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philenaIt's too hot not to, although for most of this summer, being buried six
feet down, where the earth is doubtlessly nice and cool, has been a
very attractive prospect. I wouldn't want to be resting in the coolth
there alone, though. Daniel's here! Huzzah! Isn't he a cutie?
(He's the one with the beard. I'm in orange.) For those of you who are
observant, you might notice that we are somewhat warmly dressed for
summer, whatever the location. This is because all the pictures we've
taken together since the summer began have been on my 20-year-old
Pentax because he said he wanted a photo album. If you want to see what
the pictures are of, you must come knock at my door (for those of you
in other countries, you must wait patiently till next year) and ask
nicely to be shown. I will give you a few hints,
though.
Berkeley! Lots of good food, lots of pot, lots of weird hippies on the streets being odd.
Tilden Regional Park! Duckies, water. Undocumented rose gardens nearby.
Yosemite! Bears, foxes, rocks, birds, lizards, succulents, Yosemite falls, Bridalveil falls, Vernal and Nevada falls, mule trains, lots of granite monoliths, lots of mosquitoes, lots of views and turn-offs on the road over to these vistae. Glacier Point was the best. Since the high country was still snowed in (the Tioga road, which leads to the high country, opened up the day we left, which was totally unfair.), most of the hikes we went on (if you decide to be somewhat stringent on what is called a hike, then all of them. Mirror meadow is a stroll.) went from the Yosemite valley up to the top, and then down again. This involved switchbacks. Many of them. back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. I grew to hate them, but also to love them, and to know them in an intimate way with which all of you who have written super-awsome papers at 6:00 in the morning when it's due at 8:00 the same day will be familiar. I also discovered a love of dried mangoes, and realized that those lovely free nalgene bottles that Student Care was giving away last summer are not the best type to take hiking. The amount of hiking that Daniel and I did left us waddling like ducks after our first day there (Or rather, left me waddling; I think he was just pretending to waddle a) so I wouldn't feel bad and b) because he likes ducks), so much so that we could tell who had been hiking recently not by their gear, sweat stains, or the scent of mosquito repellent wafting off of them, but by the ease of their gait.
Chicago! Hot.
No, that's not really fair. Chicago is nice in the summer, even if informal research suggests that this is the hottest summer in the past six to ten years, possibly since that heat wave in the summer of '95. Heather has been subletting with us (buddy from Paris program: she's in blue) and Daniel has been here (!) and we've gone to the Grant Park film festival to see "Citizen Kane" and to Ravinia with Travis and Colleen, and also with Daniel's parents. They came into the city for his birthday, and so did my parents, and the long-awaited and feared meeting between the two sets of progenitors went so well that they totally ignored us throughout the entire dinner and told baby stories.
Other things Chicago has to offer include lake swimming, which would be nicer if the lifeguards would let us go out deeper, Japanese gardens and the wooded isle, high tea service at Russian Teatime (pronounced Tee-AH-tee-may), bookstores, reading Anna Karenina for the first time (a highly-recommended activity) and fairy tales. I've always been somewhat interested in them, especially since the Tolkien class, and when I found a copy of Grimm's tales in a bargain bin outside O'Gara and Wilson's, I bought it and read it, and have now started on Andersen's fairy tales, with the intention of continuing on to a collection of Russian tales I have had for a long time now. I suspect my interest in them is also fueled by my desire not to read Avanesov's Fonetika Sovremennogo Russkogo Jakyka (yes, it is in Russian, and no, I still don't speak Russian very well), which is the preliminary reading necessary for my BA. Daniel, however, has been researching his master's thesis every day, up to seven hours each day, along with being my domestic, washing my dishes, and doing my laundry while I'm at work, so I figure that when I leave for California with him for the rest of the month on Saturday, I can make myself get a little work done. If not, please remind me sharply.
Berkeley! Lots of good food, lots of pot, lots of weird hippies on the streets being odd.
Tilden Regional Park! Duckies, water. Undocumented rose gardens nearby.
Yosemite! Bears, foxes, rocks, birds, lizards, succulents, Yosemite falls, Bridalveil falls, Vernal and Nevada falls, mule trains, lots of granite monoliths, lots of mosquitoes, lots of views and turn-offs on the road over to these vistae. Glacier Point was the best. Since the high country was still snowed in (the Tioga road, which leads to the high country, opened up the day we left, which was totally unfair.), most of the hikes we went on (if you decide to be somewhat stringent on what is called a hike, then all of them. Mirror meadow is a stroll.) went from the Yosemite valley up to the top, and then down again. This involved switchbacks. Many of them. back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. I grew to hate them, but also to love them, and to know them in an intimate way with which all of you who have written super-awsome papers at 6:00 in the morning when it's due at 8:00 the same day will be familiar. I also discovered a love of dried mangoes, and realized that those lovely free nalgene bottles that Student Care was giving away last summer are not the best type to take hiking. The amount of hiking that Daniel and I did left us waddling like ducks after our first day there (Or rather, left me waddling; I think he was just pretending to waddle a) so I wouldn't feel bad and b) because he likes ducks), so much so that we could tell who had been hiking recently not by their gear, sweat stains, or the scent of mosquito repellent wafting off of them, but by the ease of their gait.
Chicago! Hot.
No, that's not really fair. Chicago is nice in the summer, even if informal research suggests that this is the hottest summer in the past six to ten years, possibly since that heat wave in the summer of '95. Heather has been subletting with us (buddy from Paris program: she's in blue) and Daniel has been here (!) and we've gone to the Grant Park film festival to see "Citizen Kane" and to Ravinia with Travis and Colleen, and also with Daniel's parents. They came into the city for his birthday, and so did my parents, and the long-awaited and feared meeting between the two sets of progenitors went so well that they totally ignored us throughout the entire dinner and told baby stories.
Other things Chicago has to offer include lake swimming, which would be nicer if the lifeguards would let us go out deeper, Japanese gardens and the wooded isle, high tea service at Russian Teatime (pronounced Tee-AH-tee-may), bookstores, reading Anna Karenina for the first time (a highly-recommended activity) and fairy tales. I've always been somewhat interested in them, especially since the Tolkien class, and when I found a copy of Grimm's tales in a bargain bin outside O'Gara and Wilson's, I bought it and read it, and have now started on Andersen's fairy tales, with the intention of continuing on to a collection of Russian tales I have had for a long time now. I suspect my interest in them is also fueled by my desire not to read Avanesov's Fonetika Sovremennogo Russkogo Jakyka (yes, it is in Russian, and no, I still don't speak Russian very well), which is the preliminary reading necessary for my BA. Daniel, however, has been researching his master's thesis every day, up to seven hours each day, along with being my domestic, washing my dishes, and doing my laundry while I'm at work, so I figure that when I leave for California with him for the rest of the month on Saturday, I can make myself get a little work done. If not, please remind me sharply.
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Date: 2005-08-09 05:08 pm (UTC)