Back to reality… or sort of

I am back in Cincinnati and as odd as it might sound, I'm enjoying it. I spent the last month in San Francisco and although I didn’t accomplish virtually anything of what I wanted to, it was a great vacation. The main highlights of my visit were as usual, the weekends.

The first weekend, Nate and I babysat Ash, Pudding, and Junior; three crazy cats that live in Oakland with James & Sarah, Nate’s friends.

The following weekend was actually pretty intense, we went with Mike, Yen and John (more of Nate’s friends) to Yosemite for a climbing weekend. This was my first time really climbing outdoors and it was CRAZY-LOQUISIMO, I was pretty excited and a little bit nervous I think. I wasn’t really afraid of the high or the exposure feeling but of my strength and climbing skills. I just started to “regularly” climb in March so I don’t really think I can show off any kind of technique and the same goes for my arms and fingers strength. Anyway, there I was and all I had to do was climb to find out how good or bad I could be.

In spite of all the deliberation done by Nate and his friends about easy beginners routes for me, Nate and I made a mistake and ended up climbing Uncle Fanny http://www.supertopo.com/rockclimbing/route.html?r=yochuncl, a 5.7 route instead of Aunt Fanny a 5.4 one. It was hard but nothing really out of this world and all my yelling was more for the natural fare of the first time than anything else (haha).

Based on my great performance we thought that perhaps I was ready to try Bishop’s Terrace http://www.supertopo.com/rockclimbing/route.html?r=yochbish a classic 5.8 Yosemite hand crack, unfortunately we didn’t take into account my zero experience with “hand cracks”. Oh well, I don’t even remember how long it took me, but I do remember me crying after realizing it was too much for me. Especially because it was way longer than what I should’ve tried for my first time (haha again), so by the time I got to the hard part I was really exhausted and needed a break; recommendations, directions and sure some Kleenex would’ve helped.

I managed to make it, but I was so sore and tired after all, that even thinking was kind of hard. I believe that is how I agreed to engage with the next day adventure.

The next day, we got up early ready to face a whole new and long day, at least for me. We made Royal Arches http://www.supertopo.com/rockclimbing/route.html?r=yoraroya a 16 pitch route that would take us at least eight hours to get to the top. I actually did it pretty good and didn’t cry until our way down. There was only one trouble maker pitch “a classic crack” that I happily avoided by hanging on the rope. After 12 hours of adventure, we had some deserved not quite delicious pizza but good enough at that moment. Then straight to San Francisco where I slept for nearly 15 hours while good Nate went back to work, and that was it. Now that I think about it, we never celebrated in a proper way. Umm, better now than ever!!!.

The following weekend I went to visit some friends in Houston, nothing exciting to share about it. It’s Houston, Texas after all. No, what actually happened was that my friends were having sort of a family crisis, so it wasn’t the happiest weekend ever, but I got to spend some time with them and that’s what matters.

The next weekend, oh my… the next weekend!!! It was kind of the most expected day among Nate’s community. Summer Celebration was just about to start and Saida, Jesse, Nate and I went for it, although we had our own previous one hosted by Jesse at his very nice place in Berkeley.

Anyway, the official Summer Celebration was at Brunslair, you can check it out here http://www.bruinslair.com/home.php it’s a couple of years outdated but the main information is there and it hasn’t changed that much, I think.

Apparently the summer celebration used to be a crazy, liberal, revolutionary, free and open minded party in the middle of the woods that lasted for couple of days. Now it’s pretty much the same, but without the craziness. Or at least that I saw. People were mostly hanging out, getting red, playing board games, cooking, watching movies, riding bikes or hiking creeks, ah dancing of course it’s a party that I’m talking about. As you can see it wasn’t crazy at all. Apparently Nate’s community used to be quite wild, but all their parties I have gone to seem to me more like family/kids oriented reunions.

This celebration happens to be during the 4^th of July, since we were in the woods, fireworks were forbidden, thus I have spent the first week of July for the third time in a row in this country and I haven’t seen yet any of its popular and light full independence celebration.

The end of this party was the beginning of my farewell, I think that’s why I was so grumpy... sad grumpy! It wasn’t pretty, and once more, maybe that’s the reason why I didn’t really like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Well, also because it was too gross to my taste.

Finally last Friday after 15 minutes of packing, I was ready to give some sunshine to empty Cincinnati, as my friends mentioned. So Nate took me to the airport and without a single tear we said goodbye.

I was supposed to start working as soon as Monday afternoon and thinking of that I decided to end up my vacation celebration the “beautiful game”. I watch both games on Saturday and Sunday followed by the inevitable afterwards party at the Colombians house, better known as la Casa del Ritmo.

On Monday I was promptly at where I was supposed to be, unfortunately I was by myself. As you might imagine no internship can start without an academic supervisor, and it wasn’t until yesterday afternoon that I finally found her.

Meanwhile, I was taking advantage of my western-time state of mind, going out and chatting with friends until 3 and 4 a.m. and getting happily up at noon or after.

But as I said before, I reached my boss yesterday and today I went to the check in interview (paper work and so on) and I am officially starting on Tuesday at 9am, which means I get four more days of vacation and I am going to have some fun, particularly on Saturday when I’ll be sky diving. Check me out soon guys (I mean the blog), it’ll get hot!!!