Encore

So I've had quite the stellar time since I last posted. Last Wednesday I had a BBQ at my house, which was a blast despite the weather being the worst day of the week, but good company and food more than made up for the clouds and cold. God miraculously placed a grill in my basement as up to the night before the BBQ I still wasn't sure what we were going to grill on. Everyone got a tour of my gigantic house and were awe struck by the Chinese Wedding bed in the basement. Thursday was we played possibly the most fun game of ultimate Frisbee I've ever played which could potentially be due to the fact that my team dominated Team Libby. There black eye paint didn't intimidate us. There were a lot of stellar plays and even more laughs. The only downfall of the night was getting my first wood tick of the year which latched on. To add a little more excitement to it, he was at the perfect stage where you couldn't tell if he was a harmless wood tick or a disease infested deer tick. Thankfully, it is clearing up and I don't have a bulls-eyed shaped rash. Thank you Jesus! One souvenir I don't want to bring home from Maine is Lyme's Disease.

Friday night was the first night a an AMAZING weekend. The weather was perfect for an outdoor baseball game so that's what we did. Rob, Leah, Sarah, Kim, and I headed down to Portland to watch a Seadogs game. It was a good game and a great crowd and the food/drinks were actually vaguely reasonable. Sarah and I busted out early Saturday morning for Boston where we explored the town for the day walking the Freedom Trail, soaking in the history and eating some tasty food. Yes, Sam Adams Boston Lager does actually taste better in Boston and Canoli's on the north side are quite good. I recommend. In addition to the Freedom Trail we were fortunate enough to be there during Earthfest- a free music festival held in the park next to Charles River. We were able to catch KT Tunstall and Guster. Sweet! We then bailed to hang out in the park before grabbing something to eat. We spent the night in Manchester BTS with Dokken and the Halgesen's who were as hospital as always and gave us quite a surprise when we walked in the door.

Sunday we left early to head to a church in Fairfield, Connecticut to watch Sarah's sister perform in a musical called Encore, which was hilarious. I was really quite impressed. After narrowly missing out on Broadway tickets, we headed down to NYC where I got my first chance at driving in the BIG city and trying to find parking, but with are mad skills (and since it was Sunday) we were able to find free parking for the day. Super Sweet! We did a lot of walking through central park, to St. Patrick's Cathedral, Time's Square, the Chrysler building, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Plaza, and Mariella's Pizza (good food). That night we stayed in a hostel which was a little sketchy but really cheap. We stayed dorm style with 8 other people in the same room. Which was all fine until, the last two people came in and decided to whisper for about an hour (Sarah managed to sleep through this part). Finally the guy sleeping below them hit the wall to get them to be quite (I don't think he spoke much English) and the rude guy starts talking out loud giving him crap saying hitting the wall isn't normal, what's wrong, etc, etc. Meanwhile Sarah woke up to a loud bang on the wall and some one telling someone else they aren't normal. She was a little freaked. I just wanted them to shut up so I could sleep. Needless to say the couple finally stopped whispering, which unfortunately lead to the him snoring VERY loud.

We woke up early enough Monday to catch the Today Show and luck would have it that Maroon 5 was giving a concert there. So yes that does mean another free concert for us. This one was even better because we were able to get behind the stage and be ridiculously close to the band, not to mention we got on TV. Woohoo- 2 seconds of fame. We met up eventually with Sarah's sister, Nikki, and her friends from Crown College in MN. We hung out for the day experiencing the NYC subway, Chinatown, the Staten Island Ferry, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island (from a distance), and Ground Zero. Ground Zero looks like a construction site as that is essentially what it is, but there is a museum there now which is quite moving. Funny, or sad, how quickly our country became united and how quickly we've forgotten and divided. Finally after a lot more walking and site seeing we headed back to Maine and got back to Freeport about 1:30 AM. I got back to my place and to bed by 2:30 AM and woke up at 5:30AM to get to work. I'm still trying to catch up on sleep.

The rest of the week has been low key. The weather is going down hill again. We had a guys night last night as the girls were painting pots for Kim's birthday. So we got cigars, and hung out on the coast and discussed deep thoughts. Quite scholarly of us, I know. But honestly it was a lot of fun.

This weekend- ACADIA National Park, finally. Hope all is well. Two weeks left here... or a year???

Good Idear: Eat a Bananar in Your Cah

Tips for talking Mainish:

Beginners--
-Add an -r to words ending in vowels. Some good examples are listed in the title- idear and bananar (yes, I've heard both of those used within the past week).

Slightly more advanced--
- Take the "r" out of words and replace it with an "h". A good example I heard just today was "cah" which translates to car or pahk which means park. (This one is useful in all of New England.)

Let me give you an example of a real life scenario:
Gifted PT Student: So was there a specific incident that lead to your shoulder pain?
Mainer: Yah, it happened when I was working on my cah.
Gifted PT Student: Sorry, what was that?
Mainer: I was working on my cah.
Gifted PT Student: (to himself) Oh! his car
(to Mainer) What exactly happened?
Mainer: Well, I was working on my cah, and I had my ahm extended really fah out, and I was turning the....


That's all the detail I really remember at this point. That might not be the actual conversation but very close. Just remember- if you try these tips, especially both of them together, if people from the MidWest are looking at you weird and having a hard time understanding you, you're probably doing pretty well.

Otherwise, what have I been up to? Hmmm... well Tuesday at guy's night, we watched this Navy Seals training camp video. Holy Crap! They guys are crazy and huge. I wouldn't mess with one of them if you can help it. I can't think of a reason you couldn't avoid it. Well, I guess if you had an unresistable urge to become a tyrant of some small country, then I guess it could become an issue. Anyway, the training is freakin' intense. It starts out with about 89 ridiculously jacked guys and ended with only about 20. Two guys finished "hell week" with broken legs. Yep- a little crazy.


Wednesday was a surprise going away party for my friend Amy. I missed the surprise part unfortunately, but I didn't want to confuse them have and a good surprise wasted on me. It was probably safest for me to be fashionably late. I had a good excuse though. I had to go all the way to Damariscotta for my first day of house sitting. I didn't want to make the poor dog hold his bladder for a whole day right off the bat. I was house/dog sitting from Wednesday to Sunday. The dog's name was Simon (part wiener dog, part Beagle). He was able the easiest dog ever to take care of. He was pretty laid back. He had some attachment issues though and felt the need to follow me around to every room. The home owner provided me with a ton of food which was nice, especially the ice cream and cookies part. Mmmmmm!


Most of the week was really gloomy and rainy. On Saturday, the rain managed to quit long enough for my friend Sarah and I to spend the day outside. We chilled out at Popham Beach and ate some delicious sandwiches prepared by your's truly. (Note: Avocado on a sandwich really adds a tasty twist.) Tide was pretty high when we got there but eventually went out enough to allow some additional beach space. The waves were pretty big and it was awesome watching them splash against the islands. All the waves crashing put a sort of mist into the air and it looked pretty sweet. Some guys were crazy enough to go surfing out there. Yeah- Surfing! Who knew anyone did that in Maine. They obviously had some dry suits on because the water is still COLD. Gotta catch the waves when they're there though I guess. Anyway, we then went over to Seawall Beach and to Morse Mountain. I can't get over the view from Morse Mountain. It's incredible.



Sunday I returned home from house-sitting to see a huge mess all over the house courtesy of my landlord which I had the pleasure of cleaning up.









Well, that's all for today. I'll attach a picture of a part of my house as Elisa has asked several times and since I don't have anything to really add, it is a good time.

"Never Stop Exploring"

So I know that it has been a long time since my last post. The biggest news of the last two weeks is that the weather has finally gotten nice. In fact, they've been amazing. The last weekend of June was a little rainy so I didn't really do much but relax at home. Saturday, April 28th, I ran a 5k race that was a fund raiser for an organization called Safe Passage which provides schooling for poor children in Gautemala (I believe). I didn't have my best race ever, but I did alright and it was fun. Quite a flat course for New England. There are hills everywhere here. The most exciting part of Sunday was that my landlord had a guy at the house checking the energy efficiency of the house and he had a infrared device so you could see where all the heat was leaving the house. Anyway, he let me play with it a while after he was done. That was pretty sweet. I found that I really do have poor circulation to my fingers and if you look in a mirror with it while wearing classes, your head looks just like a skeleton.

I've also met some people my age to hang out with which has been awesome. I finally have some sort of social outlet, and I don't have to talk to myself as much. The girls have a "girl's night" every Tuesday so me and a couple other guys get together and hang out. So far I've watched The Village, I learned to play chess, and went to see Spiderman 3 (which I recommend). We also had a Cinco de Mayo party with a piñata and everything. Unfortunately, the piñata was broke and candy was spilled without even a swing of a bat. Apparently it was tied up real well. More candy with less effort, can't really complain I guess.

My friend Eric came up from Manchester BTS last weekend and we did some mountain biking at Bradbury Mountain State Park (which I found isn't one of my strongest skills, but I got better) and then went kayaking at my house. Kayaking is much drier and easier on the shoulders if you have a decent paddle. Don't be fooled by the guide books on the view from Bradbury Mountain, you don't really get a good view of the ocean. It was nice nevertheless. On Sunday I went up to Pemaquid Point to see the lighthouse with some friends. It was an amazing area. The rocks around have some unique formations and the lighthouse just adds to the scenery.

The weather continued to be just awesome on Monday so I decided to head out to Morse Mountain/Seawall Beach. Seawall Beach is this great sand beach that is about a 2 mile hike to get to, but there was no one there. It was quite serene. I then booked it up to Morse Mountain to catch the sunset. However, I booked it a little to fast as I got there about 30-45 minutes too early. So obviously I got out of control taking pictures thinking, "I have a digital camera, I can take as many pictures as I want." Which is true, but only as long as the batteries last. As the sun got lower, I got colder (my hands started moving pretty slow) and the worse I had to go to the bathroom. While waiting though I did get inspired by my North Face fleece (which was actually keeping me quite warm). I found that it was printed inside it several places the phrase "Never Stop Exploring." It seemed so profound as I was sitting at this awesome outlook that I found watching a spectacular sunset. I learned another lesson, which I probably already knew- The best and most colorful part of the sunset actually comes after the sun has actually set. So as I'm truckin' down the mountain, I look up and see between the trees one of the most spectacular sunset skies I've ever seen, and I had already left my lookout spot and was out of camera batteries. Oh well, lesson learned. I still have time to get back there.

Tonight I was able to go out kayaking again. It was SUPER SWEET! The water was like glass for the most part and the weather was perfect. I went to a new area I hadn't explored yet and I'm apparently getting at the whole kayaking deal because I got back to my place and still had plenty of high tide left.

Well I guess that's all for now. Remember: "Never Stop Exploring!"