| Whew, a lot has happened in the last few months of my last summer ever (before summer turns into 'vacation days'). I compiled a list of some of the things I've done, in geographic order: Boston, MA -- I saw four of my friends get married! [2 to each other, and the other two to each other, of course. This ain't no HBO series.] I went on my first deep-sea fishing trip, where three grown men spent $41 each and garnered one, 8" perch. I did the math and it turns out to be about $90/lb. They don't even sell that kind of stuff here. Nonetheless though, it was pretty fun to head out on a boat in Gloucester, Mass and watch seagulls eat fish eyeballs thrown from the boat. Washington, DC -- I saw Ratatouille, perhaps my most favorite movie of the summer. Anton Ego, you are the most lovable Disney villain since... ever. I went to some DC museums with Tina, the Lincoln and Washington Memorial and monument, respectively, and dropped into 1789 for an elegantly expensive dinner. We saw Georgetown (FYI: it's quaint, kind of like an amnesic beach town that had lost its way and said, 'screw it, i'm already here, i might as well set up shop). I also hit up the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, where we totally blew through the line by hopping through the back entrance (where there is no line) and bypassed hundreds of elementary aged and behaved children running by R2D2 and C3-PO, human cyborg relations. These things are national treasures. Las Vegas, NV -- Newly minted and now 21+, some high school friends and I went to Sin City herself for a weekend. The Bellagio is a pretty elite institution. I think it would be akin to the Harvard of Las Vegas Casinos: it looks nice on the outside, has a water show on hot summer days, and houses some of the richest, most extravagant people on the planet. While inside, I felt like every single euro-imported Travertine tile was popping its own Burberry collar at me, saying "You're going to have to go down to the bad part of town, where the Carnees are, to play those." Good news: I left +$25 for the weekend! Bad news: I had been up $45. Hong Kong, SAR -- Back in the homeland for a few days, we did what people in Hong Kong do best: shop and eat, in that order. Apparently August is their "Shopping Festival" where 100% of the stores offered their 'final sales' of the season. (Only in HK is consumption celebrated as a holiday.) When we weren't shopping, we were eating. When we weren't eating or shopping, we were sleeping. We pretty much went to every single g2000 store in the city to pick up bumpin' deals on even-more-bumpin' threads. We also saw requisite relatives and cousins, with whom we travelled to... Guilin, China -- An amazingly pretty region of the country, Guilin is widely regarded (even by Harvard Chinese Bx proctors) as China's most beautiful and scenic playground. I mean, even these two have been there. Here, we basked in 41-Celsius-weather (that's about 150*F for you westerners) and carried requisite parasols to block the sun. Watching my family of four, replete with 22- and 25-year old sons twidle parasols like her was slightly embarrassing. I managed to get married to a woman whom I didn't know (calm down, as part of a touristing scheme to get more money), go to a spa in Dalian, and carry an H5-N1-infested cormorant fishing stick, which was really cool. The guy definitely caught more than Chang, Chin, and I did back in Gloucester. Orange County, CA -- Home is where the heart is. I've managed to repaint my room (blue) and install all manner of moulding, ceiling texture, and furniture upholstry while the professionals handled the real things like painting the rest of the house and changing our carpet. Tina came to visit for a while and we went here and went to the Huntington with Lizzy. We also dropped by a place called Club 33, and played this, which was so fun we played it twice. We drove down to San Diego where I caught a bluegill perch at Cindy's house and picked avocados from this grove. In the course of 1 weeks, I used 3 tanks of gas. All in all, it's been a pretty packed summer. I head back to Boston on the 6th to start real life all over again where I'll be living at 20 Banks with folk from IVCF Harvard. That's it for now! |
