Midwest Welcome

So I traded in sunny Barcelona for Michigan. Why? Well to attend the Ross School of Business for my winter exchange. It's a long story as to why I chose to do a term in the US after deciding to go abroad for my MBA but I'm really glad I chose to do an exchange. 

To commemorate my first day at Ross I took some pictures of the building. Stephen Ross, CEO of the Related Companies donated $100 million to the school and thus the building was built and named after him. 

The atrium area. This is where most of the students hang out, eat lunch and see friends. 

Received my orientation packet. Full of semi-useful information like how to get around, what's there to do in Ann Arbor (drink...a lot) and some coupon books for cheap college food. God I missed that. Gyros and fries for $4.99!

So yeah it's pretty damn cold in Michigan. It's been almost two weeks since I've arrived and I don't think we've had a day over 33F. Most days this is what it looks like. Kinda gray, snowy with a bit of wind. 

The famous Law Quad. Wish the picture came out better but the cold was clouding up my camera. Looking at this picture it just looks like white with a streak of brown in the middle. Not the best picture. 

So I had time to kill during one of the weekdays and decided to check out the university's museum of natural history. Who goes to a natural history museum during their free time? Me. So suck it. 

Skull of a triceratops. 

Evolution bitches!! 

Just waiting for some mad scientist to extract the DNA from the mosquitoes inside to create dinosaurs. 

Mammoths. They may actually roam the earth again thanks to some crazy Japanese scientists who want to clone them. Yeah, that's a good idea. Didn't we already have a movie where someone did this and it turned out horribly? Let's clone gigantic pre-historic mammals and bring them back to life. The Japanese have a terrible track record with large monsters.

Need I say more?

The SO for some reason loves turtles so I took a picture of dead turtles for her. Aren't I romantic?

I feel like I'm actually in between the human and the chimp. 

Various ancestors of the homo sapien. Lots of homos in this display.

Replicating how they found the fossil. It's like a crime scene. 

Maybe it's just me but that T-Rex looks totally stoned. I can just imagine this is the look he'd have after a huge toke and then saying something like "I love FunYuns man. They're like Fun and they're Yun. Huh huh." 

Whoever wrote that title is my kind of guy/girl. FUNgus! Reminds me of one of my favorite jokes. 

A mushroom walks into a bar, and he goes up to the bartender to order a beer. The bartender points to a sign on the bar wall and says, "Can't you read: NO MUSHROOMS SERVED!" 

And the Mushroom says, "Awww c'mon, I'm a fungi". 

That picture and the ensuing description of sea lampreys gave me nightmares. "The sea lamprey's oval mouth contains concentric rings of sharp teeth, with a bony, rasping long tongue used to bore into its host." The pun they used did little to assuage any fear I had thanks to that picture. 

I think the artist has watched too much Karate Kid. The Stegosaurus's coach told him to sweep the leg and the T-Rex went all crane kick on him.

 

Karate fighting dinosaurs. I see a movie deal with the Syfy channel in the works.