There's No Place Like Kansas!

September 16th - 18th.

After a 9 hour drive from Minnesota, passing through the states of Iowa and Missouri on the way, we finally arrived in Manhattan, Kansas, the home of the Kansas State University and my second-cousin Caitlin.  It was a great weekend.  I got to stay on in an all-American college dormitory with my cousin, spend time with college students my age, watch college football and tour the campus.  

Welcome to K-State

Daughter and mother pic

Getting ready to go K-State crazy

Caitlin and I

Cheerleaders! (so America)

Marching band

Practically the whole stadium (50k+) was in purple

The college dorm room

 

Minnesota & My Festival Fantastic September

First off, let me tell you why Minnesota.  Minnesota is the state that my maternal grandmother's family comes from.  It is where my great-grandparents (the Gales) and most of my grand-aunt and grand-uncles lived.  It is also the state that my mum lived in for a couple years growing up and that many of my mum's cousins currently reside in.  With this in mind I was keen to travel there to visit family and appreciate a bit of my American heritage.

Minnesota was simply fantastic. While there I stayed with my mum's cousin Karl and his wife Cindy.  They were the perfect hosts and organised so many fun and new things for us to do during my two months there and I feel very blessed to have had such a wonderful experience with them.  During the weekdays I had a seasonal job working as a Quality Assurance Lab Assistant at Syngenta Seeds Inc. in Stanton, MN.  Syngenta is a Corn Research Centre meaning I worked with corn all day which was, on it's own, a very interesting and different experience for me... While I kept busy from Monday to Friday at work, my weekend schedule also was usually pretty jam packed with fun activities.  I always felt busy and that is definitely a great thing!  Something else exciting was that it was Fall/ Autumn, a season new to me, being from Fiji!
Enjoy these photos (and more in following posts) from our various outings...

The Minnesota State Fair  - Sept 4th

In the Fall... expect pumpkins! This was one of the larger ones competing for 'Biggest Pumpkin' at the Fair.

Myself and Karl just bee-ing cool

Dairy queen's heads sculpted out of butter!

With Anita (Cindy's friend) and Aunt Cindy :)

Jesse James Days Festival and Rodeo in Northfield - Sept 9th

The re-enactment of Jesse James and crew attempting to rob the Northfield bank

There was a lot of loud shooting (pretend of course)

Rodeo!

It was so interesting to see these people work their ropes

Also interesting was how everyone was dressed 'country'

Cowboy hats for sale

On our way back to the car after watching the rodeo we came across Square Dancing on the city streets of Northfield

Renaissance Festival - Sept 11th

'Ye old choir

Elephant ride anyone?

Pay to smash a tomato in his face, or at least try to

Jousting match: Knights spurring on the crowd to cheer loudest for their own sides

Live fight! After the jousting the got down and dirty - axe and all

This Chicken-Man act was truly strange LOL

A volunteer gets 7 balls spinning while he is spun at the same time

We all agreed that this guy was pretty entertaining and one of the better acts of the day

Scottish dancing (and bagpipe playing in the background)

Isn't this a funny pic?  I love this photo!

More Scottish dancing, this time by school girls

The Queen and King take their daily walk through the town

Feeling short