Now that Christmas is almost here, let’s all pig out! At least, that’s what the voices in my head are screaming. Something about the constant surroundings of sugar and fat, it’s just so hard to resist! When you come back, and you see a blob-like thing slithering through the Davis campus, come by and say hello. Otherwise, I might just eat you!
I got up at a just ungodly hour on Monday. Ken’s flight departed from the Sac airport, so I had to be up at 0345 to pick him up by 0355. Alex escorted us to the airport, where we got to say our goodbyes. Ken was actually the most awake of any of us, probably due to the fact that he didn’t sleep. Alex and I headed back to Davis at that point. Though I guess I should say I headed back, since Alex was quite fast asleep in the passenger seat before we even got out of the airport. I got home around 0500 and went right back to sleep. I woke up and decided to skip the gym in favor of getting some more rest. Once I was actually up, I helped Shakeh ready her things, then took her to the airport, dropping her off around 0930. yes, that means I drove one-hundred and twenty miles in one morning. But it was worth it to be able to see people off. I got back into Davis and met up with Rachel, then we went and picked up Javi. We headed to Arden Fair Mall and got there around 1030. We walked in through Sears and proceeded directly to Cinnabon (first thing to eat for me besides a builder’s bar all morning). I ordered a cinnabon and almost ended up throwing half of it away. It was so sweet! It made the back of my throat burn from the all the sugar. The three of us went around to a bunch of shops. In Anchor Blue, I tried on a pair of jeans. The funny thing about them, they fit my waist perfectly, but when I looked in the mirror, I was wearing tights! No kidding, it was quite ridiculous. Obviously I didn’t buy them. We continued our jaunt around the mall, escorting Rachel around until 1500 or so. The three of us grabbed smoothies from Jamba Juice (so… intake for the day is tons of sugar, nothing else) on the way out. About halfway back, all three of us were starting to feel sick, sleepy, and lightheaded from the overdose of sugar and lack of any real food. We got back into town and went to Crepeville as fast as legally possible. I polished off everything on my plate at a speed of which even Mr. Hendrickson would be proud. After lunner (my word!), we went back to my place so I could send a few emails and Rachel could change, then we dropped Javi off. We headed to the basketball games, where Ish was already waiting. We ran into Dani on the way in so Rachel go to say hi. The women played the opener, and won, almost breaking the century mark. For some reason though, they chose to hold instead of hitting the number. After the game, Ish was quite tired so she left right away. The men were up next, and Javi wandered in to replace Ish just in time. I was actually quite surprised by the height of the men’s team. Eleven out of thirteen of the players were at least one-hundred and ninety centimeters (thats 6′4″ for the metrically challenged). The men’s game was good to watch as well. with luck, they’ll be competing for the conference before I graduate. After the gam, we were all tired so we just headed home and slept.
Tuesday morning came the removal of Rachel’s stitches. My apologies, but you’ll have to wander over to Facebook to view the video. It’s over nine minutes long, but most of the good stuff is in the beginning. Before going, we chatted with Verena for an hour or so while the ladies had their morning tea. Rachel made plans to hang out with Danny, so Verena and I schemed to get a few people together for lunch at Zia’s. As Rachel and I were walking out of Verena’s place, a parking attendant was parked by my car. I ran over and quietly explained that I was just picking up Rachel. He said okay, and didn’t bother writing the ticket. I was quite upset at the matter though. I know that the area outside of Verena’s complex requires a resident’s pass to park, but there was NO OTHER CAR to be seen on the block. The attendant really could’ve let that slide… I dropped Rachel off downtown to get some shoes and meet up with Danny, and then I went to run a few errands before lunch. I picked up Alex and then headed to Zia’s to meet up with Ish, Verena, Justin, and Javi. Apparently half the group hadn’t been before, and luckily they enjoyed it. While there, we had a discussion about how within virtually every country, dialects are always present. For example, I know at least fifteen people from Deutschland, and none of them speak with the same accent. At some point in the conversation, Verena showed us her lovely Prussian accent that she uses to scare her students into doing their homework. After lunch, Alex and I dropped Ish off, then headed to the MU to pick up a few things. One of those things happened to be Ken’s old bike that was given to Alex. We found it outside by the fountain, then walked it to B&L to get a basket installed. After we dropped her bike off, I dropped her off at her place and went back to mine with Javi. We watched some Family Guy and messed around on our computers for a few hours, then Rachel showed back up so we switched to watching some basketball. She headed out around 1830 for dinner with her friend, and then Javi headed to Guadalajara while I swung by Alex’s to pick her up on the way. We met up with Justin and his friend Lindsay for dinner. After some wonderful conversation about injuries from sports, we headed over to Cold Stone to partake in some dessert. Unfortunately for us, the place had just closed. Justin and Javi suggested going to Safeway right next door, so we did just that. I got some of Stephen Colbert’s flavor from Ben & Jerry’s, I think it’s called Americone Dream. The four of us took our ice cream and headed to my place for a movie. We all sat and talked on the couch for a bit and somehow got to mentioning Stephen Colbert (I think due to my ice cream) and his appearance at the White House Correspondent Dinner. We ended up going to my room to watch some Youtube clips, including the Stephen Colbert clips. Instead of watching a movie, we just did that for a few hours. I must add that I think I finally met my match in ice-cream eating. Somehow Alex finished off her pint before I did mine! Astonishing. We watched some Happy Tree Friends, Flight of the Conchords, and a few more random clips. Everyone was tired by the end, so we called it a night and people went home.
I finally went to the gym on Wednesday. Justin staggered in at the tail end of my workout so he just did some cardio with me. After the seventeen miles of biking, I walked over to meet up with Rachel, and then we walked even more to go to The Grad. We stopped off at the Starbucks at the University Mall to get her some breakfast food that wasn’t rich in fat, then we headed over to watch the Chelsea-Liverpool match. While watching the match, I took the opportunity to use my free lunch card. The match was good, though sadly Liverpool lost. They also got hit with a red card. Some guy went at someone elses knees with both feet and his spikes showing. That would have hurt. After the match, javi went home for food and Rachel and I went to the market. I didn’t have any cash, so I went to the bank first while Rachel headed to the market to meet up with Jeff. While at the bank, I realized that we had left the speakerbox on the table! Woops… I briskly walked home and then drove back to get my ID. After that, I drove and parked at the market, and then met up with Rachel, Jeff, and not much later, Alex and her shiny man-bike. There were only a handful of vendors at the market, so we stayed only long enough to get some apple juice and cookies. After that, we walked to a few bookstores looking for a “Californian” bookmark for Rachel’s mother. We had no luck with this unfortunately. So we headed back to the park and gave Alex and her manly bike a ride home. Rachel and I then went and picked up Justin and gave him a ride to the airport. And of course, what would a night be without watching some basketball = ) Later on, Abhi, Alex, Javi, and Wijnand joined Rachel and I at Thai2K, followed by some yummy Cinnabread from Woodstock’s. I dropped Alex off at home and then met up with everyone at my place for some Family Guy.
I managed to get my lazy butt to the gym again on Thursday morning. After I got home and showered, I headed to the airport to pick up Shakeh. We dropped her stuff off at her place, then went to Habit Burger for lunch. We each went back to our places after that and did some wrapping. Rachel got back later in the afternoon, so we hung out for an hour or so, then went to Safeway for some party supplies and Dos Coyotes for Rachel’s last burrito of her trip. We went back home and got the stuff all prepped for the party. A lot of people showed up, I think fourteen in total. There was Franci and Larry, Pieter and Anne, Victor and Claudia, Matthias and Frederic, Shakeh and I, Rachel and Abhi, and Javi and Sebastian. Franci brought some wonderful pumpkin-bread, and the germans, bless them, brought some PBR ; ) The gift exchange was quite fun, and people got away with some, umm, interesting (?) gifts. Not a whole lot of stealing was going on though, at least until near the end. Once we got to the last four people or so, everyone started large chains, which made for some lovely fun.
Friday morning Shakeh and I joined Rachel and Abh at Crepeville for Rachel’s final breakfast in Davis. After that, Shakeh ran to the registrar to pay for her tuition. picked up shakeh from the campus when she was done paying her bills. When she was done, I surprised her with a full day at the movies. First, we went ot the G Street theatre to see Charlie Wilson’s War. We went to Burgers & Brew for a few minutes after that to say goodbye to Charlotte, as she was leaving the next morning. After saying goodbye, we went to Chipotle to get some lunch, and then rushed to the movie theatre to see Sweeney Todd. I needed to move my car once the movie was over, so I did that, and then came back in and we watched Walk Hard. I liked all of the movies, though the first was my favorite from the bunch. After the movies, we went home for a few hours and did some more gift-wrapping, then went to dinner at Cafe Mediteranee.
We got up early on Saturday and packed up our stuff. I headed over to pick up Javi, and then we were off to Reno! We stopped off in Auburn for gas and in Truckee to get some pictures of the landscape. Once we got in, we dropped off our stuff and talked with my parents for an hour or so. We headed to Jamba Juice and then over to the university to check out the campus. While there, I stopped off in the bookstore and bought some items for myself. We headed back home after that, and then went to Bully’s for lunch. The Nevada bowl game ws on while we were there, but they were doing terrible. By the end of the game, Nevada didn’t score a single point. After lunch, Javi and I went downtown and tried our luck at some of the Circus-Circus games. Javi had more luck than I, as he actually won something. After the games, we went to the ice-rink on First street and tried our luck. Neither of us really knew what we were doing, but by the end we were both capable of skating around without holding the railing. We headed home after that and watched Love Actually, then went to sleep.
After Javi got up on Sunday, I took him to enjoy one of the worst (for you) American things one can imagine, Krispy Kreme. After getting breakfast, we headed to Sparky’s to watch the Madrid-Barcelona match. Madrid actually won! Javi was quite pleased, being as he is from Spain, not Catalunya. After the match we headed around to Reno to check out some of the landscape and local architecture. I took Javi to Windy Hill and Grandview before we headed home. At 1730, we went to check out the Christmas lights. As a surprise for everyone, I rented a limo. The problem… The limo would only seat eight people and we had sixteen to come along. The other slight inconvenience was that even though I had requested the limo for checking out Christmas lights, the driver had never done so. He didn’t even know where Hidden Valley was. It wasn’t that big of a problem though. We got to just sit back and relax. We ended up going to Idle Wild Park, Hidden Valley, Moana and Skyline, and the Los Altos Hills.
