Ann Arbor

     So Ann Arbor is a really nice place from what we have seen so far. There are literally trees everywhere! There are parts of Ann Arbor that don't have dense tree coverage but these areas are highly populated and are mostly paved with asphalt and concrete such as campus, the city and other shopping areas.



The main road that is close to our apartment.

     The University of Michigan's campus is really big compared to WSU's campus and much flatter. West of campus there are a lot of ethnic restaurants around campus including a Mongolian BBQ which we might try out soon. The campus is surrounded by a few large buildings and small shops that give it a college town feel. The campus is smoke-free, has three recreation buildings, a library that looks like it is from Harry Potter, and is so large that there are three sections which are North Campus, Central Campus, and South Campus.

     We live by North Campus which has the Motts Children's hospital (which is top rated), the engineering and computer science buildings and the old Pfizer research compound which UM just bought for research purposes. Not surprising we have an automotive engineering program.

     Central Campus has the majority of class buildings and libraries. The photo below has the Rackham graduate school in the background which Arielle and I are apart of. We have only walked on central campus once to get our ID cards and went through a few buildings.

    We have not been to South Campus yet but it is mainly the football stadium which seats 109,901 people but usual holds 110,000. The record attendance for the stadium is 113,090 people at the 2010 season opener. There are also other sporting areas on South Campus such as tennis courts, a golf course, and one of the three recreation buildings.

   This weekend we went to the Henry Ford Museum which was very interesting and had a lot of stuff including trains, cars, planes, machines, and much more.

A Wright brothers replica plane with some of the original fabric.

    After the ford museum we went to Detroit and went through the GM building and saw Canada across the water. After seeing the city center we drove through some of the city which was in terrible condition including buildings that were graffitied, burned, and/or windows broken out.

The GM Building

    Overall Ann Arbor is very different from Spokane including the shopping (Ikea, Whole Foods, and many others), weather which is like Spokane in temperature but is more humid and has more storms including tornadoes, and the animals. We have seen a wild turkey, road killed foxes, larger squirrels (that are grey on top and reddish orange on the bottom), a mom raccoon with two babies in a dumpster, cardinals, fireflies, marmots, and I am sure many more to come.