Omaha

The next day we awoke and drove to Omaha where we planned to stay with a CSer, Luke. We made good time, Enrique helped me drive, and we arrived around 6 pm. Luke's place was really nice - he said Omaha is incredibly cheap - prob. because it's awful in winter time. lol Anyway, after getting settled, he drove us to the center of town where we walked around and saw the old city center with old factory buildings which, with their brick and old faded painted on ads, gave the area is quaint feel. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant that is a favorite's of Luke's where we treated him to dinner. It was good and afterward we walked over to this big park where there are 2 metal slides that people race down. Some people had left wax paper scraps around and I had a blast racing Luke down the slides.

After that we drove to some memorial where you can look over the city from. We all sat there and talked for a long time until we were cold. Finally, we went back to Luke's and talked until fairly late, considering we had to get up early to make the 12 hour drive to Nashville.

Luke also showed us his really cool frogs that look like those little fake frogs (the bright blue ones w/black on them) - he said they aren't really poisonous in captivity. They were really cute, and coming from me, that's saying a lot (I have a problem with frogs).

Luke works at the Omaha zoo with reptiles and graduated in biology. He told me if I decide to go back to grad school I should apply for the Full Bright research grant, which is similar to the Phillip's Scholarship I received in undergrad in that you can go anywhere in the world and study anything you'd like.

Anyway, we had fascinating conversation, and I look forward to seeing him in future.

We got up at and out around 7:30 or 8, making it to Nashville around 9 p.m. We also drove through St. Louis so we could see the arch, which was cool, I guess, from what we saw from the interstate in the middle of a very crowded city.

The family who hosted us was very nice. An older man and woman who set us all up in nice beds with clean linens and towels. It was so nice to be pampered! They even made sure we knew where to find the cereal and milk for breakfast, even though they'd be at work when we woke up.

The next morning we left and went to the mock Parthenon in Nashville. It was cool, having seen the real one in Athens, to see what it looked like originally. The statue of Athena however was downright hideous, tacky, and ridiculous.

From there we went to the Farmer's Market where we got some fresh-made goodies, then headed into downtown to see some of the Honkey Tonks. We stopped in the Dolly Parton store and saw some of dresses. We also stopped in several bars and heard some wanna-be bands playing. We also saw the river which was sooo high - it wasn't hard to imagine it overflowing the edges and flooding the town.