Iowa City

Welcome to Iowa City!! I am going to be taking a bunch of pics of the city and here are the first post of them. Iowa City is a really neat place. It is definitely a cultural center. They have an Arts festival (occurred when I first got here), a Jazz festival (which started on Friday and ends today), a sand castle building contest, a Franz Liszt festival (I am all over that when it comes) and I am sure many more festivals.

Here are the pics:

There is a ped mall downtown lined with trees. I enjoy walking there a lot.

In the ped mall there is a water fountain where kids (and adults too sometimes) love to play in the water on a hot day. I love to watch them and how carefree they are.

I love this statue- So sweet. Enough said.

Ok- Is this not one of the coolest things you have ever seen!!?? There are at least three of these around downtown that you can just sit down and play. They each have covers to cover them up. Anyone can just sit down and play what they want. I have played on this one- and although it is not the most in tune piano- the idea of it- is awesome!

Speaking of awesome- This bookstore is right down the street from where I live. It is a fun book store and it has a piano inside it that you can also sit down and play almost any thing. I say almost anything, because on this piano there is a note that says "No chopsticks or Heart and Soul." HA HA HA(there might be one other song I cant remember- but you get the idea that these songs were played a bit too much).

These two girls are in my branch and have come here for the medical program (of which the U of Iowa has an excellent program). They are quite busy but one night wanted to get some dinner. They invited me and we went to a place right by my house called the Hamburg Inn. It is an old famous diner that has really good diner food and their desserts include pie-shakes.... which is where they stick a slice of pie with some ice cream and mix it together- amazing??? YES! Presidents and other important people have stopped by here to eat. Cool place.

And finally- yes, this is a jazzercise place that still exist- I thought jazzercise was totally 80's and 90's... but they still got it in Iowa. Not really that amazing- but made me smile.

My home in Iowa City

This is where I live! It is an old two story house that is right downtown which is SUPER nice. Not only is there stuff to do downtown, but the buildings where I will be doing a lot of schoolwork are down there.

I live on the second floor. It is a good place, but I decided I wanted to live somewhere else for the school year, so I am searching for a new place. But for now, here I am! There is no A/C in our place and that was hard when I first moved in. But I thought, Hey I could do without it for two months. I'll just get a good fan and use that. I thought about a A/C window unit, but when I first saw them and saw how expensive they were, I decided to try and tough it out. HA! I was SO wrong... Iowa City was probably laughing at me saying, "Mwa ha ha ...Just you wait Ms. Alyssa..." I lasted a couple of weeks. I wasn't sleeping that great (crazy dreams) and it was just really hard to be in a hot and humid room. So with my first paycheck I spent the best 127$ and got an A/C unit. It makes a world of difference! Bless you who ever invented A/C window units! You rock!

Anyway here are some pictures of the house and my room

This side is where my bedroom is- second floor- It now has an A/C unit in the bottom half. The windows are really tall. I bought some curtains at a thrift store but they are still like 6 inches short... like I said, tall windows. But I am grateful for them though- they let in beautiful light.

This tree holds an a ridiculous amount of birds who on occasion love to start chirping really really really early in the morning (and at other times of the day). But since I have gotten the A/C unit, I haven't heard them as much...

Bed and the fan- the fan now resides in the kitchen (to provide some (emphasize the SOME) relief while cooking! :-) The temple picture is the only one hanging in my room right now (more will hang where ever I live next)- glad I have it here! Thanks Kim!

There is the tree from my window.

There are my curtains (for one window) :-) and desk.

Mormon Handcart Park

I am really enjoying being in Iowa City. Yes, it is hot and really humid some days, but it is good to be here.

There is a lot of things to do and see. One of these cool things to do is go to the "Mormon Handcart Park." I had heard about this park and went out to find it one Sunday.

A neat fact is that Iowa City was the place to where the saints who would come by handcart outfitted and made their carts for the trek west. The park really isn't a park with a huge patch of grass to sit on, but rather a nice path that on one side of the trail is covered with trees and grasslands and the other side has trees, but it is bordered by some of the U of Iowa practice fields. There are a couple of benches and tables with some patches of grass,

but most a nice walk way. It was very peaceful and wonderful.

This park is where the saints camped and worked before heading west. How cool is that!? It was really neat to walk along this trail and think that saints worked together here for the journey west. I am so grateful for their sacrifice. It was such a hard journey for so many inexperienced saints. They had great faith and they had the fire of the covenant. They were willing to anything to follow the prophet and the will of the Lord. I hope that I can be like them and let the fire of the covenant burn in me like fire unquenchable.

It makes you wonder if this was a clearing where saints camped... Maybe... :-)

I love this picture. It just makes me think of faith in every footstep and enduring to the end.

There was only one downside to this park... the MOSQUITOES!!! Oh my goodness! I got bitten multiple times the two times I went there! It is like mosquito-ville there. They are everywhere around that place, which is sad, because it would be a wonderful place to go sit and think... I did buy some excellent bug repellent... hopefully it will help when I go there again. Wonderful park!