It is pretty amazing that within five hours yesterday, I went from this:

To this:

I am of course referring to my trip from the lovely city of St. Louis back to my home, where the garden is alas, no more.

My first trip to the midwest was surprisingly awesome! St. Louis has many amenable qualities such as nice people, a nice medical school (two, actually), soft water, luscious humidity, awesome FroYo, delightful cupcakes, massive parks filled with old, huge trees, and lots of fun neighborhoods.

I also had a great time there because of my wonderful hosts, Molly (1st year med student) and Katie (couchsurfer), who share a close mutual friend.  What a small world! I was amazed by their hospitality, and what is called “Midwest friendly”.  Who knew that I could have such a great experience largely due to the kindness of complete strangers.  They picked me up/took me to the airport, took me to meet friends, answered my questions, hung out with me for hours, despite being busy, gave me tights when I tore mine, made me veggie chili, took me to lunch, and toured me around. Whew!

Other than that, I have been trying to live it up in Boulder as usual.  Most notably, Shay had a going away party (bye, Shay) where Ryan and I made what I see as pretty awesome Halloween style cupcakes.  Ryan and I went to the Chophouse and around town one night, which was highly entertaining, and now I am in the stress free zone.  My next plans are to learn French and Spanish and start exercising again.  Wish me luck!

I went on a walk in the sunshine today, because it was just too nice out to sit inside and write on my computer.

I think this is possibly one of my favorite pictures ever.  Taken while getting ready to go out this past Saturday night.  Oh man. Let’s start at the beginning though.

Julie and I met in February of 2005 in Wollongong, Australia.  Here we are at an ungodly hour in a tiny train station in Mossvale, taking advantage of their Nescafe machine.  We became fast friends and ended up covering about half of Australia together in a camper van.  She went back to Canadia in July, and I stayed until December.  We hadn’t seen each other since. Fortunately, this past weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving; therefore, we met up in Las Vegas for the best ever friend reunion!

I arrived insanely early on Friday morning.  Fortunately, I woke up five minutes before my flight landed and started small talking with the girl next to me on the plane.  When she learned that I was going to wait for people that I didn’t know at the airport, she insisted that I join her at her pool at the Palazzo.  Deal. We took a cab there and she showed me around, and my fascination/disgust with Las Vegas began.  It is entirely fake.  Everything looks real, like the canals of Venice, waterfalls, the Eiffel Tower, but no, it is just some bizarre creation in the middle of the desert.  Anyways, we went to the pool where I started to understand the emphasis on money, sex, alcohol, and prestige found in Vegas.

I stayed there for most of the afternoon, chatting with my new friends and enjoying the sunshine.  It was a good combo.  Around four, I finally met up with Julie, Lauralie, and Ryan at the MGM and we started the fun.  Within minutes, we had made it to the Tropicana, and I was up $45 at blackjack! Unfortunately, my lack of sleep, water, and abundance of sunshine caused me to have a huge headache, and it was an early night.

The real fun started on Saturday though.  We gambled with breakfast, of course, but before long made it to the pool.  Somehow we ended up at a party full of doctors.  I had fun learning about heart, spine, and vascular surgery from docs who all happened to have gone to school and trained at places that I applied.  Strange! I got in a swim race with “Optho” who decided my name would be “Derm” after telling him about my interest in family practice.  Needless to say, I won.  Muhahaha.

That night we made it to a delightful buffet at Planet Hollywood (that did not really agree with me, unfortunately) and then to Paris for some more gambling (shocker).  It was a great day, but the best was yet to come!

Sunday we decided to take a trip down the Strip, and boy did we!  I couldn’t even tell you all the places that we went, but there was definitely gambling at Flamingo, John’s, Imperial Palace, O’Sheas, and probably somewhere else.  We were high rollers.  We made a mandatory Starbucks stop because there is no coffee and no fruit in Vegas! Ah! We made it back just in time to hit the hottub for a few minutes and get ready to go to see Mystere at Treasure Island.


We met some nice Vancouverites on the Deuce (horrible name for a bus, btw) who were also going to the show, and we ended up spending until 2 am out with them! It is strangely easy to make friends in Vegas. Hmmmm. Anyways, the show was quite amazing, but I am apparently a little bit narcoleptic. I woke up during the finale of the drum solo, thankfully, but was still embarrassed that I had managed to fall asleep during a Cirque du Soleil show. Silly me.

We managed to gamble all the way back down the strip to our home at the MGM and arrived at about 2:30am.  I packed my bag, and we headed downstairs for a little 3am Starbucks (we needed herbal tea like nobody’s business).  We spent the rest of the time until my shuttle at 4:30 playing some expensive blackjack.  Overall, I won about $100 and lost $175.  Oops It was a great trip though, and I will be back one day with more money for gambling and Cirque shows in several years.  Satisfied sigh.

Where does the time go?! It has been almost two months since I got back from Seattle and started the glory that is fall, and it is flying by!  Let’s start with the bread and butter.  Keeping very busy with escuela, working (yeah teaching SAT and tutoring in chemistry), volunteering, and applications.  Applications actually nearly sucked the soul out of my body a lá dementors, but I only have one left and it is due on Wednesday, so no more excuses!  I also had my first interview (fingers crossed!), and it is nearly time for me to start preparing for the next one.  I will be oh-so happy if I actually get into medical school! Woo!

I have been seeing actually a lot of my friends.  Unfortunately Yuri went back to Columbus to continue his computer science studies.  We will miss him!  I also decided to pick up my high school hobby of swing dancing again.  I have only been once, but it is fun and a great workout!  I also painted a mug at Ceramics in the City which I am so very proud of.  I love it!

In general, however, fall is my favorite season, mainly because of the trail running.  My new roomie Sarah and I have been going a lot.  You just can’t beat the fall colors, the foxes, the perfect weather, and some mud for good measure.  Yesterday I did Flagstaff with Ryan which was so much fun- I remember why it is my favorite trail.  I was on pace for about 5 minutes slower than I used to run it in, but I had so much fun that it didn’t matter!

Other than that, this fall has been filled with other exciting times like going to the farmers market, housewarming parties, dance recitals, hanging out with bears on my street (he cut his lip falling out of the apple tree- sad), becoming positively obsessed with Glee, game nights, a trip to Vegas, and downloading happy music with which to have dance parties all day because I am just so happy! Yay! Tomorrow is the fall themed game night, and I am going to try my hand at a fall-themed apple dessert.