With the exception of Sunday, it was a weekend for photos. I’ll summarize as I give you the tour! (Please note that I will be ending this post with information not at all related to my weekend. I have very many things to write about today. This will get pretty lengthy.)

On Friday, the University of MN was closed for Spring Break, so I decided to relive my youth. I took the light rail (for the first time) to the Mall of America. Only a 30 minute trip from downtown Minneapolis!

First on my agenda was “Animal Botanical” — an exhibit from the Mall’s recent campaign, “The Park in Bloom.” Pretty flowers and shrubs shaped into cute little bunnies and ducks? I’ll take it!

It was also the day the Easter Bunny arrived at the Mall, so I got sneaky with my camera. I had hoped there would be frightened, crying children, but it was pretty early in the Bunny’s shift when I arrived.

After that, I took a spin on three rides that I thought I could get away with sneaking photos on while I rode: the Skyscraper Ferris Wheel, the Treetop Tumbler, and the Screaming Yellow Eagle. I did not get any photos on the Eagle since I was only one of about six riders. Not hidden enough. Oh, well.

I rode the Ferris Wheel with a young high school girl who was visiting with friends for her Spring Break. She came from Cedar Rapids, IA. She thought I was a weirdo with my camera, I’m sure, but did extend a pity invite to ride on some other rides with her and her friends. (I politely turned her down.)

And a brief stroll through Midway (where I saw some young men performing impressive moves on DDR)…

Then I was off for my first trek into Underwater Adventures! Very expensive, but I justified the price by remembering that my rides were free (a coworker gave me some vouchers). Turtles, and sharks, and barracuda: Oh, my!

There was a temporary exhibit about glass replicas of specimens: “Glass Sea Treasures of Harvard”

To be quite honest, I took over 300 photos on Friday alone. What can I say? I’m really quite a fan of fish, turtles, and other creepy/slimy aquatic creatures. (I touched a mantis and a horseshoe crab, too.) I was pretty much in love with the whole place. I wish it didn’t cost so much. I could hang out and watch the creatures all day long.

On to Saturday! St. Patrick’s Day! Early on in the day I discovered the “color accent” setting on my camera, so a lot of my photos are black, white and green. I set out with a few others for the parade in St. Paul, the post-parade pub crawl, and a post-pub crawl evening at Minneapolis bars. It was a long day, but it was a lot of fun. Next St. Patrick’s Day, though? I think I’d be up for the parade, but then I’m gonna go home. Those pubs were a bit too crowded for my taste.

Sunday consisted of not wanting to move from the couch. After a quick, greasy brunch, I watched movies on TBS all day. If I could re-do the holiday, I would drink more water and be productive on Sunday.

Some other notes of interest:

Note 1: I finally also uploaded my photos from the Plastic Chord show at the Hexagon. Most of them are blurry and that’s fine, because that is how I felt all night anyway.

Note 2: Once I muster the motivation, I will most likely be paring down these albums to essential/awesome photos. I have a summer project in mind for adding URLs to the descriptions for each photo that I reference in these sort of posts so I don’t ever delete those and the entry that they’re summarized in is easier to find. Also I’d like to go through most of posts and add labels for each one. I am really a fan of tagging things.

Note 3: My Flash lessons are going well. Tomorrow I also start a three-day (9 hour) tutorial to learn Adobe Illustrator. I am going to be master of my digital domains (and I am constantly thinking about a new design for amy-berg.com, among other sites that I’m supposed to be working on). I can tell you right now, though, that summer won’t be long enough for all of the projects I want to get done.

Note 4: I’m already trying to decide which classes to take next semester. It’s just all so awesome and I don’t have enough hours in the day to get everything done ever!

Okay, for real, y’all. I’m done now.