This weekend I went to Seattle to visit my friend Jeff from middle school, nice and relaxing. I had dinner with Aimee's family, then we drove back up in the pouring rain, which sucked.

The other day I went for another hike (8.5-10 miles), then on the way home realized I really wanted to go the library, but only had half an hour and another mile and a half at least, so I started running, which all the joggers and bikers on the trail with me thought was strange since I was wearing hiking boots and a big pack. But I made it to the library with 10 minutes to spare!

Cool, iTunes is selling some music DRM free! Cool, Google will print pictures and emails for free! (Should I feel like a corporate whore?)

Pictures from Victoria!

We missed our ferry by literally 2 minutes, but it was ok because there was another one 2 hours later.


Nina took us to her favored establishment, Big Bad John's, where the bartenders wear overalls and bras hang from the ceiling.


Kari sold her bra for C$50 to some wasted businessmen. Nina and Dani stole it back later, after the guys left.


Emo wove a garland out of weeds.


Dani and I went to Craigdarroch Castle for our tourist needs.


Furnishings and decorations "recreated" 1890s life in the castle.


Afterwards, Dani and I had a mini photo-shoot on the daisy-covered back lawn.


The hostel website told us this room was big enough to have a dance party to Bjork.

I hiked about 11 miles yesterday and it made me tired.

Enjoy some pictures from the past week:


Aimee, Emo and I went to Teddy Bear Cove to see the sunset and check out tidepool animals.


Sally hurt her foot yet insisted on walking everywhere despite the doctor's orders.


Sally, Hannah and I took the car ferry over to Orcas Island.


We went hiking in the rain--it was pretty.

I am DONE with college!!!

Sally has been up visiting me for the past week and a bit, and we have been eating quite well. We made some delectable quinoa-egg breakfast burritos, scrumptuous grilled eggplant sandwiches, and at Hannah's birthday party ate cupcakes with three kinds of buttercream and chocolate ganache and poppyseed cake and brownies and irish soda bread. She hurt her foot before she came but refuses to heed the doctor's advice to stay off it and take 9 ibuprofin a day, and I kept coming home from school to find that she'd walked 2-4 miles. Really I can't blame her because Aimee's boyfriend was visiting.

Tristan made it down from British Columbia for a whirlwind visit (we went to get him at the border but the place we were meeting him was closed so we went into Canada although Sally didn't have her passport and the border dudes were so exasperated by our tale of confusion and woe that they just told us to scram wherever we wanted to go). On the way back, I dropped him off in Canada, then tried to come back into the U.S. but got stuck in construction traffic for 2 1/2 hours while Sally was drinking cup after cup of bottomless coffee in a sleazy cafe in podunk Blaine.

Sally and I went with Hannah to Orcas Island yesterday and today, and hiked around all day today although it was raining a ton, so I have a shitload of crappy photos of mossy trees and logs I'll get to sort through soon. Now I'm at my aunt and uncle's house in Issaquah debating whether or not to return to Bham tomorrow.

Dani and I went for a nice hike at Stimpson today despite the rain and wind (and apparently we're also on a flood warning?). The rain falling on the wetlands was entrancing. Then we checked out the Bayview Cemetery (?) that's right nearby because apparently we both enjoy checking out old cool statuary. We've decided to make a club dedicated to hiking, gravestone rubbings, reading, and themed potlachs--all we need is to figure out a main theme to explain why all those things belong together (because they should, duh), and then we're going to try to get funding from the AS.

Emo, Hannah, Mark, and I accompanied Emo's parents to a condo in Maple Falls this weekend, then Hannah and I went up skiing on Saturday while Emo and Mark snowshoed. Hannah was learning to telemark, so I hung out with her on the bunny slopes until lunch, then took off to the other side of the mountain (where the weather was decidedly crappy) and skied by myself for a few hours. When I got back to the lodge to return my rental skis (I forgot mine in CA), I found out that I had left the lights on in Emo's car all day, so the battery was dead. Her parents had just left, so they turned around to give us a jump. Excitement! Also, I learned 3 new board games.

This weekend I took Hannah up to my favorite place, Tennant Lake...but when we got there, we found that the water was a little too high for the boardwalk, so it was about an inch or two underwater! We decided to walk around it anyway--I felt bad for Hannah because I was wearing waterproof boots and she was just wearing sneakers. Then we wandered around by the Nooksack and up to a farm not particularly far away, where we admired the long-eared lops and interesting-beaked birds.

On Sunday, my friend Jeff from middle school came up to visit (he goes to school in Seattle) for the afternoon--we wandered around Fairhaven, downtown Bellingham, checked out the Sehome Arboretum tower, and got greasy delicious chinese food at Happy Panda or something.

Today we practiced throws in jujitsu, and I am developing a really gnarly looking bruise on my bicep. I'll post a picture later if it's not too grotesque. Man, I never thought I bruised easily, but apparently... Also, I thought I had upper body strength, but I had a hell of a time doing the throws, even with a guy who weighs 10-15 pounds less than I do.