging out. You have also never seen so many dogs, lots of people brought their dogs with them, which seems to be the custom in Vermont dogs welcome everywhere. Yesterday was also the day of Burlington's winter festival. So up and down Church St. were people working on ice sculptures, I was there early on in the day so I mostly saw the beginning of the projects but there were a few that were finished. Part of the festival was also the penguin plunge, for a charity that is currently escaping my mind. Mind you, Champlain isn't frozen over because it's too big, but there is definitely ice all around the sides and people are JUMPING INTO IT! Crazy, that's what that is. I am all about a good adventure, but that is insane. From what I understand, everyone survived, thank goodness.
The church at the end of Church St.

Looking the other way down Church St.

One of the ice sculptures, this one of the Eiffel Tower!
After my trip to Burlington, I went out on the town for the first time last night with one of the girls from work. It was a lesson in cultural differences. I saw some hippy dancing, which is my favorite kind, that included a Chris "supertramp" McCandless look alike. I also saw Ernst (you know, from the milk commercials) and actually played pool against him, he was not so great at pool but awesome entertainment value. All in all it was a good night, if a little different then what I'm used to, but hey that's what I'm here for.