So much for posting on Mondays. Oh well. We had another great weekend - this time involving a visit to a friend of Ivan's from Jr High. The strange thing is: she also works for Ernst & Young! She and her family live in Charlotte, so we caught a quick flight down on Friday and spent the weekend with them. She and her husband are both from Russia and have been in the states for about 3 years. They have an adorable son who just turned 11 months old. He is so easy going and has such a sweet personality. We spent a lot of time catching up and hanging out, but also spent a day sightseeing in Charlotte. We went to the Visitor's Center and got a map of a self-guided walking tour of the city. We opted for the "Historical Walk." At first glance, with over 90 points of "historical" interest, we were quite impressed. However, as the walk continued, we found that more than 3/4 of the points of "historical" interest turned out to be condominiums that were built in the last 10 years. We quickly tired of walking just to see a bunch of condos, so we scoured the map for actual points of interest. It boiled down to just visiting a cemetery, an old fire house, and a really old purple home that is now a restaurant. We learned that the Bank of America Tower is currently the tallest building in the city and it seems that there is some shady work behind the scenes involving money changing hands that keeps it that way (ie, proposals for taller structures get rejected by the city). It reminds me of St. Petersburg, Russia, where we were told that there is a max building height imposed on the city, but the governor (or mayor) - who is receiving "contributions" from a government-run gas company - has approved an exception to that rule for said gas company.

Anyways, we went to church in Charlotte on Sunday and had a relaxing afternoon before catching our flight home later in the day. Below are some shots from the plane.

View of Charlotte

View of Manhattan

Labels: Quick Trip