One fantastic day down, one fantastic day to go!

I had so much fun with Kerry yesterday! We got up around 8 but didn't get moving until 10:30ish, as we were breakfasting and planning Kerry's trip to visit me at Middlebury (she's going to come up for my birthday. Hurrah!). We then caught a bus to downtown New Haven and the Yale campus to spend a couple hours at the Peabody Natural History Museum. I really enjoyed the Great Hall filled with dinosaurs, and a GIGANTIC ancient sea turtle-- 10 feet from head to tail!! You can see it behind me in the picture. I'm also standing next to a baby apatosaurus. Have you heard about the apatosaurus v. brontosaurus controversy? I must have missed it since I stopped being obsessed with dinosaurs in elementary school. Apparently Mr. O. Marsh, who did a ton of excavating and dinosaur discovery in the 19th century, found two similar dinosaur skeletons a few years apart and named them two different things, apatosaurus, meaning "deceptive lizard" (because of its similarity to another, previously named dinosaur), and brontosaurus, meaning "thunder lizard." As it turns out, the two skeletons Marsh discovered were actually of the same species, but at different stages of maturity, which is why he thought they were different. Thus, since he had named the apatosaurus first, that became the official scientific name of the species.

After the museum, we met Tom (Kerry's boyfriend) for lunch at an Indian restaurant. It was so yummy! And totally filling-- we ended up not eating supper till 11 PM, and I wasn't even really hungry before then.

We took an afternoon trip to the mall so I could buy some extra-long sheets (silly dorm beds!), and I also got a cute new swimsuit, even though I just bought a cute new swimsuit a few weeks ago (this one was on sale and totally hot!). Kerry also got a swimsuit, as well as some other clothes and accessories.

Our bus ride back to town took over an hour, because we thought we were getting on an express bus, but instead it was a local, but it was nice to see some of the neighboring areas. Then we worked out at the massive Yale gym, and it was my lucky day, because they didn't have any guest forms, so I didn't have to pay! I jogged on a treadmill for 30 minutes and felt really out of shape, but it was so good to be moving after many days of relative immobility. Then I did some yoga and stretching, before the best part: the sauna! Kerry and I sauna-ed Russian banya style: we sat in the heat for a few minutes, then ran to take a super-cold shower, then back to the heat, and so on. We did three rounds like that. The first round I could barely stand to get under the cold water, but the second and third times it felt fantastic. Of course, to make it a truly Russian experience we would have been jumping into a cold pool rather than cold showers, and we would have had venniki, or birch branches, to beat ourselves with in the heat (it's great for the circulation, I swear!). But it still felt simply wonderful, and my pores feel all clean and magnificent.

We arrived early to the bus stop to catch the last bus home, but we waited for 30 minutes and it never came, so we had to get a cab. By this time we were all pooped, but we managed to whip up some tacos and a salad, which completely hit the spot. I called and talked to Jon for a few minutes, then collapsed into bed. It was a simply awesome day!

Today Kerry and I are headed beachward, where we plan to spend most of the late morning and afternoon. Then we're going to go work out again and get dinner downtown. I'll tell you all about it after it's happened. Thanks for checking in with me!