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.