I was in more training from 8am until around 3:30pm. Getting to know the other team members, doing some practice ourselves of the homework expected of students, each of us also gave a short summary of our individual lectures. Logistics. Making sure we have everything we need and getting a handle on the organization of what we're doing for the next three weeks.
And we planned a little outing for Saturday.
My roommate and I walked to the mall, which didn't appear to be too far on the map, only about 1.7 miles. The only hitch is that there is a freeway/highway between here and there and there was no sidewalk along the highway. Ooops; it had looked like there was some place from the map, which did tell us to walk that way. Oh well. We walked past a nice old cemetery with some interesting names. We could no longer see where we thought we were going (we did see the roof of some of the mall from our dorm floor; we don't have a printer between us, so we couldn't print out the map). There were a number of cars turning down a street, so we thought maybe tha led to the mall. After a few blocks, there was a "no exit" sign and a school half a block ahead. We keep on walking, planning to walk through the school grounds to, hopefully, get to the mall. I was sure we were going in the right basic direction, but we didn't even have the address with us and I couldn't find it via mobile web.
We asked someone out watering her lawn; she was just visiting and didn't know where it was, except she had passed it on the freeway, somewhere "over there." We did find it just a couple blocks away and discovered we entered the deserted parking lot on the back side of the mall. We found our way to the front, to dinner, to some nice smelly products to help cover up the smell of the stockyards and slaughter houses when the wind blows in certain directions, and found another way back to our dorm. After purchasing a Cold Stone ice cream cone each.
We did find a more direct way back to the university with chocolate melting in our waffle cones and catching the tail-end of the sunset before we were left on minimally lighted streets for the last 15 or 20 minutes. With the meandering path on our walk to the mall and our return back via a different route, we probably walked about 3.2 or so miles.
I updated the PowerPoint for one of my lectures after we got back. Found online what I thought was the TV guide for where we are - which only gave my false hope of catching a Law and Order show. I don't have cable at home and never (and this is a true never) sit down to just watch TV. But I do like L&O, some of the CSI programs, and a couple others; and indulge myself when I'm traveling to catch a program here and there. The mouse had slipped when I put in the time zone and, alas, no Law and Order on. Oh well. I read, did some stretching, did a word puzzle and went to bed.
