Birthday Reflections

A long weekend, with a quick b-day squeezed in before it all. I would have written to ya'll about friday, and my turning 21, but after that night the whole gang was rushed out the door at 8:30 the next morning for a decently, long 3 hour coach ride up into the lake district. Needless to say this left balloons all over the flat, wine glasses scattered about and dishes left undone as we were away through til monday evening.
Anyway, getting back to friday, it was a pretty good day overall. I don't like to make a big deal out of my own birthdays when I can help it, but it is pretty tough not to feel the pressure of making your 21 a good one. One of the main highlights of the day was playing squash with a couple of the guys on the rowing team. After talking to him a few weeks earlier about my obsession with raquetball, he had offered to teach me the game.
For those of you who didn't know, I love to play raquetball. I picked it up my freshman year pretty early on initially playing a lot with my good bud Greg, learning the game together as we were pretty evenly matched. We eventually dragged a few more people in, like my old roomie and my to be sophmore roomate and brother Nick. Some of us were a little more obsessive than others, but there were days I played every day of the week. So, coming here and finding the game to be non-existant was crushing. I heard squash was similar in that it is within a rectangular room and involved a raquet and a ball, but I was skeptical as to it meeting my raquetball standards. I was looking forward to kicking some British arse on the court with what I know I can do well. Squash turned out to be a pretty decent game, but still didn't meet standards. One uses a smaller ball, about 1.5 inch in diameter, which has much less "bounciness" than a raquetball. It makes the game seem much more....I guess I would say dead... due to how the ball basically hits a wall and plops to the ground. Difficult to get to, but at the same time less intense than raquetball where you have a ball flying at high speeds from any direction bouncing off multiple walls, and always open for some really impressive geometric shots using the angles hitting off the walls. Squash has potential though, and I plan on playing much more, if not for the game, for getting to know some new friends.
After that, I took a bike ride around the park on campus wasting time before class. There is a beautiful and large lake with beautiful landscape all around it. I got a call from home on my cell which was really a nice call and was great talking to mom and the rest of the family. It was very unexpected and helped fill in the time before I headed off to Islam at 3. After class, nothing much was going on, and everyone was doing different errands and getting other things done. I spent the next couple hours biking around the city. It is such a good way to get to know the area. I discovered lots of new areas, ancient churches and hidden cemetaries in the middle of the bustling city. Lots of surprises. I made a pit stop back home at one point and headed north away from the city from our flat, and only after a mile, the traffic of the city drops away, and the road becomes narrow and lined with stone walls and hedges with cattle grazing on the hills, and some of the most adorable cottage-like houses spot the road and become increasingly sparse. Came into an ancient little village with some buildings dating back to the 11th century, with footpaths and such. It was refreshing to see the countryside, that is really so near the city, and finding this place caught me off guard, and encouraged and revitalized my spirit from missing home and all things connected to nature. I road back home for supper with high spirits.
Emily and Hilary tried to find me boxed mac and cheese...especially the blue box...but came up empty handed and instead made a delicious homemade Mac and cHeese meal. To top it all off, Carol: director, profesor, guardian, "mom", made an impressive all chocolate cake. I haven't had cake that good in a long time. Her and mark also gave me Candy bars, fruit bars and toffee as treats that we rarely have. it was very "sweet" (oh how I love puns) of them.
I will spare the world the details of the rest of the night, but it was very comfortable and enjoyable til very late, and lets just say if someone can help me remember how I eventually got home in the morning I would be most grateful. I must say that it was a great coincidence that we ran into my best buddies from rowing at the place we were out at called BZR. I wanted to call them so bad, but didn't yet they ended up there anyway. Seeing them really made my night complete. Fate or a good blessing was residing on my special day.
On to next blog.... a weekend in the beautiful lake district.