Trophies, celebrations and stuff

This past Wednesday, Pedro won his first big tournament in college golf, by a full five strokes.  What a win!  Such a win deserved a similarly big celebration, so I headed down to LA to spend the weekend with him.  Congrats Pedrão!

I left Berkeley on Thursday afternoon with Barb, one of the best students in my class and definitely my big study buddy here in Cal.  Her boyfriend lives in Bakersfield, two hours north of LA.  She drove me there, where the champion itself picked me up.  During the five hours drive with Barb, we chatted a lot.   During the two hours drive with Pedro, I slept.  Hehe.

Friday was the day in which the celebrations and the gourmet experience started.  We had lunch with some of Pedro's team mates in one of the best sandwich restaurants in LA - Bay Cities Italian Deli & Bakery -, an incredibly good italian grocery store in Santa Monica, and had dinner in the #1 italian restaurant in town - Angelini Osteria.  We usually don't go to restaurants like the latter but we had a bunch of special occasions to celebrate.  This dinner out was Pedro's Christmas present to me, the Valentine's day belated celebration and the celebration of his great win, all together.  It was more than yummy!  Thanks a lot Pedrão.  

The gourmet experience continued that night with drinks with some friends at Pink Taco, and on Saturday with lunch at a nice pizzeria in Westwood - 800 degrees -, frozen yogurt for dessert, dinner at a nice japanese place in Fullerton, sponsored by our dearest friend Alex.  Alex was Pedro's roommate in his sophomore and junior years and is his best friend in the US.  He's the coolest South Korean we know.  He turned pro last summer, after graduating from UCLA, and just qualified to play the One Asia Tour, some kind of "Asian Challenge Tour".  Actually, it's better than that.  We're super proud of him!

Alex is friends with a bunch of very wealthy members of the golf course where he plays, that take him  (and whoever he wants) to every show and sports event possible.  Saturday, he was invited to go to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and decided to take Pedro and me with him.  It was close to one of the most American experiences I've had since I got here.  We had the chance to see not only the fights themselves, but also lots and lots of people full of muscles and tattoos, eating junk food, drinking and cheering for the fighters.  As incredible as it may seem, the best fight of the night was between two women...!  I must confess that it was a very fun night.

The gourmet experience ended on Sunday, in a brunch in Westwood with some of our good friends: Pontus and Anton, Pedro's team mates, and their sweet girlfriends, Malin and Gemma.  Malin drove me to the bus station that day, since Pedro and Pontus were invited to play with an European Tour player in the afternoon.  After almost three hours in the bus and four hours in Barb's car, I got back "home".

Although it seems I only ate and had fun this weekend, I ended up studying quite a lot, since Pedro had to study too.  Don't even dare to think I'm not the studious Marta you all know.  Midterms are coming up soon and I don't want to get behind.

Thanks Mom, Dad and Pedro for another great weekend.

I-Shake

On a random Wednesday evening, after the usual weekly coffee hour, we decided to shoot International House's version of the Harlem Shake.  Take a look at the final result.

Vegas and Grand Cannyon baby!

This past three-day weekend, I decided to go a little bit crazy.  Don’t get too excited, though!  I decided to go a little bit crazy for my standards.  Haha.  I didn’t want to leave back to Portugal without visiting Las Vegas and Grand Canyon and, as soon as I heard some new people living in ihouse were planning to go there for the long weekend, I decided to join them, even though we were not exactly friends.  They left ihouse on Thursday to spend three days and three nights in Vegas and two days in the Grand Canyon.  I decided to meet them on Saturday, which would give me one night in Vegas and a trip to the national park.  That way, I wouldn’t miss classes and I wouldn’t be forced to party too much but I would still be able to add two more checks to my “to do list”.

I woke up at 3:40 on Saturday, wondering why in the world I booked a flight to Vegas at 6 am in the morning.  A shuttle to Oakland airport picked me up at 4 am.  At 4:30, I got to there.  How surprised did I get when I tried to do the check in and the attendant told me I would not be able to take that flight because my reservation was “on hold” and there were no more available sits in the airplane?  I tried to complain, showing her the confirmation e-mail I received a month ago, when I made the reservation, but she said there was nothing she could do.  That was when crying time started for me.  I called Mom and Dad and decided to check if any other airplane company had tickets for that day.  Southwest actually did!  Pricy tickets but still tickets…

My flight to Vegas was calm and productive.  The guy sitting next to me was such a big gambler that he gets trips to Vegas for free, including transportation and accommodation.  Actually, he receives a good amount of money to go there, he doesn’t just go for free.  He gave me a few tips on where to go and offered me a ride to my hotel.  He said he would have a driver picking him up at the airport that wouldn’t probably mind to drive me too.  Guess what?  A limo took me from the airport to the hotel.  Vegas style baby!  [I only told my parents and Pedro about this adventure after I safely arrived at the hotel.  They were glad they didn’t know about it before.]

My hotel, Luxor, as all the other hotels in “The Strip”, Vegas’ most (and only) famous street, is a combination of casino, club, food courts, a big buffet, stores and rooms, organized in a confusing way so that people feel inertia to move or get lost on their way to other places and gamble as much as possible.  It is pyramid shaped, supposedly to represent Egypt.

Did you know that Egypt, New York, Paris, Venice, Greece, Hollywood and more places are all present in that street?  It’s crazy how everything is fake in that city.  There’s a little pyramid, a little Eiffel Tour, a little Statue of Liberty, a “little” Greek palace, besides a rollercoaster surrounding buildings, a lake, artificial rivers, lots of lights and big stores.  The streets are full of people who go there to gamble, party, go to artistic or strip shows, or shop.  I would nominate Las Vegas the capital of American entertainment.

I guess my description of Vegas makes it sound like an awful place but it is not.  It’s hilarious how it was possible for the human being to create that place, but it’s amusing and fascinating in its way.  There’s a feeling in the air that one can do whatever they feel like doing, with the excuse they are in Vegas and no one cares.

I ended up having a great day there.  I got to know pretty much everything in the Strip, to spend some time with amusing people and to have a fun night out.  It was nice to dress up a lot, feel good looking and party with everyone else.  I didn’t go to a male’s striptease show with most of the girls in my group, but I got to spend some time in a few casinos and to dance a lot in a nightclub.  Vegas: check!

The trip to Grand Canyon was great too.

People wanting to leave early for Grand Canyon were supposed to meet at 8 am on Sunday.  I should have predicted that no one would show up that early after a night out in Las Vegas.  However, I was actually ready to go at the scheduled time.  We didn't leave at 8 am, but four of us (four out of nineteen in the group) managed to leave Las Vegas before 10 am.  Not bad!

We drove for 6 hours before we arrived at the Grand Canyon National Park, South Rim.  That's the part of the park less exposed to the sun, and thus there was snow everywhere.  Although the weather was pretty cold, we managed to spend a couple of hours in the park and only left after watching the sunset.  And because an image is worth more than a thousand words, here are some pictures of the breathtaking landscape.

Monday was the last day of the big trip.  After sleeping in a little motel somewhere in Arizona, the nineteen of us had a nice breakfast together and left to Sedona, where we hiked for a while and had a good Mexican lunch before hitting the highway again.  The day was great, warm and sunny, and everyone was happy.  The way back to the airport was long and tiring but we made it on time!

I'm really sorry for the three guys in our group who booked the tickets back to Berkeley for March 18th instead of February 18th by mistake.  After such a tiring weekend, everything I didn't want to was to to stay one night at the airport before coming back.  Mom and Dad, it didn't happen to me this time! Haha.

Grand Canyon: check!

Two more American states visited (Nevada and Arizona): check!

Time to work: check!

Gettin' old

Yesterday, February 11 2013, I found my first white hair.  This is what Berkeley and my silly model and its silly bug do to me.  Hopefully, I won't look like this when I go back to Portugal this summer.  Haha

There's nothing like a mom

There's nothing like a mom.  There's no one who cares as much about you as she does.  There's no one who knows you as well as she does.  There's no one who makes you want to behave as well and to succeed as much as she does.

My Mom just left back to Portugal after eight wonderful days here in Berkeley with me.  In those eight days, we manage to spend an average of 22 hour per day together.  How's that possible?  First of all, Mamma Marta (as some of my ihouse friends started calling her right away) slept with me in International House's room 636.  That not only means that we slept one meter apart from each other, but also means that we were together even in the useless hours of the day.  Secondly, being a great researcher, Mom got to meet a few professors in my department and even got an office of her own in Davis Hall during this week.  Davis Hall is the building where I have all my classes and where I spend most of my day, studying, doing homework or working for my research.  This week, instead of working in my office or in the computer labs, I worked next to Mom.  Moreover, we used every meal as an excuse to spend time with other people and to explore new places.  We usually had breakfast in ihouse, went out for lunch and had a light meal back in the dining hall.

It was a pleasure to show my mom all the corners of Berkeley and most of the places I describe every day.  It was even a greater pleasure to introduce her to all of my friends, who couldn't stop complimenting her: "So cute", "So cool", "So young", "You look like sisters, not like mom and daughter", etc, etc, etc.  When we went to Castro, the gay neighborhood in San Francisco, one of the waiters in the restaurant where we had lunch even thought we were girlfriends instead of mom and daughter.  Hahaha.

I really love San Francisco and the Bay Area.  If it was not so far away from home, I would probably consider working and living here.  But, being as far, I don't think I could do it.  There's nothing like a Mom next to you to spoil you and support you all the time and there's nothing like home.

Thanks for coming Mom.  Thanks for treating me like a princess this week.  And thanks for being so great that I couldn't wait till I showed you to the world here in Berkeley.

P.S.  Daddy, don't be jealous.  I'm very nostalgic now that Mom had to leave.  There's nothing like a Dad too.  I'm looking very forward to having you visiting me here too.  But if, by any chance, you can bring Mom with you, don't hesitate.  By the way, everyone here thinks that I'm very, very similar to my mom.  You should both come together so that we could clarify this issue.  Hehe.

Nico's birthday. Ludo's "goodbye"

Yesterday, February 1st, was Nico's 21st birthday.  Turning 21 is a big deal in the US, mainly because it's the legal age to drink and get in any restaurant, bar or club with no problems, so we decided to organize him a remarkable birthday.  Props to Ludo and Rob, the big organizers of the big day!

The party actually started on Thursday evening, with a crazy (I mean literally CRAZY) Berkeley Ski Club Meeting, a frat party and sometime at the bars.  I tried to convince the guys not to get to drunk, but without any success.  Have I told you that one of my nicknames here is "Mamma Marta"?  Oh yeah, I'm responsible in any party of the world...

The reason why I tried to convince them not to get drunk was the fact that some of them were going to sky dive on Friday.  How come?  Ludo had the great idea of suggesting that all of Nico's friends from ihouse chipped in $10 so that we could pay for his skydive.  Nico has so many friends that not only could we pay for his skydive, but we also managed to buy some drinks and surprise him again at night.

The day started in the dining hall, where most of us had breakfast together.  Around 9 am, we blindfolded him, made him drink a beer, and those who were skydiving drove him there (Rob, Ludo, Nathalie, Nour, Ajay, Claudia, Capucine and Lara).  He had no idea where we was going and which kind of surprise we had prepared for him almost till he got to the hanger.

The festivities continued in the evening.  First, we had dinner together in the dining hall, after he came back from a quick tennis match.  Then we moved on to the gamble room, where we surprised him with 120 beers, a mini cake and some snacks.  After that, we moved to the Great Hall, where a fancy Council Reception was taking place and where, for the first time in the recent history of ihouse, alcoholic drinks were allowed.  From there, we moved to our beloved Pappy's, where International House Neon Party took place.

All I have to say is that it was a fun night and that we love Nico.

Actually, I have something else to say.  Have you noticed how I make fun of Ludo anytime I have an opportunity to?  That's just because that's what he does to everyone else, in a specific way that makes him a very, very, very funny guy.  I remember that he got slightly uncomfortable with the fact that, in that post I wrote about him, Nico and Mario, I said marvelous things about the other two and just made fun of him.  I would even say that he got kind of worried about what you, my friends and family back home, would think of him.  Well, I want it to be very clear that Ludo's awesome.  He's so awesome he got a job offer from JP Morgan to work in SF starting after he graduates.

He was planing to move to the city in June, to live with two good friends.  However, last week, in their first attempt to start looking for apartments, they found the perfect place and decided to sign the contract.  Consequence:  Ludo moved out of ihouse today.  I didn't want him to leave without me making it public that he is one of my favorite people among everyone I met since I came to Berkeley.

The good thing about this is that now I have a place to stay in the city too...