I am so tired. It's only 6 pm...but I could drop into a deep sleep at any moment. A lot of people went to a party at Sean's house this afternoon. I feel badly that I'm not there, but I am just wiped. That's probably because I was out and about Madison all day. Instead of taking the day off, I rode about 20 miles to the outskirts of town. This city is set up very differently from any cities that I've been in. There is, of course, the capital buildings in the very center. The university is near the middle of the town. There's a pedestrian walkway with all the funky shops (sort of like in Europe). To get to a mall, you have to travel to the far end of either side of the city - there's a mall on the east side and one on the west side. The best part about this whole city is that MANY of the roads are designed for cyclists. There are bike lanes all OVER. University Ave (I think) is very similar to Commonwealth Ave in Boston, in terms of the amount of traffic. However, there's a curbed lane, especially for cyclists. Very cool.
At the mall, I saw a school bus unloading some students. All of them were carrying string instruments. Very curious, I thought, so I decided to follow. As it turned out, they were participants in a summer string/fiddle program, grades 4-8. Their culminating event was the performance at the Madison mall. I spoke with their teacher - she has a very good program and I have another contact!
