Happy things in Indiana

We've now been back in Bloomington for one week and four days and I've come up with a list of things that I love about being back in Indiana! I'm going to sprinkle some pictures in here & there with the list. As always, if you click on the pictures you can see larger views of them.

1) Being close to so many good friends!!!
I think we've been more social in the past week and four days than we were for the entire year we lived in California. I've been able to hang out with my good friend Erin (she's in Cabo right now celebrating her 30th birthday though), had breakfast with my friend Katie this morning, went up to Indy last night for my friend Beth's birthday, etc. Karl has been able to see some of his friends too and we both love being back where we see familiar faces pretty much everywhere we go. For example, this morning I went to IU to get my new parking pass and the person helping me said, "You're Karl's wife aren't you?" and it turned out that she knew him from when he did his student teaching. All of these "small world" moments are really welcoming after feeling very anonymous in California.

Hanging out with two of my best friends - Erin and Beth!

2) Being able to visit my favorite restaurants, businesses, etc.
Even though we lived near Wine Country in California, there's nothing like going to good old Oliver Winery in Bloomington and seeing the familiar faces I used to work with there! Last weekend my friend Beth came to visit and we went to Oliver on Saturday afternoon. Yesterday I stopped by there on my way up to Indy to get a little b-day gift for Beth and I just love that place. I'm going to see if Karl wants to go there with me this weekend. :) Along with Oliver, I've been able to go to some favorite restaurants like Village Deli, Nick's, and Anatolia.

Beth and me at Oliver Winery. It was a beautiful day, but very HOT!

3) Great people to work with.
All of the sport management faculty got together for lunch on Wednesday and it was really nice to see everyone again. Along with me, there are two other new hires for the '09-10 academic year. One of them, Galen, and I did our Ph.D.'s together and had practically every class together so it's going to be very nice working with him again. He has some wonderful ideas for the department and research ideas, so I'm excited to be a part of those ventures. The other new faculty member, Dae Hee, is from Maryland and seems like a great guy. I think we'll get along very well. He should be moving to Bloomington in about a month I think.

School of HPER, where my new office will be.

4) The most beautiful campus in the world.
I take back anything I said about Cal-Berkeley being the most beautiful campus. After walking around IU this morning and taking pictures I must take back my previous statements about Cal. It's got nothing on IU! :) I'll post some of those pictures below:

Flowers on campus.

Beautiful Beck Chapel in the middle of campus.

Sample Gates and Kirkwood Ave. in the background.

Near the Union and School of Journalism.

5) Working out at the SRSC and running on the IU campus.
I have really missed running in Bloomington. Despite the heat and humidity, I've been able to get in some good runs since we've been back and I am so glad to get back in "running mode" now that we are here. As long as I get up early and get the run in before 8 a.m. I'm fine. After that the heat and humidity take over! As for the SRSC, wow, who ever thought I would appreciate that place so much! After working out at Cal's gym for a year I have a new appreciation for the SRSC and its policies, equipment, workers, even the lockers! It's true that you don't know what you've got until it's gone. I'm just glad it's BACK! haha

Third Street, one of my favorite streets to run on.

Now, to be fair, I should share a few things that take a little getting used to here...

1) The humidity. I liked it for a few days and now I'm back to blahhhhh. I do enjoy having warmer evenings, but the days are pretty unbearable. Today I sweated all the way through my shirt just walking around campus taking those pictures. Ick! And it wasn't even 11:00 a.m. yet.

2) The price of that parking pass. At Saint Mary's all faculty members received a free parking pass. At IU all faculty members pay $312 for their parking pass. Ouch. That's a nice little dent in the pocketbook. I guess it's the price you pay for the glorious "A" pass and all of the frustrations of driving around trying to find a spot every day! ;)

3) The supermarket selection. I got a little spoiled with some of the California produce, and recently figured out how much I took it for granted that I could find fresh bunches of arugula at the grocery store there. It's a pretty tough item to find here, and when I finally found some, it was the kind that's packaged in a plastic container. Oh well...at least the Indiana corn on the cob is DELICIOUS! And...I'm definitely not complaining about the grocery store prices here. Everything is sooooo much cheaper!

That's pretty much all for now. Karl and I feel like it is taking foreeeeever to get our house organized! There are still some boxes sitting around and it seems like the next step in the process is to start getting the furniture arranged how we want it, hang pictures, etc. Last night Karl moved the huge pile of boxes and packing paper from the living room floor to the garage, so that helped to make things seem a little better in here! :) More updates to come later. I'm off to the BMV to get our Prius registered and license-plated. (Is that a real term? I don't think so).