Weekend report

Saturday was sort of a non-day for me. I slept in, a lot, got myself up and moving way too late to go to the public market. Puttered around doing nothing, cleaned my room, finally got home from my shopping at Wegman's around 6:30, and then sat around and polished up my clinical paper for Pharmacology before going to bed.

Today, on the other hand, was a little more eventful. I went for my first ride with my new heart rate monitor. There's a post about it on my other blog. After I got home I went out to a BBQ with Sarah and family at the house of some of her friends. The original purpose of the event was to have me meet Sarah's friend Paul, but that luckily got somewhat diluted by the fact that today was the final of the European soccer championships and all of the men invited wanted to watch the game.

Sarah and Ronen picked me up around 2:30 and we arrived at the friends' (Eric and Nancy) house about 15 minutes into the game. Sarah and Nancy quickly disappeared with all the small children (there were three of them) to the backyard and I stayed with the guys to watch the soccer. It wasn't a terribly exciting match, but it was still fun to watch. By the time it was over we were all really hungry, so Eric cooked up the burgers and we got all the food laid out. The difference between a BBQ with my friends in Portland and a BBQ with this crowd is quite striking, and entirely the fault of the three girls. Everything revolved around the kids, which doesn't make it less fun, just a completely different experience.

I actually got to talk to people a little bit more over dinner, including Paul. He's an interesting guy, and fun to talk with. Obviously a little bit socially awkward, but not too shy so between the two of us I managed the social graces and he managed to keep the conversation going. He's an optical engineer, currently has a torn hamstring, and seems to play every sport known to man. He's also well over 6 feet tall, probably late twenties, a total geek, and completely adored by the three little girls (he makes remarkably good animal sounds and they love him for it). Basically, he's exactly my type. Except for the Catholic thing, but that didn't come up at all today.

Since Sarah is the most blunt and direct person I have ever met, she of course asked me on the way home what I thought of him. I'm sure she will be asking him the same thing about me as soon as she gets the chance. It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, happens next. I can tell that Sarah is loving her role as matchmaker and I am sure that if she gets any encouragement from him at all she will make sure I meet him again.

Regardless of the whole Paul thing, I had a really good time playing with all the little kids and meeting some more friendly people today. Tomorrow I will be going for a bike ride with another classmate, Elspeth, and taking a pharmacology test. I'll have to try out my heart rate monitor again. Yay for new toys!