The past two weeks since the end of school have been crazy. The end of school was crazy. My life is crazy. That’s why all of today I’ve been sitting in my Lincoln-era house listening to mewithoutYou, reading “My name is Asher Lev”, and ironing clothes. I need to relax. But all the craziness has paid off: I made it to Washington D.C. And, it paid off in other ways too. I now have a 4.0 GPA which will help me get into law/grad school, and the craziness paid off because the past two weeks I’ve been able to spend a lot of quality time with a lot of my friends that I haven’t seen in a while.
A couple of days after school got out I was in a wedding for my friends Jake and Kelsey, which was awesome. It was a rich time with a lot of old friends like Bill, Rick, Tom and others. The next day I jumped on my bike and drove to San Diego through the beautiful mountains of southern California. There I saw Seth & Q at there place in North Park San Diego. We had fun doing stuff in the city, driving Q’s Fiat, and heading out to Jamul to hang out with Q’s Mom, Martha, and Robert Vavra, a famous photographer that is friends with the family. It was a beautiful time of talking about Africa, and traveling, and relationships, and life…. I cherished it deeply and was blessed to receive, as a gift, a signed copy of one of Robert’s books. He’s a truly kind and thoughtful man. While in SD I was able to hang out with Stacy and do a short ride with him as well. From there I headed up the coast and kicked it at E Street Café in Encinitas, one of my favorite places in the world (I have so many fond memories there of Jesse Hake rockin’ out during open mic night. Everyone would be there, Stacy, Ryan, Adam, Rusty, Justin, even my family once). Then I headed up to see my friend Oksana, whom I haven’t seen in years. She lives in Santa Monica now… although she misses SD, where I knew her from. We, along with her boyfriend, David, had a wonderful time catching up driving through the beautiful mountains of Malibu and eating fresh strawberries from a local market. I ended up staying at there place that night, and the next morning I got up early and headed to Santa Barbara, another beautiful drive up the coast, to see Dave Hassan, an old friend from the USMC. We had a cool time chillin’ in his city, and exploring UCSB, where he goes to school. I was able to experience Dave in his element at the physics lab too which was really awesome. I used to say “Dave, I don’t understand you” when he’s speak in Arabic to me, but now I say “Dave, I really don’t understand you” when he speaks in theoretical physics terms… I was blessed to stay at his apartment that night and we had a great time talking about life and everything while I was there. He truly is a dear friend. From there I took one of the most beautiful drives ever through the mountain highway __ through Santa Barbara and then all the way to Bakersfield, another gorgeous drive. While in Bakersfield I saw Josh Miller, always amazing, and caught up with him. I love that brother too! I wanted to make is somewhere that night so I drove that evening from Bakersfield to Boron (where I once spent a week doing an exercise in the mountains) to my final destination for the night, the famous Barstow California… It was the only night I had to pay for a place to stay. The next morning I was off! I drove down route 66 to Amboy (another place I did an exercise, it was like a trip down memory lane!) and through the beautiful desert as the temperature quickly rose. Eventually I was riding without a jacket… then without a shirt. It was insanely hot by the time I reached Blythe, California on the border with Arizona. The ride from Blythe to my house in Phoenix was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. I had dirt embedded into my wind-dried skin. It was disgusting. Don’t ever ride a motorcycle through the desert in the middle of the day. It’s like living in a blast furnace. That evening I had my going away party at the Tracy’s which was awesome. I was able to hang out with some of my favorite people in one place and get prayer from those same people. Dr. Simmons, Peggy Bilsten, Steve & Celestia Tracy, David Creech, Kevin Gage, Abby Tracy, Annalise Sanders, Mandy Finley, and my sister all showed up. It was awesome. I am so blessed to have friends like that!
The next day was crazy, filled with packing… and then, I was off… taking a flight to Detroit. Ryan and Stephanie Anglin picked me up and we drove through the sad, despairing city that is Detroit on our way to Port Huron where we would cross into Canada. Crossing the border was hilarious because the Canadian border agents were taking their job so seriously that it was comical. Here three super-clean-nosed 20-somethings were crossing into Canada and we were getting the full treatment, a million questions: “do the people you know in Canada know you’re coming? , “have you ever smoked marijuana?” , “why haven’t you bought you tickets out of Detroit to D.C. yet?” among others. The answers to those were yes, no, and ‘because I don’t have to’. We finally got in, after the cuddly drug dog found nothing in our car. We laughed for some time about funny questions we could have asked them or funny responses we could have given. We knew we were going to get in, and if we didn’t we could have swam into the country… so it was all good. At least the border police were kind and professional and not cold and calculated like American border police usually are. I am usually appalled by the treatment I receive upon reentering my own country. Canada was not that way, they just took their job of protecting Canada seriously. Anyways… we headed to London, Ontario and met up with Adam and his fiancée Adriana. Ryan and I met Adam back in the day in San Diego as he headed back to Canada after going to school in Sydney Australia. He’s a phenomenal guy and his fiancée is awesome as well.
To keep a long story short we had a wonderful time in Canada, went to Toronto, saw Terminator: Salvation, the Americans made fun of Canada, the Canadians made fun of America, went to the lake, went to a horse show, explored London, talked about coffee shops and life, and had a wonderful picnic. Canada is so much like America it was scary. I never felt like a foreigner there, which was almost sad to me…. But it’s all good. I like that country a lot. The people are great, they are very multicultural, and it’s beautiful. Interesting “fact”: by my calculations Canadians drive a higher percentage of American cars than American’s do. Interesting… We had a wonderful time there! Thanks Adam and Adriana for housing us and being our amazing friends… we love you! Can’t wait for you guys to move to the states so we can hang out more!
Getting back into the US was a piece of cake and from there we drove, all night, to Mentone, Indiana, where Ryan and Steph are from. I slept over at Stephanie’s family’s house. I was able to meet a large portion of Ryan and Steph’s families, which was really cool. It was good to spend some time in the Midwest. It just has a different feel. It’s one I know very well. Ryan and I had a wonderful drive over to Huntington where he is starting his coffee shop with Adam when he (Ryan) gets out of the Navy. It’s a really rad place in a good location. The details I will keep on the DL as they are being fleshed out even now. But trust me. The name is tight and the concept for the whole coffee shop is music to my ears! That night we headed to the hotel in Indianapolis and the next morning I said goodbye and headed to Baltimore. It was time to start the summer. For real this time.
I have returned to the land of the halls of power for the first time in seven years. It seems like an entirely different place now compared to when I was here just after 9-11. Trust me, that’s a good thing. Housing is pretty much worked out. I live in a house built in 1861 that is awesome. It is built so much more interestingly than those things they build today. It has character, that’s for sure. Currently I’m sleeping on the couch as the family I’m replacing is moving out this weekend… and I’m taking their room. I live 20 seconds from Rocky Creek National Park (where there are dozens of miles of hiking/running trails) and a 10-minute walk from the Columbia Heights Metro. I love it. D.C. is a rad place and I’ve been exploring the city quite a bit the past couple of days. I went to the White House at night, which was awesome, and have walked all over this historic place. I’m excited to meet everyone at IJM on Sunday (casual!! Flip flops!!!) when the long process of training to be an IJM employee/volunteer/intern,
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