While in Iowa, I spent some time in Decorah, IA- home to Luther College, the Upper Iowa River, The Vesterheim museum, a great restaurant, a co-op, a brewery, a winery, and $1 games, rentals, and beers on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at Oneota Bowling Lanes.
Among the many great programs at Luther College is their music and art program. While walking through one of the art buildings, one hears operatic singing, violins, quartet practice, all coming from the rehearsal/practice rooms. I visited one of their museums on-campus, and in addition to beautiful art, there were some interactive pieces--including the one pictured here.
The idea is that sound actually comes from your throat and not your mouth. Which I never realized is actually how those tiny cell phones that don’t reach your mouth pick up sound.
The upper Iowa River is really neat, in my opinion more so in the summer months when one can lay in a tube and float down. But winter at the river also produces some magnificent vistas.
There is an entire Viking ship inside of the
Vesterheim museum! Pretty neat huh? The museum also houses some houses :) these are representations of the first settlers from the Nordic countries to Decorah and surrounding towns.
If you didn’t notice that the area is of Nordic ancestry by all of the beautiful tall, blond, and light eyed people around, you would know because almost everything has “Viking” or “Nordic” in the title.
My favorite restaurant in Decorah is Rubaiyat. (from their
website: “The name "Rubaiyat" derives from a collection of poetry written over 1000 years ago by a Persian gentleman named Omar Khayyam. The poems are a testimony of living life to its fullest with the help of good food and great wine and together, the joy that they can bring to life.”) Their food is great, their wine list is impressive, and their service is fantastic. Although I personally don’t like beer, it’s fun to see what people get on “mystery beer night.” you pay one price to pick one out of a bag and you could get anything from a domestic (and even local from the brewery up the street) to an exotic beer…luck of the draw I guess.
One would never think that is a winery in Decorah, and much less that they have wine tasting. Well, they do-even when it's snowing! Their wines are mostly desert wines or heavily fruit based.
$1 bowling…let just say that I got some pretty sweet back spin on my ball now.
I loved eating when I went home for breaks or when my parents came to visit--all I could talk about was food and eat it. They always asked whether or not I was eating at all at school. .One of the things I came to realize was that I was no longer enjoying my food. Anything tastes great with Ranch dressing while your in college. I was no longer spending time with my food like my family does when they cook. Last year I lived in a wonderful community house where a lot of cooking occurred. We had community dinner, switching who cooked each week, and we cooked for ourselves and each other the rest of the time. The conversations I had while preparing meals in the kitchen, eating meals together, or just getting a glass of water from the kitchen and finding myself hours later still there talking, will be ones that I will never forget. As a community we tried to be as environmentally friendly and in line with social justice ideals as we could. We composted (yes, we even had compost worms!), recycled (each floor had about 7 different containers to separate recyclables), tried to not buy brands that we knew had unjust policies and practices, and participated in Food Not Bombs (which is a total food-influencing-life experience in itself…check out where there is one near you). 
Now that I’ve graduated, and am no longer living in a winter wonderland, I decided to plant some of my own food. Literally knowing where my food comes from and knowing that I took part in really creating my own food. Yummy organic purple spinach, radicchio, three kinds of tomatoes, lettuce.
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