What Orientation Meant for Me: Baseball and the Iowa State Fair!

Warning: this post contains many pictures, because I saw lots of fun things this week!

This week Dan had orientation for medical school. Which for me, meant staying home during the day reading Harry Potter and then doing fun things in the evenings! On Tuesday night, we got to go to the Iowa Cubs game. They are the Minor League team for the Chicago Cubs (makes sense). They played the Reno Aces, who are the team associated with the D-backs, whom I detest. Needless to say, I cheered for the Cubs. We didn't stay the whole time, so I don't know who won, but it was fun. We sat with a bunch of our new friends and Dan even bought me an Icee!

The lovely Principal Park.

Then on Wednesday night, there was supposed to be a picnic, but it got cancelled. Instead, we got a lovely thunderstorm that pretty much blew my mind. I was making dinner while watching TV, and then it started to rain, which was fantastic because Iowa is in the worst drought since the 1930s. But it didn't just rain. It POURED. Buckets and buckets. And then the wind started up and we pretty much had a big river down the street in front of us and there was thunder and lightning and the sky was very dark. Then I heard a weird noise and opened the door (and got very wet) and realized they were sirens. SIRENS!! So I looked at the TV and it didn't say anything about a tornado warning, so I kept making dinner. Then the TV man told me that there was no tornado, but a severe thunderstorm and that they run the sirens if there are winds over 70 mph, which there were. So the sirens continued on for a while, and Dan told me that he had been evacuated to the school's tornado shelter underground. Fancy. But then the sky cleared and everything was great. But Dan was late for dinner.

Thursday night was pretty much the best. No, it was the best. Because we got to experience the IOWA STATE FAIR! It was so much fun. I had spent the day looking online at the foods and attractions that would be there, so I was very excited. We went in the evening with some of our new friends. First we went to the petting zoo, where we saw fun animals. I didn't touch anything though, because I was too scared.

An emu! Dan said he didn't like it.

Llama didn't want his picture taken.

Kangaroo looked sad. He just sat there and let me take his picture. He had HUGE feet.

Lonely Porcupine.

Baby zebras! They were my favorite.

I don't know what this is, but he was with the camels.

Baby goat.

After the petting zoo, we moved on. We saw a bunch of native fish, and then we found a street full of food vendors. Dan and I got friend oreos, which were delicious! They had powdered sugar on them and were very, very good.

See, Dan loved his.

Then things sort of turn into a blur, but we got more food and saw some sculptures of Snow White, the Evil Queen, the Seven Dwarfs, and a cow, all made entirely out of BUTTER! Yup, butter. Here is proof:

The double bacon corn dog. A corn dog, wrapped in bacon, dipped in batter, and fried again. Dan (mostly) enjoyed it.

Then we went and saw more animals. We saw the fair's biggest pig (named Reggie), some giant cows, cute pigs that were oinking, silly sheep, and horses.

Giant udder, and crazy udder veins.

Dan took this picture. I should've known better...

Reggie.

Reggie's friend, who liked to sleep with his tongue out.

He was oinking and I loved it.

Honestly, this guy freaked me out a bit.

He had very kind eyes.

I watched this guy for a few minutes. He somehow got his little coat off his body, but couldn't manage to get it off of his head. He kept stepping on it and it was very, very funny.

Gymnast sheep!

I also got pizza and lemonade at the fair, and Dan got a German chocolate funnel cake, which was pretty much just a funnel cake with some coconut cream on top. Which is definitely not what German chocolate cake is. But oh well! It was a very, very fun night and I can't wait to go back next year!