Sunday, January 25, 2004
Well, well, well. Where to begin?
I've spent practically all of the past 9 days in Ryan's company. Yeah, that's a lot of time, but we needed to make up for the month apart. And I haven't tired of it at all. Usually with other people I want time to myself for a while, but I feel completely comfortable and content around him. I love you, Ryan :)
On the day of my last entry we went to dinner at Friendly's and did a little shopping at the mall. He wanted to buy a blue dress shirt, so I helped him pick out a tie to go with it. I can't get over how much I like his new tie. Yum :P Then we went to Ian's for poker night, Ryan's first time with our group. He lost $10, but he did a good job at Hold 'Em and just needs more experience to get the feel for it. I lost $6- also good at Hold 'Em but don't play smart on the other games. Watching poker over break definitely helped, though...on one hand I sensed weakness at the table so I went in for the kill even though I had a mediocre hand, and even got Ian to fold. Yay for that:)
The next day (the 21st, our 4 month anniversary:) me and Ryan left for Toronto at 10 am, which seemed painfully early. The drive was about five hours, including a stop for lunch. First we went to the Royal Ontario Museum, which had a combo of natural history and international history stuff. That took a few hours, then we had to find a hotel in heavy traffic, which was a hassle. We decided on the Ramada downtown, then rested for a bit and got ready for dinner. We figured we'd walk around downtown until we found a nice restaurant, but all we saw were fast food places. Seems like we walked for almost 45 minutes until we settled on the Hard Rock Cafe, which was a little more casual than we had in mind, but we were getting sick of walking in single digit temperatures. Now remember that they were Canadian prices, but we managed to spend $111 there! Two identical steak dinners (a Canadian trip tradition for us), bottle of wine (also tradition), dessert, and a cocktail each along with dessert. What a couple of lushes we are :P But it was a ridiculous amount of fun!
The next morning we checked out of the hotel and searched for the science museum. Ryan had some maps from when his family went to Toronto in 1989, but it seems they've changed some of the street names since, so we got a little lost. Well, knew roughly where we were, but didn't know how to get to the museum from there. So we had to backtrack all the way back downtown and start over on a different route. But we finally got there. I was really impressed with the museum- it was probably the best science museum I've been to. My favorite part was this room on sports. Ryan was beating me at most of the competitions, but there was one that I totally kicked ass at. The sign said, "Can you jump like a cat?" :) So you stand on a platform that weighs you, then you jump down onto a lower platform and it calculates what factor of your weight the lower platform detects pushing down when you land. Ryan got 2.1, so it detected a force roughly twice his weight when he landed. What did I, a cat, get? 1.2! Boo yeah! Considering the minimum possible is 1.0, you've got to admit that I am very catlike. After the museum we went on a tour of Casa Loma, Canada's only (decent) castle. It was nice, but I was getting tired and hungry so I didn't enjoy it 100%. Then we left town, but it was rush hour and traffic was insane. It took and hour and a half to go 30 miles :( So both of us were tired and cranky. We stopped for dinner at a Swiss Chalet, which is a casual sit-down chain restaurant. We both had the chicken pot pie, which was surprisingly good. After food and the short break, we both felt better. We got hassled a bit at the border when Ryan misheard "Where were you born?" as "Where were you going?" So he said Toronto, and the guard thought he was Canadian. We got it straightened out, but not before some crap from the guy. I wish that the U.S. didn't go making enemies of a bunch of other countries- then we could have cheerful border guards like Canada does. Canada's really got their priorities straight- health care, hockey, and drinking. They should probably work on their roads in the Toronto area, though. For the last part of the drive me and Ryan played Name that Tune with classic rock songs on I100. I was winning, but we already know that I have a vast knowledge of practically useless information. Hehehe :)
I can't really remember what we did the next day. I know we watched most of The Mask of Zorro on TV and did a lot of lounging around, but I don't think there was anything you'd care to hear about. We ordered wings for dinner. My memory stops there. Oh yeah, we went to Stella's with Lizjones, Herb, Liz H, and Diesel. I had a Sarasota Lemonade (yum) and a glass of Atlas wine. But I was pretty tired and couldn't hear much of what people were saying.
Yesterday we went on the PSP ski trip to Greek Peak, my first time skiing ever. I've got mixed feelings on the experience, but that's probably me just being frustrated because you have to make mistakes in order to learn. I was pretty nervous about my first run, which was compounded by falling as I got off the chair at the top of the alpha slope :( So Ryan told me the essentials of how to ski in about 15 seconds, and I went down. Got going fairly fast toward the end of the slope, but didn't fall. The next time down I had a little confidence, so I went down even faster. I went over a few bumps that would've been trouble for most beginners, but I managed to keep my balance and didn't fall that time either. So I had even more confidence. Ryan was really impressed, "Wow, most people don't do that their first day, let alone their second run down." I went a couple more times, didn't fall at all, so we moved on to a longer green circle trail. I found it pretty easy- got going quite fast at parts but didn't fall. So then we went to another long "easy" trail. I was doing well for most of it, but on the steepest section I was going almost straight down and picked up way too much speed. I lost control and made a beeline for the ditch. *BAM* It was a spectacular crash. I lost my poles, both skis, hat, goggles, and I think even a glove. Luckily the ditch was filled with a couple feet of powder so it didn't hurt much. A Greek Peak guy skiied over and helped me recover my belongings, then told me that I needed a lesson. I got really irritated by his tone and the way he did it, though. He acted as if I didn't know a thing about what I was doing and like I was dramatically overestimating my ability. It's not as if I was attempting a black diamond or even an intermediate slope- the trail was a green circle. And I always keep a conservative distance from other people- my biggest fear isn't hurting myself, it's running over some little kid. Anyway, we stopped for lunch after that. Then I wanted to try that run again to prove myself. But I crashed again, in nearly the same spot. That really pissed me off, and I got so frustrated that it just made me unfocused and I fell a couple more times just making it down the rest of the hill :( It was then that Ryan figured it out- I'd done so well keeping my balance and going fast on gentler slopes that I didn't have time to master the whole turning and cutting thing. So we went back to the beginner slope and practiced for a while. Did somewhat better at controlling my speed after that, but it still needs work. And I didn't try the nemesis slope again. Next time. I shouldn't be so discouraged; I did a lot better than most people on their first day, but I'm a perfectionist. Grrr. Last night me and Ryan played Stratego. He won, but just barely.
Today is the first day that I'll be away from Ryan for more than two hours since I've been back. There are lots of things I should get done before classes start: unpack (!), clean my room, buy books, go to the lab, order new contacts, etc. I'm fairly sore from skiing. Well, not too bad. My butt is the only thing sore from skiing itself. My shoulders and upper arms are sore from pushing around flat areas on skis. And one side of my neck is really sore, probably from crashing. But my legs don't feel a thing. Maybe I'm still slightly in shape :)
I've spent practically all of the past 9 days in Ryan's company. Yeah, that's a lot of time, but we needed to make up for the month apart. And I haven't tired of it at all. Usually with other people I want time to myself for a while, but I feel completely comfortable and content around him. I love you, Ryan :)
On the day of my last entry we went to dinner at Friendly's and did a little shopping at the mall. He wanted to buy a blue dress shirt, so I helped him pick out a tie to go with it. I can't get over how much I like his new tie. Yum :P Then we went to Ian's for poker night, Ryan's first time with our group. He lost $10, but he did a good job at Hold 'Em and just needs more experience to get the feel for it. I lost $6- also good at Hold 'Em but don't play smart on the other games. Watching poker over break definitely helped, though...on one hand I sensed weakness at the table so I went in for the kill even though I had a mediocre hand, and even got Ian to fold. Yay for that:)
The next day (the 21st, our 4 month anniversary:) me and Ryan left for Toronto at 10 am, which seemed painfully early. The drive was about five hours, including a stop for lunch. First we went to the Royal Ontario Museum, which had a combo of natural history and international history stuff. That took a few hours, then we had to find a hotel in heavy traffic, which was a hassle. We decided on the Ramada downtown, then rested for a bit and got ready for dinner. We figured we'd walk around downtown until we found a nice restaurant, but all we saw were fast food places. Seems like we walked for almost 45 minutes until we settled on the Hard Rock Cafe, which was a little more casual than we had in mind, but we were getting sick of walking in single digit temperatures. Now remember that they were Canadian prices, but we managed to spend $111 there! Two identical steak dinners (a Canadian trip tradition for us), bottle of wine (also tradition), dessert, and a cocktail each along with dessert. What a couple of lushes we are :P But it was a ridiculous amount of fun!
The next morning we checked out of the hotel and searched for the science museum. Ryan had some maps from when his family went to Toronto in 1989, but it seems they've changed some of the street names since, so we got a little lost. Well, knew roughly where we were, but didn't know how to get to the museum from there. So we had to backtrack all the way back downtown and start over on a different route. But we finally got there. I was really impressed with the museum- it was probably the best science museum I've been to. My favorite part was this room on sports. Ryan was beating me at most of the competitions, but there was one that I totally kicked ass at. The sign said, "Can you jump like a cat?" :) So you stand on a platform that weighs you, then you jump down onto a lower platform and it calculates what factor of your weight the lower platform detects pushing down when you land. Ryan got 2.1, so it detected a force roughly twice his weight when he landed. What did I, a cat, get? 1.2! Boo yeah! Considering the minimum possible is 1.0, you've got to admit that I am very catlike. After the museum we went on a tour of Casa Loma, Canada's only (decent) castle. It was nice, but I was getting tired and hungry so I didn't enjoy it 100%. Then we left town, but it was rush hour and traffic was insane. It took and hour and a half to go 30 miles :( So both of us were tired and cranky. We stopped for dinner at a Swiss Chalet, which is a casual sit-down chain restaurant. We both had the chicken pot pie, which was surprisingly good. After food and the short break, we both felt better. We got hassled a bit at the border when Ryan misheard "Where were you born?" as "Where were you going?" So he said Toronto, and the guard thought he was Canadian. We got it straightened out, but not before some crap from the guy. I wish that the U.S. didn't go making enemies of a bunch of other countries- then we could have cheerful border guards like Canada does. Canada's really got their priorities straight- health care, hockey, and drinking. They should probably work on their roads in the Toronto area, though. For the last part of the drive me and Ryan played Name that Tune with classic rock songs on I100. I was winning, but we already know that I have a vast knowledge of practically useless information. Hehehe :)
I can't really remember what we did the next day. I know we watched most of The Mask of Zorro on TV and did a lot of lounging around, but I don't think there was anything you'd care to hear about. We ordered wings for dinner. My memory stops there. Oh yeah, we went to Stella's with Lizjones, Herb, Liz H, and Diesel. I had a Sarasota Lemonade (yum) and a glass of Atlas wine. But I was pretty tired and couldn't hear much of what people were saying.
Yesterday we went on the PSP ski trip to Greek Peak, my first time skiing ever. I've got mixed feelings on the experience, but that's probably me just being frustrated because you have to make mistakes in order to learn. I was pretty nervous about my first run, which was compounded by falling as I got off the chair at the top of the alpha slope :( So Ryan told me the essentials of how to ski in about 15 seconds, and I went down. Got going fairly fast toward the end of the slope, but didn't fall. The next time down I had a little confidence, so I went down even faster. I went over a few bumps that would've been trouble for most beginners, but I managed to keep my balance and didn't fall that time either. So I had even more confidence. Ryan was really impressed, "Wow, most people don't do that their first day, let alone their second run down." I went a couple more times, didn't fall at all, so we moved on to a longer green circle trail. I found it pretty easy- got going quite fast at parts but didn't fall. So then we went to another long "easy" trail. I was doing well for most of it, but on the steepest section I was going almost straight down and picked up way too much speed. I lost control and made a beeline for the ditch. *BAM* It was a spectacular crash. I lost my poles, both skis, hat, goggles, and I think even a glove. Luckily the ditch was filled with a couple feet of powder so it didn't hurt much. A Greek Peak guy skiied over and helped me recover my belongings, then told me that I needed a lesson. I got really irritated by his tone and the way he did it, though. He acted as if I didn't know a thing about what I was doing and like I was dramatically overestimating my ability. It's not as if I was attempting a black diamond or even an intermediate slope- the trail was a green circle. And I always keep a conservative distance from other people- my biggest fear isn't hurting myself, it's running over some little kid. Anyway, we stopped for lunch after that. Then I wanted to try that run again to prove myself. But I crashed again, in nearly the same spot. That really pissed me off, and I got so frustrated that it just made me unfocused and I fell a couple more times just making it down the rest of the hill :( It was then that Ryan figured it out- I'd done so well keeping my balance and going fast on gentler slopes that I didn't have time to master the whole turning and cutting thing. So we went back to the beginner slope and practiced for a while. Did somewhat better at controlling my speed after that, but it still needs work. And I didn't try the nemesis slope again. Next time. I shouldn't be so discouraged; I did a lot better than most people on their first day, but I'm a perfectionist. Grrr. Last night me and Ryan played Stratego. He won, but just barely.
Today is the first day that I'll be away from Ryan for more than two hours since I've been back. There are lots of things I should get done before classes start: unpack (!), clean my room, buy books, go to the lab, order new contacts, etc. I'm fairly sore from skiing. Well, not too bad. My butt is the only thing sore from skiing itself. My shoulders and upper arms are sore from pushing around flat areas on skis. And one side of my neck is really sore, probably from crashing. But my legs don't feel a thing. Maybe I'm still slightly in shape :)
