"About us" abelliot's Profile

HI everyone!!! Ok this page is going to be a mess for awhile as I put together some pages from our recent travels. We are back in Minnesota now living in W St Paul. It has been an amazing year of travel for us. I made my first trips to Argentina and Chile and we both visited the Republic of Ireland, N. Ireland, France and Spain together.

SLowly but surely I'll get these pages updated.

Hi everyone!!! My name is Tony and I was born in Olivia, MN (about 100 miles west of Minneapolis) and consider St. Paul, MN my home. At the moment I am a Philosophy student at University College-Cork (Ireland) and will be in Cork until the end of May 2005 or so. In case you didn't know, Cork is the 2005 European Capital of Culture and has many events planned for the occasion. The town has really been spruced up and a 12 million euro art musuem has recently been opened also.

Before coming to Cork I visited my girlfriend's family in Argentina for several weeks. It was my first trip outside of North America and it was an amazing experience. I learned quite quickly how little spanish I know and how different classroom spanish is from the "real" version. Argentina is a wonderful place and I can't wait to get back there and see some more of it and revisit the places I have already been.

As for the things I like to do, like all of you I love seeing new things, especially wildlife, to me there is something very special in being fortunate enough to observe an animal in the wild. It is truly a gift. Also I love to visit big cities, coming from a small town (2k in Olivia), there is an enormous rush being in the large cities like NYC, Chicago or BA. Other than those things I love to read, listen to music, watch movies and see the theatre. The last performance Silvia and I saw live was Les Miserables, which was AMAZING.

I think above everything else that I am, I consider myself most a Minnesotan. It is a land of beautiful features and beautiful people. There is a kindness and togetherness that I don't think many of the states have. We pride ourselves on our toughness from enduring our hard winters (when in reality we are kind of wimpy about it and complain often about it ;o)) and our niceness. We love the outdoors and protect our natural resources fiercely. We love to eat, enjoy one another and the skills we have in arts, music and cooking. There is also an entrepreneurial spirit in Minnesota that has produced many successful international businesses such as 3M, Target and Best Buy. More importantly than our individual successes is our desire to succeed together. All classes of people in Minnesota have given alot of time and effort into improving our state for everyone. That is the type of attitude that makes me most proud to call myself Minnesotan. My intro page is devoted to my state and I hope you enjoy the page and better yet, hope you come to enjoy Minnesota.

If you have any questions about Minnesota or anywhere else I have been, please email me. Also let me introduce my girlfriend Silvia. She is from Argentina and can answer any questions about Argentina that you may have also.

Our Monument to Corn

My hometown, Olivia, is the Corn Capital. Corn has provided a livelihood for all of us in some way since the beginning of the town. Each year we have a festival called Corn Capital Days in which we celebrate our love affair with corn. We have a huge corn feed and everyone gorges themselves on hot buttery corn on the cob. We also have a monument to our idol. It is the most recognizable thing about our town, if you ask someone from the Twin Cities if they know of Olivia, undoubtedly if they do, they will mention the giant corn cob. It is a part of who we are.

Each year, for about 15 days prior to Labor Day and lasting until Labor Day, is the Minnesota State Fair. This is what we call the "Great Minnesota Get Together." It is a giant celebration of our wonderful state and everything we love about it. There is great food, good concerts, rides, exhibits, animals, games, tons of fun for the whole family. One of the favorite foods at the fair is the butterred sweet corn on the cob (shown here), Also traditional favorites from the fair are the giant grilled turkey legs, Grandma's Homemade Cookies and the Cheesecurds. I should probably put these items in the Dangers category as the fat level in many of our favorite foods is usually pretty high, but at the fair you will get a chance to walk and sweat it off so at least you won't feel so guilty.

St Paul is the hometown of Charles Shultz and each year they have been having some type of display around St. Paul to celebrate his life and his work. The year in this photo they had a variety of Linus statues with various themes at the state fair and then placed around St. Paul. They were later sold with the money, I believe going to charity. Last year they made statues of Snoopy's doghouse with Snoopy on top and Woodstock somewhere nearby.

Each winter in St. Paul we have the Winter Carnival. Sometimes like, like last year, there is a giant ice castle constructed for the occasion. Every year there are ice sculptures and snow sculptures that are truly amazing works of art. It is a lovely atmosphere, to get a cup of hot chocalate and walk around my favorite innier city park and admire the sculptures on a crisp winter evening. Then pop into one of the many nice restaurants located in DT St. Paul. It is an experience truly Minnesotan.