As usual, I manage to keep busy. My project eats up most of my time and whenever I get some time off there's still plenty of activities to keep me entertained. My project is going well and I'm learning a lot. It's a bit like walking in deep snow. Every step demands it effort but it's steady progress which is just how it's supposed to be which leaves me very happy. When not at work I spend my time learning how to ride western, going for long walks with the dog or exercising if there is not anything special going on and most often, there is. As I mentioned, I live pretty far out on the country side, nearest town is half an hour away with car and that town only has a population of 3000 which is very small. For a real town it's a one hour drive on highway so you get the idea. Although I never in my life have really lived on the country side I've always pictured it as something that would suit me very well and it really does. Honestly, I don't know how I can ever go back to living in the suburbs or a city again after knowing how wonderful it is to live out on the country. For me personally, there is so much more to do on the country side than in a city and I just love being close to nature, be a bit isolated from everything and get some peace and quiet and of course have plenty of animals to hang around with.  So before, this preference of mine was only an assumption but know I've really confirmed it for myself, this is how I want to live. There are days when I feel extra patriotic and miss Sweden and especially those near and dear to me, but most days I live by the saying "Home is where I hang my hat". The thought of knowing that my days here are numbered is lurking in the back of my head and I just try to be grateful for the chance to get to experience all of it, from my work to my American home.

I visited the Missouri Endangered Wolf Center and got to see these beautiful maned wolves.
They have a certain spindle like character to them when they move around.

On a walk with Gus in the forest just by the house.

Tribute to them Stars n' Stripes on the Ashland Rodeo  
 

Two weeks since I updated the last time? About time then. No words come closer to mind than "Time flies". On Thursday I will have been here for a month already. I'm in some sort of in between feeling of my time here just rushing by so fast and at the same time I feel so at home so it feels like I've sort of always lived here. Everything is good with me by the way. I can't really grasp how fortunate I am to get this opportunity to work in the position that I do. It's a lot of work sure, but when  your enjoying yourself it doesn't really feel like you're working at all. Since time is going by so fast I try and keep busy all the time and just make the most of my time. So there's stuff I've done and there's still a lot of stuff to do that I hope I will get the chance to enjoy.

Doing some volonteer work with the people working on AFB helping out with the harvest in St. Louis Zoo's herb garden. The herbs are used as enrichment for the animals.

The African Painted dogs (Do you know the Swahili name Helena?) enjoying some of the Lemon Grass we harvested for them,

Out for a walk a few miles from were I live.

Apprently the Montgomery Fair with the city Parade took place last week. I didn't plan to go at first but before finishing work a coworker called and said "Hey you wanna ride the animal shelter float in the Parade?". Well I had never in a parade before so I jumped on that wagon (literally).

Cutest thing on the Parade.

Visited the Whetstone Creek Conservation area and went for a walk. It wasn't the most walking friendly place but more adapted for cars but I managed to find some nice spots anyway.

Encountering Wild Tortoises is a new experience for me.

Mike - A super cool Labrador/Dobermann Mix.

View from the porch. I go out on the porch in the mornings and eat my breakfast just enjoying the view as the sunrises.

Sofia - Were currently longing her and hopefully I will start riding her (and learn a little western riding) by the end of the week.

Lucky

A lot has been happening the last week and I just try to keep up. My mind has just been bombed with new impressions this last week. I started Monday to go the main office for the company I will be working for which was a really impressive office building. My days in the main office were mainly focused around going through a lot of security training and being informed about the policies of the company. I also got some time over to plan my project and trying to get all the little things in order just the way I want them. On Wednesday I moved in to my new home on a farm close to Montgomery city where I will be staying for the remaining sixth months. I must admit, it was a big change going from a suburban apartment to an older country home. However, after the first night adjusting to the new environment I felt right at home.

  The arch of St Louis. A symbol for the westward expansion. It is huge!

Thursday and Friday was holidays to celebrate 4th of July but I was invited to go out a little earlier to the research center where I will be working to get the chance to get acclimatized before going through new security training and more planning of the project. So I've been spending my days following the animal care takers around and just been learning so much. It was especially interesting to follow the vet techs around and help them out in their work. The staff is all wonderful and nice people and one of the vet techs actually took the time  to teach me how to give IV fluids to the cats. That was just a great experience I must admit I felt kind of proud afterwards.

4th of July was I spent in a modesty on farm having a bbq and watching the fireworks blossom out far away from the porch. 4th of July is, however, not a celebration you take lightly and if you thought it is a one day celebration you'd be wrong. From Thursday until Saturday there has been some sort of  4th of July celebration around. Saturday I got the opportunity to go in to St Louis (The big city around here) for a big 4th of July fair which was pretty neat. I live far out from the big city, about 1h 30min and getting in for the fair didn't look very promising and going alone didn't seem that appealing. Luckily, however, I got in contact with another exchange worker via my exchange organization who also was interested in going to the fair. So this guy took it upon himself to go pick me up and we had a really great time just hanging out at the fair just getting to know each other.  So he told me about his time in America that, to me, was just an amazing story. He took a break in his studies, got a job in America learned how to drive a truck for the first time and starting driving a truck all over the U.S and got to see so much on his way on the road. He told me that he had mounted a camera on his truck and taken pictures while he was driving across America and that he in the end would make a time laps out of it. I really hope I get to see it someday.

St. Louis Fair 4th of July celebration just starting up.

This is the same area as the previous picture a few hours later with 'The Fray' on stage. So. Many. People.
    

So much here in the U.S is similar to how it is at home and still there are all the little things popping up here and there that takes you by surprise thinking "Hey that's new". Everything is different and still so similar at the same time if that makes any sense. I think, so the differences and similarities are just a small part of travelling like this, it's rather the new opportunities and adventures that presents themselves to you that is the most wonderful thing with all of this as well as all the new people I get to know and to hear their stories. I had some many great experiences already after my first week here. If I would try to describe how I'm feeling right now is that it's like I have looked at a painting for a really long time and then all of a sudden decided "You know what? I'm going to stand on my head and watch the painting upside down for a while." It's the same painting but it's a new perspective on everything you know.

First update from American soil! That is worthy of a Woho. WOHO! My trip went well, and I had no inconviences despite all the big obstacles to get past like transfer in NY and getting past boarder control. So today was my first day in St. Louis. St. Louis is the biggest city in Missouri and I must say for an American city it has many old buildings with elegant architecture with is very different from the other American cities that I've been to that have either been more modern, more simplistic or more like barracks. So today on my first day I made an excursion out to Forest park which is a really and I mean REALLY large city park. It's the biggest park in all of the U.S  It contains, a zoo, a golf course, I think 4 different museums, a ball park and plenty of green area space in between. So of course I took the chance to visit St. Louis Zoo which was super fun. You are always a bit skeptical when going into animal parks abroad since Sweden has such high standards for animal care but that sort of concerns was really wasted on this park, it kept top class. I spent a lot of time in the park just walking around, looking at the animals and examining the design of the enclosures and how the zoo chose to create the animal visitor interaction.

Kudu Enclosure.

The animal enclosures were in most cases nicely designed to be somewhat similar to the natural habitat of the different species of animals and offered different forms of stimulation for them. All in all, really nice enclosures.  Because the climate here is much more forgiving than at home, plants were used to a larger extent to enrich the enclosure, something that is harder to do at home when the climate is more harsh. I really liked how they had designed the enclosures for the great apes here. I have not seen the new gorilla enclosure at home in Kolmården but they have to make something really extra out of it to even come close to what they had here in my opinion.

Gorilla enclosure. Loved it.

The only thing I really reacted negatively to during my visit was the size of some of the big cat enclosures. Most of the animals had enclosures of reasonable size but some of the ones for big cats I found way too small, however, I did not see the indoor enclosures so hopefully they are larger and easily accessible for the cats.

My personal favorite of the day, the okapi.

The zoo was not only well designed for animal wellbeing but also for the visitor experience. You were able to really get up-close with the animals as a visitor since the zoo used see through glass for several of the enclosures extent.  At the same time the animals were in most cases, with the exception for some of the ungulate enclosures, able to retreat out of view from the visitors. Much effort had gone into designing away bare concrete walls in the enclosures to make them more esthetically pleasing to look more like cliff sides, which was probably more for the visitor experience rather than for the animals'.   

Funniest species name of the day: The Bongo 

What really struck a chord with me with this zoo was that it had free admittance, or rather free admittance together with putting forward information about wild life conservation .  Now you might just think that I'm cheap and on a student's budget but having free admittance to the zoo really opened up for new possibilities. St. Louis Zoo had really put a lot of thought in effort in reaching out with their conservation and research method to the public and with free admittance so many people were able to come there and take part of that message. I saw hundreds after hundreds of school kids coming there today and all sorts of other people coming there today and as you walked through the zoo you could hear them  reading out load and actively take part in the information available to them. To reach out and educate so many people, and especially kids can only be summed up with one word by me: Amazing. All in all, the St. Louis Zoo was a great experience.

There wasn't just a lot of mammals but also a reptiles and insects and each one of them had a house of their own that was filled to the brim with different species.

       
Largest snake I've ever seen, the green anaconda! Hand for size comparison.

I think Sandra, who also does her Master's, should come here and expand her dataset ;)

After my visit to the Zoo I went to St. Louis Art Museum which is one of the largest art museums in the U.S It had really nice collections of artifacts from different historical eras from all over the world that I found interesting as well as nice paintings.

The museum.

View from the museum.

Statue of St. Louis.

In less than 24h it's takeoff time! I came down with travel fever a few days ago and have been checking all the little things I could possibly think of and wandering around with all sorts of paranoia that I will forget something or that something will go wrong. I've basically been shifting back and forth between being really nervous and so happy I could almost jump up and down in excitement and everything in between and all at the same time. Despite it seeming like a lot of worrying about nothing and just a mind bomb with thoughts and emotions flying all over the place, I'm very glad that it is like this. After all, what would an adventure be without a little suspense? If I wasn't so nervous and excited about this all at the same time, it would almost feel a bit dull. I think of all the great stories you heard throughout your life, both real and fictional. About people about to embark upon an adventure, not really knowing what to expect on their journey into the unknown.  Here I stand, ready for the first steps of my own journey.

"Bring me that horizon!"-Jack Sparrow

"...plans are useless but planning is indispensable" - D. Eisenhower

I don't know much about Mr. Eisenhower myself, but those words I have really taken to heart. Even though the main focus of my trip will be about my Master's Thesis there will be some time over for other things. I've been planning to do a number of activities during my stay and hopefully I will be able to do some and maybe even most of them. I'm not only a fan of planning, however, but also of making lists, rankings and so on and because of this I have made *drum role*:

TOP 5 THINGS I WANT TO DO DURING MY STAY IN THE U.S

Number 5- Flag is Up Farms

This one is a bit on the lower half of the list because it is a bit more difficult to do then the others but never the less would be an amazing experience. Flag is Up Farms is where the famous horse trainer Monty Roberts lives and works. The farm is open for visitors daily and I would love to see it with my own eyes. However, the farm is located in northern California and is located on the country side so getting there might be difficult. Nevertheless visiting would be amazing.

Number 4 - Saint Louis Zoo

Saint Louis Zoo is said to be one of the leading zoos when it comes to animal management, conservation and research. In other words; like a small ethology christmas! Saint Louis is not far away from where I live and I really hope to make multiple visits to it.

Number 3- See an American Football Game

Every time me and my family have gone to the U.S we have always talked about going to a football game, but we never actually whent to one. I always thought American Football seems like pretty fun sport with its rugby like elements. My hope is to go and see the Missouri team "Rams" play in Saint Louis.

Number 2 - New York

I wanted to see New York for some time and hope to go there on a weekend trip at some point. The reasons to go to New York deserves a top five of its own (Perhaps a future blog post?). Mainly it's Central Park that has caught my interest and I would like to spend a whole day just exploring it.

Number 1 - Experience North American Nature

On my earlier trips to North America I have fallen in love with the wonderful nature and wildlife. I really hope to get the chance to go exploring in at least one and hopefully several nature preserves and see some fantastic North American species'.

I have the visa, the tickets are booked and in a few weeks I'll be leaving my hometown to spend six months in the states. To stay in touch with my Master's class (hence the reason to why the blog is in English) and all you other wonderful people back home I will be keeping this little travel blog. I hope to update the blog a tidbit every now and then with my escapades and interesting events from my life across the Atlantic. First of all I guess an explanation to the reason for my journey is in order. I've come to my final year in my studies to become an ethologist, and thus it is time to me to spend a year collecting data for and writing my Master's thesis. Basically, I will be spending my time in the U.S with conducting a study concerning how cats react to different tastes and what they like or dislike. I've been working all spring with designing the experiments and I'm really excited to see how it will all come together once I'm there. I'll be living and working  in the North East of Missouri which is a part of the Mid West and located in the center of the U.S On my earlier trips to the U.S I've only been to the West Coast and Hawaii so I'm really curious to see a new side of the country.

Taking the chance to live abroad is something that I've thought about for many years and a chance I've been really waiting for. Being only a few weeks away from leaving is almost a surreal feeling. The preparations and planning that I've made during the whole spring feels more like a mix between some side project in school and a daydream. It's impossible for me to comprehend what is yet to come and that this is actually happening. It's just something that I can't wrap my head around. I've followed travel blogs from different people that I've known who in one way or another have conquered the world in their own way and I must admit, how I have envied them and been longing to do something similar. So all of a sudden, I was presented with the opportunity. It's one of those things, you've been waiting, longing and thinking about it for so long and all of a sudden the moment is there for you to seize. I guess I almost feel like a baby bird somehow, thinking about soaring through the sky for so long and then one day all off a sudden it is time to spread your wings and take flight.