Merry Christmas (eve)!
I can't believe how quickly this month has flown by! Since I can't really remember everything that's happened since my last update, I'm going to try and generally describe how I've been and further explain the really awesome stuff I've been up to more recently.
The first few weeks of December were spent finishing up everything for school. I got done with exams two weeks ago (12/10). Everything went splendidly - I got As in all of my classes that use a regular grading scheme, and passing grades in those which use pass/fail. I'm not really "excited" about this because I'm really trying to focus more on my actual learning and understanding of course material, and less so on grades. (Besides, a C is considered a failing grade at school now, so getting an A or B isn't just expected, it's required.) My schedule for next semester seems a little more stressful, because I'm in class from 9:30 until 3:15 solid Tuesday/Thursday, but I'll have a LOT of free time on M/W/F. The classes themselves will hopefully be interesting, too: I need to take classes on ethics in clinical psychology, another stats class (supposedly with an amazing professor), and research methods (myeh--how many classes have I had in this now?).
After I got done with exams, I went home for a couple of days to do some last-minute preparations for...my trip to California!
Graham (best friend from college) and I went to California for a week for two main reasons: to explore San Francisco (neither of us have been there before), and to go to Justin and Korina's wedding near Fresno, CA. We lived with Justin for a year and a half in college, so he's been a good roommate and a great friend, and we thought it would be a great excuse to go somewhere a little warmer for a week.
We left from O'Hare super early on Tuesday (12/15), around 5:45 am, and our flight was 5 hours long. With the time change, though, it was only 10:30 or so when we got there. Our first order of business (after eating!) was to meet up with Dmytro, the guy who was hosting us. Rather than stay at a hostel or hotel for too much money than we could afford, I found this guy online through the CouchSurfing.org website. If you haven't heard of this but love to travel, this is the perfect thing for you: it's a NPO that hosts a social networking website where people who are willing to host strangers at their house/apartment for free can communicate with people who need a place to stay, or vice versa. Dmytro lives in a beautiful area of downtown SF (near Russian Hill, if you know the area), with a view from his third-story apartment of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. In addition to hosting the two of us, Dmytro graciously offered to host a third "surfer" that week, a woman named Bradley (yes, I know, it's a unique name for a woman). Dmytro is 28, graduated with a law degree from Notre Dame, and has recently quit his job working at a law firm in SF because they were overworking him and he was feeling burned out. Bradley technically lives with her mother in Las Vegas, but she's been studying in ROME for the last 6 years, and is planning on moving to SF soon to get a master's degree in something related to international policy. In short, they are super awesome people.
Moments after finding Dmytro's apartment, the four of us sat down and just talked for almost two hours. We got to learn more about Dmytro's interests in law and his traveling experience, as well as hear a lot of stories about Rome and what it's like to live in Italy. That evening, Dmytro took me and Graham down to the Mission, the Mexican pseudo-equivalent of Chinatown in SF, where we had Mexican food so authentic that I could've had beef tongue or beef brain in my burrito instead of chicken, had I been able to stomach it. We then went out for drinks and just talked about random stuff. Oh yeah, also saved Dmytro from a conversation with a drunk woman who was yelling at him because he was pro-life and she was too intoxicated to argue with him reasonably. For your amusement, the conversation went a little like this:
Dmytro: I like the people in San Francisco, but sometimes the people here can be a little close-minded.
Woman: What do you mean? Give me an example.
Dmytro: Well, take abortion for example. I'm pro-life, and sometimes people get really angry about that without listening to my reasons.
Woman: (angry tirade about pro-life people, Christians being stupid, etc.)
Dmytro and me: ...
Dmytro (to me): Yeah, see what I mean?
Woman: Ok, if you're so smart, Mr. pro-life Christian, what do you think about women who are raped and get pregnant?
Dmytro: ...Well, personally, I--
Woman: See, you can't even come up with a logical reason, because there ISN'T ONE. You men all think the same, because it's different for you--you can just go inseminate everyone all over the place and just forget about them.
Dmytro (angrily): Look, I don't appreciate these sweeping judgments, just because I'm male doesn't mean--
Woman: Whatever, you pro-life people just don't understand proper logic. You're all a bunch of Sarah Palin lovers.
Me: Oooook! So, what is there to do in San Francisco? I've never been here before.
Woman: Oh, really? Well, there are some cool bars around here and neat places to check out...
On Wednesday, Dmtryo, Graham, Bradley and I went to Chinatown. It was a really awesome experience. This one was larger and more authentic than every other Chinatown I've been to, except the one I went to, ironically, in Japan. We ate at this little hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant that Dmytro loves. I didn't even know it was a restaurant or that it was even open, because they had some big curtain thing hanging just inside the door and you couldn't see inside. It might possibly have been the best Chinese food I have ever eaten. It was spicy and flavorful, but it wasn't "heavy" or greasy like other places. Simply superb. We then checked out Union Square and the shopping district nearby, and did lots of walking around the city afterwards. That night, while Bradley and Graham were meeting up with friends who lived in SF and they hadn't seen in a couple of years, Dmytro and I went to a big get-together that was planned by the Couch Surfing organization. Apparently, they have weekly meetings and get-togethers in different places around the city. I had drinks and chatted with a couple of guys who have been doing the Couch Surfing thing for a while, one who lives in Wellington, New Zealand and another who lives in Orange County, CA. After that, Graham joined us at this other bar where Dmytro introduced us to his friend Miguel, a Spanish soccer player who's moving to Portland soon to play soccer there. It was really awesome.
I was really grateful to Dmytro on Thursday, because he selflessly offered to drive us up to Napa Valley, about 1-1/2 hours north of the city, for a wine tasting in the famous "wine country" area of California. We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, admired the beautiful scenery, played some road trip games (gotta love the alphabet game and "my cows"), and sang random songs karaoke-style in the car. We did a wine tasting at the Robert Mondavi vineyard in the Oakville area, which apparently is one of the biggest and most famous vineyards in the Napa Valley area, and it was awesome. That night, Dmytro drove us around the city to check out some popular landmarks: Twin Peaks, the highest point in the city; the Palace of Fine Arts, some neat building dedicated to the fine arts; and the Pacific Ocean, where we played with sea foam and some whip-like kelp that had washed ashore. It was an awesome way to end our stay in San Francisco.
On Friday morning (12/18), we took the Amtrak from Oakland over to Fresno, CA, where Justin's family lives. I forgot how much fun it is to ride on a train. It's like on an airplane, but you can get up and walk around all the time, and you can look out large windows to enjoy the scenery. I would love to take a train ride across the country some day...but anyway, I digress! After spending a couple of days getting to know some complete strangers really well, it was nice to spend a few days with some close friends whom we hadn't seen in a while. Justin and Korina were there, obviously, as well as Sara Webster (another good friend from Hope College) and Ben, Justin's best friend and Best Man in the wedding, who had stayed in our apartment for a couple of days last year when he came out to Michigan to visit Justin.
Friday night was the bachelor's party, which Ben had completely organized. I've never been to a bachelor's party before, but this one was totally awesome. It was only Justin, Graham, me, Ben, and Luke (one of Ben's good friends from Texas). We went out to pizza for dinner, saw Ninja Assassin (a crappy movie in terms of plot but PERFECT for our purposes, haha), and then just had a bunch of drinks while playing video games at Justin's house. It got a little crazier from there, including lighting a plate on fire in the driveway and Justin stepping on the cat after taking a flaming Dr. Pepper shot, but it was fantastic and a lot of fun.
On Saturday, Graham and I helped everyone else with setting up the community center for the wedding. Justin and Korina had their wedding in the same room as the reception, which was something I had never seen done before but actually really liked. They had round tables with 8 chairs/table spread around the room, with these neat centerpieces with candles and fountains, which I thought were really cool. Actually, Saturday was a pretty-low key day. All we did was sleep in, help setup for the wedding, then watch the wedding rehearsal and eat with all of Korina's extended family (she has a lot of siblings, half-siblings, aunts, and uncles, all of whom were there).
The wedding itself was on Sunday, and it was a really great day. The ceremony itself was short and sweet, only about 20-25 minutes long. Because we were all seated at round tables around the room, it felt really intimate and semi-formal to me, which I think worked out really well. The setup also made it easy for us to get up and take pictures of everything during the ceremony. Immediately afterwards, we had the reception with home-cooked food (chicken caesar salad and appetizers) and drinks donated from a coffee place where Korina works. The reception was a lot of fun, with open-mic toasts, lots of pictures, a live performance by the band that Korina's brother is in, and lots of dancing.
Graham and I stayed with Justin's family on Sunday night, and they brought us to the airport the next day. I stayed the night at Graham's house on Monday night after getting a ride with Andrew from O'Hare to Graham's house (thanks Andrew!), and promptly drove back to Grand Haven the next morning. I had a fantastic, fantastic week. I have lots of pictures to share, which I'll post on Facebook in January (I left my cable for uploading pictures at school in Illinois!), and Graham caught most of the week's highlights, along with daily updates from us, on video. He's going to be posting it on Facebook and/or YouTube once he finishes editing it, so I'm excited to see that.
Currently, I'm up at my dad's house in Traverse City, after driving up here yesterday morning. I'm going to be in town until the night of the 29th, and then I'll be heading to Grand Rapids for a day to hang out with some friends from Hope that I haven't seen in forever: Katey Masterton, Ally/Peter (with baby Jeremiah), as well as Graham, DLee (roommate!), and Beth(?). We are going to play D&D at Katey's parents' home, possibly with her parents (hahahaha!), and I'm totally geeked about the whole situation. I have tentative New Year's Eve plans to hang out with some of my best friends from Hope, then I'm going to Tori and Caleb's wedding on New Year's day in Holland. After all of that, I'll be free to hang out with anyone and everyone who wants to, between January 2 - 7 in the Grand Haven/Holland area. :)
Wow...Sorry this has been such an incredibly long entry. I just wanted to share everything about my trip, which was so awesome. But I'm also really excited about finally spending time with family here in Michigan! I kind of forgot that Christmas was so close while I was in California, because it was so (relatively) warm and I was busy with travel plans and helping with the wedding, but now my holiday cheer is out in full force. :D
MERRY CHRISTMAS to each and every one of you! I hope you have a fantastic holiday. Tell your families I said hi. Hopefully we can meet up sometime when I'm back in west Michigan, for those who live near that area. If not, Merry Christmas and happy New Year!
The first few weeks of December were spent finishing up everything for school. I got done with exams two weeks ago (12/10). Everything went splendidly - I got As in all of my classes that use a regular grading scheme, and passing grades in those which use pass/fail. I'm not really "excited" about this because I'm really trying to focus more on my actual learning and understanding of course material, and less so on grades. (Besides, a C is considered a failing grade at school now, so getting an A or B isn't just expected, it's required.) My schedule for next semester seems a little more stressful, because I'm in class from 9:30 until 3:15 solid Tuesday/Thursday, but I'll have a LOT of free time on M/W/F. The classes themselves will hopefully be interesting, too: I need to take classes on ethics in clinical psychology, another stats class (supposedly with an amazing professor), and research methods (myeh--how many classes have I had in this now?).
After I got done with exams, I went home for a couple of days to do some last-minute preparations for...my trip to California!
Graham (best friend from college) and I went to California for a week for two main reasons: to explore San Francisco (neither of us have been there before), and to go to Justin and Korina's wedding near Fresno, CA. We lived with Justin for a year and a half in college, so he's been a good roommate and a great friend, and we thought it would be a great excuse to go somewhere a little warmer for a week.
We left from O'Hare super early on Tuesday (12/15), around 5:45 am, and our flight was 5 hours long. With the time change, though, it was only 10:30 or so when we got there. Our first order of business (after eating!) was to meet up with Dmytro, the guy who was hosting us. Rather than stay at a hostel or hotel for too much money than we could afford, I found this guy online through the CouchSurfing.org website. If you haven't heard of this but love to travel, this is the perfect thing for you: it's a NPO that hosts a social networking website where people who are willing to host strangers at their house/apartment for free can communicate with people who need a place to stay, or vice versa. Dmytro lives in a beautiful area of downtown SF (near Russian Hill, if you know the area), with a view from his third-story apartment of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. In addition to hosting the two of us, Dmytro graciously offered to host a third "surfer" that week, a woman named Bradley (yes, I know, it's a unique name for a woman). Dmytro is 28, graduated with a law degree from Notre Dame, and has recently quit his job working at a law firm in SF because they were overworking him and he was feeling burned out. Bradley technically lives with her mother in Las Vegas, but she's been studying in ROME for the last 6 years, and is planning on moving to SF soon to get a master's degree in something related to international policy. In short, they are super awesome people.
Moments after finding Dmytro's apartment, the four of us sat down and just talked for almost two hours. We got to learn more about Dmytro's interests in law and his traveling experience, as well as hear a lot of stories about Rome and what it's like to live in Italy. That evening, Dmytro took me and Graham down to the Mission, the Mexican pseudo-equivalent of Chinatown in SF, where we had Mexican food so authentic that I could've had beef tongue or beef brain in my burrito instead of chicken, had I been able to stomach it. We then went out for drinks and just talked about random stuff. Oh yeah, also saved Dmytro from a conversation with a drunk woman who was yelling at him because he was pro-life and she was too intoxicated to argue with him reasonably. For your amusement, the conversation went a little like this:
Dmytro: I like the people in San Francisco, but sometimes the people here can be a little close-minded.
Woman: What do you mean? Give me an example.
Dmytro: Well, take abortion for example. I'm pro-life, and sometimes people get really angry about that without listening to my reasons.
Woman: (angry tirade about pro-life people, Christians being stupid, etc.)
Dmytro and me: ...
Dmytro (to me): Yeah, see what I mean?
Woman: Ok, if you're so smart, Mr. pro-life Christian, what do you think about women who are raped and get pregnant?
Dmytro: ...Well, personally, I--
Woman: See, you can't even come up with a logical reason, because there ISN'T ONE. You men all think the same, because it's different for you--you can just go inseminate everyone all over the place and just forget about them.
Dmytro (angrily): Look, I don't appreciate these sweeping judgments, just because I'm male doesn't mean--
Woman: Whatever, you pro-life people just don't understand proper logic. You're all a bunch of Sarah Palin lovers.
Me: Oooook! So, what is there to do in San Francisco? I've never been here before.
Woman: Oh, really? Well, there are some cool bars around here and neat places to check out...
On Wednesday, Dmtryo, Graham, Bradley and I went to Chinatown. It was a really awesome experience. This one was larger and more authentic than every other Chinatown I've been to, except the one I went to, ironically, in Japan. We ate at this little hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant that Dmytro loves. I didn't even know it was a restaurant or that it was even open, because they had some big curtain thing hanging just inside the door and you couldn't see inside. It might possibly have been the best Chinese food I have ever eaten. It was spicy and flavorful, but it wasn't "heavy" or greasy like other places. Simply superb. We then checked out Union Square and the shopping district nearby, and did lots of walking around the city afterwards. That night, while Bradley and Graham were meeting up with friends who lived in SF and they hadn't seen in a couple of years, Dmytro and I went to a big get-together that was planned by the Couch Surfing organization. Apparently, they have weekly meetings and get-togethers in different places around the city. I had drinks and chatted with a couple of guys who have been doing the Couch Surfing thing for a while, one who lives in Wellington, New Zealand and another who lives in Orange County, CA. After that, Graham joined us at this other bar where Dmytro introduced us to his friend Miguel, a Spanish soccer player who's moving to Portland soon to play soccer there. It was really awesome.
I was really grateful to Dmytro on Thursday, because he selflessly offered to drive us up to Napa Valley, about 1-1/2 hours north of the city, for a wine tasting in the famous "wine country" area of California. We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, admired the beautiful scenery, played some road trip games (gotta love the alphabet game and "my cows"), and sang random songs karaoke-style in the car. We did a wine tasting at the Robert Mondavi vineyard in the Oakville area, which apparently is one of the biggest and most famous vineyards in the Napa Valley area, and it was awesome. That night, Dmytro drove us around the city to check out some popular landmarks: Twin Peaks, the highest point in the city; the Palace of Fine Arts, some neat building dedicated to the fine arts; and the Pacific Ocean, where we played with sea foam and some whip-like kelp that had washed ashore. It was an awesome way to end our stay in San Francisco.
On Friday morning (12/18), we took the Amtrak from Oakland over to Fresno, CA, where Justin's family lives. I forgot how much fun it is to ride on a train. It's like on an airplane, but you can get up and walk around all the time, and you can look out large windows to enjoy the scenery. I would love to take a train ride across the country some day...but anyway, I digress! After spending a couple of days getting to know some complete strangers really well, it was nice to spend a few days with some close friends whom we hadn't seen in a while. Justin and Korina were there, obviously, as well as Sara Webster (another good friend from Hope College) and Ben, Justin's best friend and Best Man in the wedding, who had stayed in our apartment for a couple of days last year when he came out to Michigan to visit Justin.
Friday night was the bachelor's party, which Ben had completely organized. I've never been to a bachelor's party before, but this one was totally awesome. It was only Justin, Graham, me, Ben, and Luke (one of Ben's good friends from Texas). We went out to pizza for dinner, saw Ninja Assassin (a crappy movie in terms of plot but PERFECT for our purposes, haha), and then just had a bunch of drinks while playing video games at Justin's house. It got a little crazier from there, including lighting a plate on fire in the driveway and Justin stepping on the cat after taking a flaming Dr. Pepper shot, but it was fantastic and a lot of fun.
On Saturday, Graham and I helped everyone else with setting up the community center for the wedding. Justin and Korina had their wedding in the same room as the reception, which was something I had never seen done before but actually really liked. They had round tables with 8 chairs/table spread around the room, with these neat centerpieces with candles and fountains, which I thought were really cool. Actually, Saturday was a pretty-low key day. All we did was sleep in, help setup for the wedding, then watch the wedding rehearsal and eat with all of Korina's extended family (she has a lot of siblings, half-siblings, aunts, and uncles, all of whom were there).
The wedding itself was on Sunday, and it was a really great day. The ceremony itself was short and sweet, only about 20-25 minutes long. Because we were all seated at round tables around the room, it felt really intimate and semi-formal to me, which I think worked out really well. The setup also made it easy for us to get up and take pictures of everything during the ceremony. Immediately afterwards, we had the reception with home-cooked food (chicken caesar salad and appetizers) and drinks donated from a coffee place where Korina works. The reception was a lot of fun, with open-mic toasts, lots of pictures, a live performance by the band that Korina's brother is in, and lots of dancing.
Graham and I stayed with Justin's family on Sunday night, and they brought us to the airport the next day. I stayed the night at Graham's house on Monday night after getting a ride with Andrew from O'Hare to Graham's house (thanks Andrew!), and promptly drove back to Grand Haven the next morning. I had a fantastic, fantastic week. I have lots of pictures to share, which I'll post on Facebook in January (I left my cable for uploading pictures at school in Illinois!), and Graham caught most of the week's highlights, along with daily updates from us, on video. He's going to be posting it on Facebook and/or YouTube once he finishes editing it, so I'm excited to see that.
Currently, I'm up at my dad's house in Traverse City, after driving up here yesterday morning. I'm going to be in town until the night of the 29th, and then I'll be heading to Grand Rapids for a day to hang out with some friends from Hope that I haven't seen in forever: Katey Masterton, Ally/Peter (with baby Jeremiah), as well as Graham, DLee (roommate!), and Beth(?). We are going to play D&D at Katey's parents' home, possibly with her parents (hahahaha!), and I'm totally geeked about the whole situation. I have tentative New Year's Eve plans to hang out with some of my best friends from Hope, then I'm going to Tori and Caleb's wedding on New Year's day in Holland. After all of that, I'll be free to hang out with anyone and everyone who wants to, between January 2 - 7 in the Grand Haven/Holland area. :)
Wow...Sorry this has been such an incredibly long entry. I just wanted to share everything about my trip, which was so awesome. But I'm also really excited about finally spending time with family here in Michigan! I kind of forgot that Christmas was so close while I was in California, because it was so (relatively) warm and I was busy with travel plans and helping with the wedding, but now my holiday cheer is out in full force. :D
MERRY CHRISTMAS to each and every one of you! I hope you have a fantastic holiday. Tell your families I said hi. Hopefully we can meet up sometime when I'm back in west Michigan, for those who live near that area. If not, Merry Christmas and happy New Year!