Oh MAN, this saturday was one of the busiest days this year.
It is now 2:54AM and I have to wake up at 4AM, so I'll be very brief, writing only a summary now, but I'll expand on it later, after SKYDIVING!! :D :D :D
Saturday, May the 29th, 2010, my calendar marked the following activities:
1PM: Buy nachos, dip, and ketchup at Giant Eagle for Lucia's BBQ.
3PM: Get at a house I didn't know about to get a free couch that Yi asked me to take to the new house.
4PM: Lucia's BBQ.
8:30PM: Jose's Fabulous Birthday Party!
And Sunday, May the 30th, 2010:
5:00-23:00: SKYDIVING!!!
But by saturday early afternoon, I still had no concrete confirmation that we were indeed going skydiving! I had bought the nachos, dip, and ketchup on Friday night, so I was able to stay in my apartment a while longer, during which I called several U-Haul places in Pittsburgh to try to rent a 10' truck.
There were none available.
So regardless, at 2:50PM I drove to the new house at 4630 Winthrop St, and met Theo, the guy who was supposed to help me load and unload the couch. I told him we had no truck and the only way to bring it was to haul it manually, and to my slight surprise and happy excitement, he agreed to it! He said "if only for the challenge!" I liked the attitude :). So we drove to 1332 Malvern Avenue, introduced ourselves to the owner, got the couch out of his house, put the pillows in the car, and hauled the rest of the couch manually the whole 1.2 miles in between the houses. It was sooo tiring, and people were shouting at us from the cars passing by on Forbes, but we finally made it. It took us about an hour, but we made it :). We left it on the house porch.
So then we walked back to 1332 Malvern (no buses were passing at that time) where my car was still parked with the couch pillows, I drove him back to Winthrop, I said goodbye to him, and hurried to Lucia's BBQ with the nachos, dip, and ketchup. When I got there, I met Julian, talked to a lot of people, including Yang Xu, Brian Ziebart, Emily Ziebart, Lucia, John, Khalid, and two asian-looking girls, one called Lane, and one of which was with me in the Databases class with Christos. Later on I messaged Orkun to come down to the barbeque, and he came down, with the news that he had confirmed the reservations and had gotten the price down by at least $30 because the initial group of Orkun, Filipe, and me had grown to 8 people... and more discount was possible if we got more people!
So I was left in charge of renting a van big enough for everyone, and so I did. I called Budget first and they told me $152. So I said ok, hung up, and called Orkun to ask him whether that was an OK rate (refundable by the explorer's club). He said yes, so I called again, and the guy told me it was $252 this time. I didn't want to pay $100 extra, so I hung up and called again, where they told me again that it would be $152! $179 with insurance included, so not bad :) So I confirmed my reservation at 11pm that very day while walking around in the Cut (area between Wean and Porter halls), Julian said he might come a little later, and then I took a few of the remaining nachos and dip and said goodbye to everyone.
So then I drove myself to my apartment, where I showered and got ready for Jose's fabulous birthday party! I put on my lotions, my p's :P, a nice t-shirt and a nice shirt over it, and drove to 401 Shady Avenue, where the fabulous party was at. On the way, I called Leila and asked whether she would like to have the car on Sunday, since I wouldn't be using it anymore (I had planned to take everyone there but now we were many more in the group). She said yes, so I told her I would pick her up between 10 and 10:30PM to go to the airport, drop me off so I could rent my van, and then she could keep the car for the day, and she said cool.
When I arrived at 401 Shady Avenue, I managed to parallel park my car in a space with only about 4cm to spare on each side. Then I looked for the place, I got a little lost while doing so, I found the place, I got into the apartment building because of a nice guy going in, while I was in the lobby I saw Tony (Luis's programmer) and his wife Astrid coming in, so I followed them (because I didn't know where exactly the party was at). We went down into the basement, I got there, and everyone who was invited was there! Andrea, Eber, his wife Kelly (who I just met), Luis, Severin, and Jose Bonilla. I drank some Ron Zacapa with coke, then an excellent pina colada by Andrea and Astrid, and talked to everyone. Later on this girl called Maria Clara came into the party, and Andrea introduced her to all of us. After that my skydiving trip came into the conversation, and Andrea and Maria Clara seemed interested. So I went out to the lobby to ask Orkun if we still had 2 spaces left in a 12-passenger van (there was no signal in the basement), and he said yes. So I went down, told them that there was space if they wanted to go, and since it was already past 10pm, that I had to go to get the rental car from the airport. I said goodbye to everyone, and left the party.
I called Leila while driving to ask her where should I pick her up, and then she told me that she misunderstood, that she thought it was between 10 and 10:30 AM, not PM. She was eating at India Garden with Ina, so she said she preferred not to go drop me off at the airport anymore. So then I drove to the airport to pick up the van, where I parked at the long-term parking lot and arrived to the Budget counter at around 11:15PM. I waited in line for about 10 minutes before I was attended by the woman at the counter, who confirmed my reservation, swiped the card, and everything. She then went to look for the van keys, and she realized she couldn't find them. She then went to the Avis counter and looked for them, then she went to the parking lot to look for them... long story short, she stayed there almost 2 hours after 11:30PM trying to please me with some other car she could give me instead of a 12-passenger van. However, I was the only confirmed driver in the group, and our group consisted of at least 8 people, and the next-biggest car after the van was a 7-seater. Too small. So while she kept looking for the keys, I started texting people in the group I knew to ask them whether they were able and willing to drive. Filipe said no, Orkun said no, Andrea said yes but her credit card was maxed out, and Maria Clara finally said yes! So we agreed... I would rent a 7-seater minivan, get back to Pittsburgh, sleep for a few hours, drive the minivan to the airport again and get there at 5:30AM with Maria Clara, either pick up the 12-passenger van if they had found the keys by then OR get another 7-seater minivan for Maria Clara to drive, come back to Pittsburgh, pick up everyone at the UC turnaround at 6:30AM (and Andrea at her place in 401 Shady Avenue and possibly Filipe at his place near Forward Avenue), and then head out to Rittman, OH!
So I drove back to Pittsburgh in my newly-rented minivan, I asked Maria Clara if I could stay with her at her place so we could wake up early more easily (she offered first), she said yes, I picked up stuff like clothes, food, chargers, and toothbrush from my apartment, drove to hers, and when I got here, she had made me a bed in the living room with a blanket, pillows, and everything! She was pretty nice :)
So now I'm on this bed in Maria Clara's apartment- my phone is charging and waiting to ring the alarm in about 15 minutes (because I couldn't sleep because it's very hot and because for some reason I'm not sleepy and couldn't force myself to go to sleep and I really wanted to write what had happened to me this saturday). It's 3:27AM and the first alarm is set for 3:41AM, I believe.
And I'm going skydiving in a few hours!! In an hour I should already be driving... it will be pretty soon. I'm not thinking too much about the skydive itself... it's going to be SOOOOOOOOOOO COOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D
hehe I remember my bungee jump. I was so relaxed, so nonchalant about it... very unafraid. And when I actually got the border of that bridge and everyone was looking at me and they started the countdown... OH MY GOD!!!! That was SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH an intense moment!!! I bet skydiving is similar... maybe orders of magnitude more intense??????? :) :) :D :D :D :D :D :D :D I don't want to wait to try it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D
Now I'm going to try to pretend to sleep at least the last few minutes before the alarm rings. I'll remove the 3:41AM alarm and keep the 3:50AM.. that should give me at least time to rest my typing muscles, and my back and arm muscles from the couch-hauling :P :).
Good night!!
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