I'm not even sure whether this is week 1480... it might be 1481. That's what I get for deciding to do these things irregularly. The past week has been adventurous, to say the least, so here I am writing about it!
Last week I finally bought a car. I'd taken a day to go look at used cars (I picked the hottest, sunniest day we've had in a LONG time), and I became quickly disgusted by the dishonest, greasy salesmen, and the overpriced, problem-prone cars. I made my last stop of the day the Volkswagen dealership, not really expecting much. I looked at their used cars, and found Jettas that were four years old, with no warranty left, for $14,000. I also saw a beautiful Audi A4 - I wanted it the instant I saw it. Unfortunately it had 120,000 kms on it, and it still cost $23,000.
I went over to take a look at the new cars, and I decided to take the City Jetta out for a spin. It wasn't as powerful a car as I wanted, but I was blown away by the quality of the car. It rode nicely, and everything looked great inside. It immediately supplanted the now cheap and ugly Pontiac G5 as my new car of choice. I finished the test drive and left the lot, determined to make a decision quickly.
That night, I decided to go with the City Jetta, if I could get what I perceived to be a "good deal." The next day, I went back to the dealership, only to find the salesman who'd helped me the previous day sick. I talked numbers with another salesman, and finally nailed down a fairly firm price. Then, I left to go over to the Dartmouth dealership to compare prices.
In Dartmouth, most of the cars had side airbags, whereas the ones in Halifax hadn't. I was able to get them to match Halifax's price including the side airbags, and so I signed off! I was nervous and excited - nervous because I couldn't help but feel like I was being ripped off, but more because it was a big step in my life. I was excited because I knew I liked the car, and I was looking forward to driving it. We got through all the paperwork, and I headed home.
The next day, I arranged insurance, then went to pick the car up after work, with my parents. We did some more paper work (financing), then went over literally every feature of the car (including every button in the dash), and finally I was allowed to drive away.
Dad and I stopped at home, where Mum was waiting for us to return (she'd brought the other car back home). They took pictures of me and the car... they kept saying "wow - your very first car!" I felt like I was sixteen years old. Glad to have gotten through the process, I took the car out for a bit of test driving before heading home.
I've gotten better at driving it the past couple of weeks - I can handle fairly steep inclines now. Still, the car shakes a lot when I change gears because I don't have it quite right. It's a good exercise for me to drive it around town in difficult situations, because it's embarassing to stall it.
Last Thursday, I went on my first date since JW and I broke up. It was a good first date, as far as they go. We chatted over coffees for a while, then went for a walk on the boardwalk, then went to Eastside Mario's for dinner. I had a spicy sausage pasta, that tasted the same as a spicy bowtie pasta I'd had my last time there.
The following Sunday, I went golfing with TA at Fox Hollow. The course was difficult, and my driving wasn't good. I narrowly escaped several disasters, often driving the ball so far off line as to avoid the rough and wind up in the next fairway over. I settled down and strung together several excellent holes - it was the first time this year I've felt good about my game. Later in the round, I experienced a bit of fatigue, and I got sloppy on a few shots. I paid dearly for them, nearly ruining the round in the process. In the end, I managed a pretty good score, and I came away happy.
Once home, I called JP and we went out on our second date (both my parents were away that night, so I had no dinner to go to). We walked from her place to the Athens, where we both had Souvlaki (I think). It was delicious - mine came with lamb, a pita, rice and a greek salad, with some sort of dipping sauce that I can't even come close to spelling (tah-zee-kee). Afterward, we tried to go for a coffee at Starbucks, but it was a full house, so we went back to her place for a little while. We watched a U2 concert DVD - she has a great TV and great speakers (and no neighbour worries, I guess), so it was pretty good.
Tuesday, we hung out for the third time, this time deciding to go to Crystal Crescent beach for a hike. It had rained a bit, and we fully expected that we'd get there, take a quick look, then leave. By the time we arrived, the rain had stopped, and it was fairly dry, but very foggy.
We walked along the trails, quite far out, until we came to what we think was Pennant Point - the furthest part of the trail system, according to the map. The waves were amazing - perhaps as big as they'd been at Lawerencetown beach because of a hurricane last fall. They crashed into the rocks and shook the ground. We stopped for a few minutes to watch them, then continued on along a shotty path, that became shottier with each step. We eventually pushed our way through some forest, and came to an open, swampy field. We decided that we'd better get back to the trail that goes around the entire outer perimeter of the penninsula, but we were unable to find it. Instead, we continued along the coast, as the conditions continued to deteriorate.
Again, we pushed through the woods to get a look at the interior. We thought we could hear water on both sides of us, and I'm quite sure at this point we did nearly a complete circle, before returning to the shore again. Now, we were determined to stick to the shore the rest of the way, to avoid getting lost.
The conditions along the shore got worse quickly. We found ourselves walking over much smaller, much slipperier rocks, and our pace slowed greatly. It was beginning to get dark, and we had no idea where we were. Finally, we decided to go up the bank to see what we could see. Luckily, we found a path. Going up the bank was the first decision that we made that saved us from spending the night, lost.
On the newfound path, we ran through the relative darkness, slipping on rocks and roots. At any time, one of us might've twisted an ankle, or poked an eye out on an unseen tree limb. We eventually came to a fork in the path. As JP started to take the left fork, I saw a sign. I ran over to take a look. It said, "short way back to parking lot and C.C. beach!" Spotting the makeshift sign, and deciding to check it, was the second thing that saved us from a night in the woods, as we would not have made it going the long way.
We continued to run, hopping over fallen trees and slipping in the mud. We came out of the forest and into a clearing, which gave us some more light. Still, it was so dark, I found it difficult to follow the path. A half hour later, we came to a gravel path with a large boulder at the intersection of three paths. I thought I recognized it, which gave us a boost. We followed one of the paths, and we're able to make it back to the boardwalk by the second beach! We were overjoyed, and we took a moment to celebrate - both of us really believed for a time that we were not going to find our way out.
We walked through the near pitch black to the parking lot, then out to the road, where I'd parked, finally arriving at 9:40pm on a foggy night. We smelled like sweat and trees - like we'd lived in the woods for months. We proceeded to drive to a Subway for supper, where a large crowd was driven away by our odor :)
We ate our subs at JP's place, after which I headed home. In the end, it makes for a good story, and we've laughed about it a lot since. But at the time, it was a very serious situation, and we really we lucky to get out. Had we been just ten minutes later getting out, we'd have been feeling our way along pitch black forest paths - definitely not my favourite thing to do.
We made a pact that night that we'd never go hiking again without a GPS. If we'd had one, we'd never have gotten into the mess we did.
On Wednesday I went to yoga as usual. The previous week was a good class, but this week casted doubts on whether I'd be able to attend classes long-term. The instructor often tells us about her personal life, and how she uses yoga to deal with it. She talked about breathing in negative energy and bad feelings, and breathing out peace and love. She talked about sharing the peace and love with other people. She had us meditate for a few minutes, where we were supposed to think of someone we disliked, and to breathe in the things we disliked about them, and breathe out compassion and understanding for them.
The whole thing was a little too wishy-washy for me, and I've noticed that as I've gotten more into it, the wishy-washy bits of yoga are becoming more prevalent. I like the physical part of yoga - the stretches, the balancing - working on core muscles. I always feel good physically when I leave. However, I'm not as committed as I need to be to it. I don't live it, like you're *supposed* to - it's not a way of life for me.
I've been thinking for a while that I'll take the summer term (July & August) off to re-evaluate what I need to be doing. AD and TA want to start a training gym at AD's house, which I think would be exciting, at least for a little while. The idea is that we're training to eventually be fit enough to take a real class in, for example, martial arts. This is also one of the long term goals I've been hoping yoga will help me achieve.
Wednesday at work, B-AC quit. It was sudden, but not unexpected. He quit for many good reasons, but one of the major reasons B-PM, an arrogant, demeaning, belittling IT manager. Word around the office is that he might not be the last, if B-PM keeps up his current behaviour. It's definitely going to be an interesting summer!
Thursday after work, AN, B-CC B-AC and I met at Grandview for a round of golf. More importantly, we discussed the reasoning for B-AC quitting, and the state of things at work in general. It was a sort of going away party, despite the fact that we've decided to keep playing together every week, if we can.
Our rounds were pretty good, given that we were eaten alive by flies. It was the worst I've ever seen it - putting was particularly difficult, given that at any one time you could feel several flies walking along your body. It's a nice course, and we would've gone back, except that they decided to raise the price of nine holes from $21 to $33 THAT VERY DAY. Thanks for telling us, guys.
On Friday, AD, RD, AB, AN, TA, JP (RD's sister, not the one I've been dating), A? and I went to Yuk Yuk's to take in some stand up comedy. It was only the second time I've ever done that, and I expected the show to be mediocre. I was horrified to find that our seats were in the FRONT row. We sat about three feet from the comedian's stool.
The show started, and the host immediately began picking on us. He asked me if I was having a good time, but I guess I wasn't very convincing when I said "yes." He made asked my name, then made a joke about me being straight faced like one of those "computer guys." He then asked me what I really did for a living, and I said "you got it, man." That line got one of the biggest laughs of the night :) He then picked on TA about being Italian, and then asked both of us if JP and her friend were our dates. When he found they weren't, he asked us what was wrong with us and how we should be all over the "two beautiful ladies."
There were three actual acts, in addition to the host's, and they were all pretty good. Two of them avoided interacting with the crowd, but the last one again interacted with all eight of us. He particularly got AD for looking relaxed and tired, as if he were on drugs. Then, he ended the act by literally wetting himself - we're still not sure whether it was part of the act or not! It seemed very sudden - it happened mid-joke, and it didn't get much of a laugh. Even out in the corridor, after the show, he maintained that it had been an accident! It was an interesting evening, and it was nice to do something different for a change.
On Saturday I went out with JP for the fourth time. We were considering going to Keji, but the bug report was awful, and neither of us wanted to put ourselves through that. Instead, we went to the Keji Seaside Adjunct, an inviting name that descibes a part of Keji along the ocean that is not attached to the rest of the park. It supposedly had a good hiking trail.
We left around noon, not arriving at the park until about four. We tried to stop in Bridgewater for something to eat, but we wound up eating in Lunenburg. There, we asked directions to the park, but the waitress didn't know where it was, so she called out a man who worked in the kitchen to help us. He insisted that the seaside adjunct didn't exist, and that Keji was inland. He said that there was no saltwater at Keji, unless something had happened overnight or there was some sort of tidal wave. I insisted that it did exist, but he refused to listen, and eventually I gave up. Then he spent five minutes telling us about other places we could go, as we tried desperately to get him to leave. He even said the water was so cold, that we'd freeze by the time we got up to "here" (he indicated "where" by touching JP's leg).
We eventually escaped the restaurant, and headed south, toward where the park was supposed to be. We looked at a map the restaurant had given us, and of course, the seaside adjunct was clearly marked :) It took us about 25 minutes to get there, and we began our hike.
It was a nice hike, but it really wasn't worth the drive. The path is gravel and boardwalk, so it's definitely good for the casual hiker, and it's quite long - it took nearly two hours to complete it. There are some nice rocks to sit on near the furthest points of the hike, though it was cold, windy and foggy that far out. The waves were pretty good, but nothing like Crystal Crescent a few days before. There were also stations equipped with binoculars, though we couldn't quite figure out what one might use them for. We warmed up on the way back inland, and got to the car, fairly disappointed.
It was still fairly early, so we decided to stop by a beach we'd seen on the way to Keji. I'm not sure of the name, but it was a beautiful beach, and it was far enough inland as to escape the fog. It's quite long, quite wide, and very sandy. It reminded me a lot of a smaller, less-private Martinique. We tested the waters, but couldn't get beyond ankle-deep (it was still warmer than I'd been expecting). Then, we laid on the beach in the sun, and it was actually warm enough not to freeze.
We eventually got up, cleaned the sand off of us, and went to a restaurant one end of the beach. It was called the Quarterdeck, and it was extremely nice, and quite pricey. It sat very close to the water, so that you could clearly hear the waves. The seafood was amazing. JP got a caesar salad with shrimp, lobster and huge scallops on it. I got the far less-impressive seafood crepes, but they were still delicious. We split some coconut shrimp to start. They also served jalapeno scones, which surprised me given the rather aged clientelle.
After the restaurant, we listened to music for the hour and a half ride back home.
So yes, it's been a fun couple of weeks! I really feel like summer is here now, and I'm looking forward to hopefully taking part in some more summertime activities.
I’m currently listening to: nothing - I guess I forgot to turn the music on!
Movies watched since last entry: none :(
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