Christmas Break 2002 + Trip to Madison (20th Dec - 28th Dec 2002)

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Christmas was barely a week after the finals. And after my initial plan of heading to London over winter break fell through (much due to my laziness in searching for airline tickets), and not being able to bear the thought of spending Christmas alone on an empty campus, I once again followed my friend Nate home to Brodhead immediately after finals. Hence began part 2 of my adventures in Brodhead, which turned out to be more than an adventure for me! On the left shows a complete family picture of the Burchells.

I guess the "highlight" of Christmas would be the opening of presents. Unlike back at home where the adults would get the presents for the kids, and the kids would be ripping the presents apart before they even find out who the presents were from (not that I think any of them actually care!), it was a unique experience to actually sit around with the whole family, taking turns to open presents and showing them to everyone. Watching the little ones open presents was perhaps the greatest joy. Their faces literally light up with delight upon opening a present and finding a toy they really liked. What can I say... a child's innocence is such joy indeed.

More pictures of the little ones with their presents. These show the littlest one who still probably didn't know what was going on, getting buried under wrappers and presents. Little Davey is such a dear. =) Fact is, I did more than just open presents over Christmas break. Nate and I watched Lord of the Rings II with some other of his friends, and I once again had the blessing of good food (twice!) with his grandparents and relatives. And I found out that it is a great embarrassment for a male to get lost and ask for directions. Hmmm... =P

On Thursday (26th Dec), Nate and I followed his dad to Madison (which was a 45 minute drive away from Brodhead), where he works. Waking up at 4.30am was a real challenge, but we made it nonetheless. So here began my very first trip to the capital of Wisconsin -- Madison. After an early breakfast at Denny's, our first stop was the State Capital building (Nate had the van while his dad was at work). That's the picture on the left. The right picture shows the roof of the interior -- the dome.

I think the Capital Building houses the Supreme Court or something like that. It seems to function much like the Singapore Supreme Court, although honestly the Singapore Supreme Court very much pales in comparison, in terms of both grandeur and size! This photo and the one below show the designs and pictures on the walls. Though I'm not an arty-farty sort of person, I was really impressed by the architecture and design. =)

There were also many "exhibits" around, but I could only remember two. One is some (declaration of independence??) letter signed by some very important president (??) I think. I better not say anymore because I've no clue about American history! The other is actually a board about the new quarters that are minted every four years (??) or something like that, but what is most interesting as Nate explained to me is that each time the quarters get to be designed by 4(??) different states I think. Which means that there will be 4 new designs of quarters every 4 years, each depicting something of significance to each particular state. The board showed the designs submitted by some people in Wisconsin as Wisconsin will be one of the 4 states to have their design on the new quarters in 2004 I think. (Please don't quote me on any of the dates or figures... for some reason everything to me has a "4" in it -- 4 states, 4 years, 2004... Nate, if you're reading this, can you verify these? My head is rather muddled right now...)

After that, we exited the Capital Building and came to State Street. I don't know what it is about this street, but Nate said we had to walk down it just so that we could say we did it. And rightfully so, because I was asked whether I went down State Street when I came back and told someone who lived in Madison that I went there over break! =P So Wisconsin is known as the "Dairy State" or "Cheese State" simply because a lot of diary products (I presume cheese in particular!) is produced here. These are pictures along State Street. With a "House of Wisconsin Cheese" shop. =P

Our next stop (and pretty much our last stop) was Monona Terrace, built by some famous architect. The picture on the left shows the terrace itself. The walk along the lake was great. Unlike the Singapore coastline where the waters tend to be terribly polluted and large ships can be seen some distance away, this is just a whole stretch of water, with the sun rising from the horizon. A further distance away, off another smaller water body, there were people ice-fishing on the frozen lake. I don't know, but sitting alone out in the cold on a frozen lake to fish doesn't sound like much fun to me!

A very nice photo taken of the stones right beside the sidewalk along Monona Lake. Obviously not taken by me! For more scenic pictures of Madison, check out "My Photos" on the link at the bottom of this page. Well... we actually finished exploring Madison in half a morning, although my friend from Madison objected vehemently that those were all that Madison had to offer. =P The rest of that day was spent walking in the mall in Madison, and sitting at StarBucks in Barnes and Noble while waiting for his dad to knock off work.

But what is worth mentioning about these extra 3 days was the extra time I had with my friend and brother-in-Christ. I'm sure this doesn't make a very interesting read, but I definitely appreciated the conversations we had and the nights of sharing and praying for each other in his room. I don't think you can get to know someone really well when in a group and having fun, and so I really treasured these times we had getting to know each other in a deeper way as brothers-in-Christ. This was something significant during my trip there, so I have to write this down. So there. =) These are just 2 photos taken in Madison, one outside the State Capital, the other along Monona Lake.

Special thanks to Nate Burchell for some of the photos. Do check out the rest of the photos taken over this break in the link "My Photos" below. I did not include every photo here simply because there were too many. =)

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