I've had surprisingly little internet access for the past week or so, first because I was at a tournament and then because aron kept his computer at work all week and then because I went up to rocester for a wedding this past weekend. I'm still in the city until we get the couch from tammy's apartment to aron's tonight, but I went to mudd to steal some internet. The point is i'm not sure where to start....

ommegang
In general a fun tournament because there was camping and beer involved and because we had a 3 hour bye in the middle of the day and we went swimming in a lake. That might have been the highlight of my weekend. Levitation holmes can be frustrating because there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus on what kind of team we are. My summer league team knows that it's casual so people play more relaxed, move the disc fast, and take every player for what they are. Parts of levho want to be competitive and parts of it want to relax and i'm not sure that the two parts are ever going to agree. Also we hold the disc too long.

monday- thursday
I kept very busy for someone who was a total bum. I had lunch dates every day and babysat max every afternoon and then played frisbee 3 days out of 4. Max might be the cutest 4 year old I know. He kept me busy though and I had a lot of explaining to do...

him: where did the universe come from?
me: people disagree and no one really knows but scientists think that there was a particle a long time ago that exploded into the universe.
him: where did the particle come from?
me: umm.... no one really knows. some people say god made it.
him: what's god.
me:.......::::oh shit:::::.......

a couple days later....
him: when the particle exploded, there were people in it, right? really little people?
me: well first there was nothing then there were animals then there were monkeys and people came from monkeys
him: (points at 2 blind people) why do those people have their eyes scrunched like this? (scrunches nose up)
me:........

Yeah so I had a good time hanging out with the 4 year old. Aron was working really long hours so after wudi I'd pick him up in yorktown and we'd make dinner. I was pretty domestic this week all around. It was nice to be in the city with not much else to do so i could see people and play frisbee and climb. Oh and I talked to leora and tracy and there's officially no place in new york that we can all live and afford. I'm screwed.

Friday-Sunday
Friday aron took off work and we drove up to niagara falls cause he had never been. It was still pretty impressive but I've seen it a couple times. It was a long drive and then we had to go another 2 hours to our hotel in rocester and then another 45 minutes to the groom's house for a pre-wedding party. One of his friends from undergrad was getting married in east bumfuck upstate.

The wedding sucked. Not to be mean but it was just about the opposite of any wedding I would ever have. The ceremony was very catholic and focused entirely on the community and god and very little on the couple. The bride was spazzing out up there. There was an awkward amount of time between the wedding and the reception. The reception was at a tacky place in a strip mall and involved a buffet and bad meatballs. On the upside, it did have an open bad and lots of dancing. But mike lui's wedding is basically my new standard for really good weddings and this came no where close. Aron's friends were all pretty cool but he hasn't kept in touch with a lot of them so i got to listen to a lot of mildly awkward conversations. All in all it was a pretty good weekend, but not how I would ever get married.

So now I'm back in new york, looking up apartments on craigslist and getting depressed. I'll probably drive back to MA tonight after couch moving. Tammy's just giving away this sweet black leather couch so i'm taking it. screw charity. But i don't have an apartment so aron gets it. lucky guy. =)

I've had surprisingly little internet access for the past week or so, first because I was at a tournament and then because aron kept his computer at work all week and then because I went up to rocester for a wedding this past weekend. I'm still in the city until we get the couch from tammy's apartment to aron's tonight, but I went to mudd to steal some internet. The point is i'm not sure where to start....

ommegang
In general a fun tournament because there was camping and beer involved and because we had a 3 hour bye in the middle of the day and we went swimming in a lake. That might have been the highlight of my weekend. Levitation holmes can be frustrating because there doesn't seem to be a clear concensus on what kind of team we are. My summer league team knows that it's casual so people play more relaxed, move the disc fast, and take every player for what they are. Parts of levho want to be competative and parts of it want to relax and i'm not sure that the two parts are ever going to agree. Also we hold the disc too long.

monday- thursday
I kept very busy for someone who was a total bum. I had lunch dates every day and babysat max every afternoon and then played frisbee 3 days out of 4. Max might be the cutest 4 year old I know. He kept me busy though and I had a lot of explaining to do...

him: where did the universe come from?
me: people disagree and no one really knows but scientists think that there was a particle a long time ago that exploded into the universe.
him: where did the particle come from?
me: umm.... no one really knows. some people say god made it.
him: what's god.
me:.......::::oh shit:::::.......

a couple days later....
him: when the particle exploded, there were people in it, right? really little people?
me: well first there was nothing then there were animals then there were monkeys and people came from monkeys
him: (points at 2 blind people) why do those people have their eyes scrunched like this? (scrunches nose up)
me:........

Yeah so I had a good time hanging out with the 4 year old. Aron was working really long hours so after wudi I'd pick him up in yorktown and we'd make dinner. I was pretty domestic this week all around. It was nice to be in the city with not much else to do so i could see people and play frisbee and climb. Oh and I talked to leora and tracy and there's officially no place in new york that we can all live and afford. I'm screwed.

Friday-Sunday
Friday aron took off work and we drove up to niagara falls cause he had never been. It was still pretty impressive but I've seen it a couple times. It was a long drive and then we had to go another 2 hours to our hotel in rocester and then another 45 minutes to the groom's house for a pre-wedding party. One of his friends from undergrad was getting married in east bumfuck upstate.

The wedding sucked. Not to be mean but it was just about the opposite of any wedding I would ever have. The ceremony was very catholic and focused entirely on the community and god and very little on the couple. The bride was spazzing out up there. There was an awkward amount of time between the wedding and the reception. The reception was at a tacky place in a strip mall and involved a buffet and bad meatballs. On the upside, it did have an open bad and lots of dancing. But mike lui's wedding is basically my new standard for really good weddings and this came no where close. Aron's friends were all pretty cool but he hasn't kept in touch with a lot of them so i got to listen to a lot of mildly awkward conversations. All in all it was a pretty good weekend, but not how I would ever get married.

So now I'm back in new york, looking up apartments on craigslist and getting depressed. I'll probably drive back to MA tonight after couch moving. Tammy's just giving away this sweet black leather couch so i'm taking it. screw charity. But i don't have an apartment so aron gets it. lucky guy. =)

A week in MA has not given me much to write about. I talk to people on the phone and try to think of something interesting I've done lately.....nothing. I get up in the morning late, have a cup of tea, do the suduko and then either read or shop or clean. In the past week I've finished The Confusion, Pride and Prejudice, The Passion Dream Book, the entire Harry Potter series, a couple of Louisa May Alcotts, and now I'm two books into the Chronicles of Narnia. All of those are re reads except the Confusion and the Chronicles, so its easier to fly through them.

I've been nearly as productive shopping as I have reading though its not nearly as fun. I now own 4 new suits, 3 dresses (2 for work, 1 cause I look hot in it), and a couple of shirts. I still need blouses and shoes but I'll do some of that when I'm in new york. And I helped eric buy lots of polo shirts when he was home even though I'm not such a fan of polo shirts.

The cleaning part has been because when I move out this time I'm going to actually move out and because I need to make room for new purchases. So I've been going through drawers and papers that haven't been touched since I was 13 or 14. Some of the stuff is fun; I've found old letters from karen and o malley and pictures from middle school; every one of my nails is a different color right now because I found all the crazy glitter polish from when I was 12; I made micheal put on a glitter butterfly tattoo with me so we both looked ridiculous. I like throwing things away too. It nice to know I never have to feel bad about not wearing the sweater my aunt gave me years ago; poof, its all in the trash. When I move to new york next, it will be with only the stuff I need and use.

Speaking of new york, I'm going to be in the city all next week. I'm driving to cooperstown today for the tournament this weekend and then I'll drive down to the city monday. I'm babysitting Max for a couple hours every day and I'll go to my first summer league games and try to have lunch with as many people as possible. Then friday me and aron are driving up to rochester for one of his friend's wedding. It's a hard week to pack for between camping, playing, being, and wedding. Should be fun though.

splitting time

I'm back in new york for the day and possibly tomorrow but then I'm heading back up to MA cause eric is going to be home. It's weird commuting between two cities. I've already done three back and forths in the last 2 weeks but they've all been for specific reasons and mostly quick. I'm not sure how many more I can do. It's a pretty expensive trip for one thing and I have no money. I'm glad I stuck around MA for easterns though. That was a lot of fun though we didn't win nearly as many as I would have liked. And I am sooooo out of shape. Tournaments usually don't feel that bad to me. Oh well, a couple weeks of running will clear that up.

More about Ireland....=)

Aron put up his pictures here http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajahmadia/tags/ireland/ but most of them are pretty bad. We took a lot of pictures of random landscapes and unimportant buildings and then forgot the camera at key times, like on our second hike. Most of the pictures of scary ridges and mist are from the first hike. Oh, the one of the giant cross is at th summit of the highest mountain in Ireland. Most of the really nice views are from our campsite and the pictures of us on horses are awesome.

Where was I? Wednesday? Wednesday was a travel day and therefore boring. We did our laundry and had a beer (one of many Guinesses). Thursday turned out to be another travel day. We were trying to see the Cliffs of Moher but it was so foggy that even standing at the top of them you couldn't tell if the drop was 1 m or 1000 m. We had worked really hard to fit them into our schedule too on the way up the coast to the second hike, and the weather was not cooperating. Oh well. We took a picture in front of the mural in the visiters center. That night we got into westport and the bus driver not only recommended a b&b, he dropped us off at it after everyone else had unloaded.

Friday: Our second and last hike up Croagh Patrick which is a historic pilgramige site. Pilgrims climb it barefooted on a certain day which has to be painful because its a real mountain and the ground is rough. We did a slightly different path which was beautiful but really windy. The mountain is just this giant lump right on the coast and there's no vegitation on it so the winds just whip off the water and pummel you the whole time you're climbing 500 m. At least it was a clear day and there was no chance of getting lost. The last 100 m especially was painfully windy and all up loose rocks. At the top is a chapel and a route with stations of the cross (7 our fathers, 7 hail marys, 2 creeds, walk around the chapel 7 times etc). Catholics are funny. On the way down I was trying to remember as much of the creed as I could. I wasn't doing so well (we believe in one god father almighty creator of heaven and earth....eternally begotten of the father god from god light from light...begotten and not made one in being with the father through him all good things come for us and for our salvation he came down from heaven and became man...) I got more of it than that. Parts of it our really beautiful and the cadance is clear in my head even when the words fail me.

Oh I almost forgot. We were going to walk back from the hike because it wasn't that far but the road got really windy and narrow so aron stuck out his thumb and we totally hitchhiked. A carpenter picked us up and drove us the couple miles and chatted with us about the election that day. We were so proud of ourselves. Of course when I told my parents, they were like "did we ever tell you about the time we hitched a ride on a freight train in germany...." They had to show me up. =)

Saturday night we were supposed to stay with one of the ultimate players we had met the weekend before but the plans fell through so we ended up just crashing in a hotel near the airport after I bought presents for my family and aron bought a really beautiful chess set for probably too much money. And we flew out sunday and played cards the whole plane ride back. It was a good trip.

back in the US of A

Actually I've been back since Sunday but I went up to MA on monday and then back to ny tuesday where i didn't have internet for a few days while i was staying at my cousins and then I went back up to MA thursday and now its friday.

Ireland was incredible. It's a great country and everything actually worked according to plan, including the plan that said that aron and I were going to get along really well for 10 days. This is as much a record for me as for anyone else because I was really bad about writing in a journal this trip, mostly because it was so wet most of the time....

Saturday: landed in Dublin, took a walking tour of the city that involved castles, went to a camping store to buy me a rain coat, realized that one euro was worth approximately $56, fought off jetlag and managed to stay away until the late hour of 5:30

Sunday: packed up our backpacks and walked around dublin, found a pick up ultimate game, played for 2 hours, got beers with ultimate players who are awesome, got on a 4 hour train to Killarney in the southwest of ireland

Monday: One of the best days ever.... 3 hour guided horseback ride in killarney national park to a castle with a really nice swedish girl and beautiful weather. So then we wanted to spend the afternoon getting to a campsite at the start of the trail we were going to climb the next day, but the closest bus only went to a town about 6 miles away. 6 miles didn't sound like much in the US but it sounded like more when we were actually in Killarney thinking about walking it with packs. After looking into all the options, we were like "fuck it, we'll walk" so we got on the bus to the nearest town (Kilorglin). We were just getting off the bus and getting our packs on when an older english couple started asking us where we were going and how we were getting there. When we told them, they volenteered to give us a ride even though it was out of their way! It was such a warm, fuzzy moment and they were so unbeleivably nice and they dropped us off at our remote campsite that overlooked mountains and lakes and we were the only ones there. It was pure joy. And then aron found out he passed qualifiers. Best day ever.

Tuesday: Climbed the tallest mountain in Ireland. Which was a terrible idea but really fun at the same time. It wasn't raining much at the bottom but when we got up around 500 m we were in the mist. There was no trail up the first part so we were going through bogs and following sheep trails and our feet were soaked. Despite our map, compass and altimeter, we climbed the wrong mountain. Finally we got on track and started really climbing and the mist increased and everytime we thought we were getting to the top, another ridge would appear. Finally we reached one summit and I started having intense virtigo because there was just white and nothing on all sides and the rain was starting so the trail was wet and treacherous.

Despite that, we kept going along a ridge that led to the tallest mountain, mt carentohil. It was much farther than we thought and it was along a ridge with drop offs on both side into pure white. Scary. About an hour later, we made it to the real summit at 1071 m and took a picture near the huge cross at the top. Then we started walking down. The wrong way. 300 m down the wrong way. Oh shit. It's getting late, its getting dark (or more misty) and we have to climb back to the top of the mountain to find the right trail. So we climbed the highest mountain in ireland twice. I was freaking out. We had left aron's pack at the first summit so there was no question of just picking a side and going down. We had to retrace our steps.

Obviously we made it down alive but we probably wouldn't have without a map, compass, altimeter and dumb luck and we didn't see any other hikers all day. I'm glad we did it, but i was terrified for about 80% of the time.

Ok, my chocolate chip irish cream pound cake needs to come out of the oven and i need to clean this house because levitation holmes it staying tonight and tommorrow while we play easterns but i'll continue the story later.