The first day of the rest of your life

A lot has happened in the past month. I've started some meaningful posts, but never got around to finishing any of them. Here's the cliffnotes version, which will be quicker for you to read and quicker for me to write (everyone wins!):

Graduation: Being back in Pittsburgh was fun, but strange. It was great to see everyone again (hopefully not for the last time!) but all the little things that had changed since I left back in December left me feeling a little out of the loop. Staying at Bloodshaw wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be, but I can only speak for myself. The weekend gave me a wicked hangover that lasted through Monday evening (seriously, I’m not exaggerating), most likely due to the combined effects of alcohol, sleep deprivation, and, um, other things.

Las Vegas: Spent a weekend in Vegas to celebrate Bulent's birthday, which was fun and depressing and expensive and exhausting. Spent the entire weekend either drinking, tanning, or sleeping. The group of about 16 people was made up of coworkers and colleages from work and the kickball team that a bunch of SpaceX people play on. It was my first time “doing” Vegas, my only previous stay was mid-week while driving from Pittsburgh to the Bay Area. I guess I did it right, considering that the first night ended in a shady strip club, the first morning was spent sick and sleeping until 1:30, and the second night ended in a suite at MGM with a canadian bacholor party. I definitely have a weakness for foreign accents ;)

FSAE West: Last weekend was FSAE west, which was held about an hour away from here. I went out to "recruit" for SpaceX and to see the CMU SAE boys. The weekend was alright; it was good to see the guys, and although I wasn’t exciting about recruiting in the beginning it was a good excuse for me to be more outgoing than normal and strike up conversations with people I would otherwise not talk to. Saturday night the guys wanted to go go-karting, which lead us to a small outdoor track that obviously wasn’t expecting a large group of 20-something year old car nuts who think they’re pro racecar drivers. They almost got kicked out; their first race was stopped short since they were all trying to run each other off the track and one guy crashed head first into a fencepost. I didn’t participate, but I did meet a local guy who seemed cool- he gave me his condolences for having to put with the sae guys, and his business card.

Work has been busy. I can’t believe I started over two months ago- the weeks have been passing so much faster than when I was a student or intern. Now summer’s in full swing, which means it’s time to get out and enjoy the sunny days and warm nights.

Lightning in a Bottle

The festival was unreal. It was great to see Melanie, and the atmosphere at the site was extra cool and really positive. I ran into Brad, which was a nice surprise, and also ended up talking with this guy who I later realized out was the realtor I met on New Year's in SF who claimed you could see aliens from his street. Our campsite was right infront of the workshop stage, which was an endless source of entertainment since we could watch all the classes ranging from yoga to belly dancing to monkey chanting. I had a great time, and now I'm motivated to seek out similar events and concerts to go to.

More photos are on picasaweb!

Don't blink

Life has been busy! Working long hours, taking advantage of the gym membership, trying to get some sun and sand inbetween.

This weekend: dirty hippies

Next weekend: yinzers

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at CMU next week!

Relocating is hard

Flew LAX to SFO last night. Picked up Uhaul at 7AM. Packed Uhaul, had lunch with grandma, hit the road at 1:30PM for my second Palo Alto/Los Angeles drive in the past two weeks. Arrived in LA at 8:00, housemate was not home and my key broke off in the lock. Luckily, I was able to get the key fragment out of the doorknob, and I hadn't checked out of the hotel yet, so now I'm at the hotel waiting for my housemate to call me back so I can make plans to get into the condo tomorrow to unload the truck.

Boo to poor quality key material.

California, here we come

I drove down to LA last Thursday, to search for housing before starting work. So far I've visited 6 places, of which only 2 were places I would consider. I was hoping to live with girls, but there seems to be a gender imbalance on craigslist and most of the posts are made by guys. Luckily, work will pay for up to a month in a hotel while I search, so I'm in no huge rush to find a place right away but I do worry that the condo I'm currently considering will be taken by someone else if I wait too long.

The past few days have been relaxed, most of my time has been spent looking at housing and shopping and stocking up on groceries (my hotel room has a kitchen). I saw Helen and Flo on Thursday night, they're sharing a condo a block off the sand in Manhattan Beach. I'd like to find a place in that area, but rent prices are outrageous and parking is scarce.

My family's cat is 15 and we recently found he is blind- one detached retina, and one torn retina. My mom was planning on selling the townhouse this summer, but now she claims she can't move the cat anywhere since he's blind and won't know his way around the new house. She's already put down money for having carpets put in and storage space rented, which she's going to lose. A couple of days ago, she tried to convince her health care provider that the cat is her dependent and thus his blood thinner meds (cats are given the same meds as people) should be covered by her health care. My mom means well, even though she's crazy.

First day of work tomorrow. I'm nervous, excited, and anxious.

Barcelona (3/24 to 3/28)

Barcelona was a blast. I was hoping for beach weather, a possibility but not a given for late March. Unfortunately, it was too cold for the beach, but that didn’t keep me from enjoying the last stop on my trip.

The city is very cosmopolitan and had some amazing and unique architecture, the most notable being the works by Gaudi. The Casa Batllo was my favorite, a house that literally had no corners or edges in any room- all of the doors and walls and railings were organic curves that flowed from one element to the next. It was as if the walls and rooms were living things growing out of the ground.

I definitely made the most of the last few days of my trip. The nightlife was awesome, with tons of nightclubs and more than enough revelers to fill them on all nights of the week. I sampled a cross section of the bar scene, from pseudo-Irish bars, to multi-level clubs, to sleek lounge bars, meeting all sorts from all places- a hipster Swede who declared his love for me several times throughout the night, a group of 20-something Europeans that came to Barcelona for a language program in 2006 and never left, and some English soccer hooligans who hassled me for a good 15 minutes, much to my obvious dismay and the amusement of other English speakers within earshot (Me, angry: “No, all four of you MAY NOT have ‘a go’ at me at the same time!!” Him, slurring: “No, we can, one goes here, and one here….”). There was one unfortunate night when I drunkenly decided to ignore the 4AM lockout and wait until my hostel reopened at 7AM, disappointed when the club closed at just 4:30 and I had to kill two and a half hours before going home.

I ran into a slight mishap on my way back to the States, when my train out of Barcelona was cancelled due to a French rail workers’ strike. I had to catch a later, more expensive train, which then required me to catch a cab from the rail station to the airport in order to catch my flight. I caught my flight, luckily, and am now safely back home although 100€ poorer thanks to the French rail workers.

Lisbon (3/19 to 3/23)

Overall, I loved Portugal. I had some of the best seafood I´ve ever tasted (if only mussels were all that fresh, instead of the rubbery salt lumps served elsewhere), enjoyed the castles in Lisbon and Sintra, which were straight out of a fairy tale, and to top it off the neighborhood of Bairro Alto was full of hip boutique shops and tons of trendy bars.

The city is built on a bunch of tall steep hills, which have cute bee-yellow trans snaking up and down the narrow streets. The sidewalks and squares are a work of art, black and white stones set into the ground by hand to form patterns and designs. The church and monastery in Belem is unlike anything I´ve ever seen The cloister had beautiful intricate stone work with unique central figures topping each arch, and the church had a high stone ceiling with a spiderweb like design supported by slender tall columns that spread out at the top like trees.

The nightlife was something else, the clubs don´t open till 2 and party into the morning. I met 3 girls at Lux, the big nightclub on the waterfront, two sisters from New Zealand and their German friend. We stuck together for support against the aggressive and brutish men who tried to hook up with girls regardless of age difference and despite a lack of a common language to converse in. A couple of the charmers I met were an Algerian who knew almost no English and followed me until I escaped to the bathroom, and an Aussie who claimed to work for Goldman Sachs in London. He said he caught a train to Lisbon for the weekend without any luggage or place to stay, and called me a "Lying American, Just Like George Bush" when I refused to make out with him after talking to him for 5 minutes.

All in all, an enjoyable and memorable stop.