catching up

Sorry it has been a while since I last wrote. Life has been busy! I can't believe I am going to hit the halfway mark of my summer internship at the end of this week. Where did 5 weeks go?!

This last week was full of readjusting back to the US office and continuing work on some of the projects I began in Ireland. I have completed one project and was excited to turn it into Chris Ead in Belfast. I was happy to recieve great feedback, my first time turning in a project to a supervisor! I am now working on updating the CRM contacts for NiSoft's internal database. There are thousands of contacts in there and I would venture to say about 90% of them are outdated...that's where I come in! In order to complete this project I made the world's longest Excel spreadsheet (715 LINES!!). It was quite the project. Now I am in contact with a lot of my coworkers, updating information. It's been great learning how to interact with coworkers in person, via email/phone calls, overseas, and in the office. I have learned so much already.

I have continued to stay in contact with the friends I made in Belfast as well. In fact, my girlfriend, Natalie, who I spent the most time with in Ireland, and I have been messaging everyday. The other day we were talking and decided that she is going to come visit me in California at school in October! I couldn't believe it when she told me she was serious! We have been looking up flights and she is planning on booking it this coming weekend. I am already brainstorming all of the places I will take her when she visits. I'm sure my roommates will get a kick out of her accent as well.

I was so surprised at how close I got with some of my coworkers/flatmates within the week and a half I was in Belfast. A lot of the guys at NiSoft have been messaging me as well, staying in contact. I enjoy knowing the happenings at the Belfast office since I really connected with the employees over there. I have already had 4 different offers of spare bedrooms to stay in, should I come back to visit. I think I just might have to take up some of those offers! :)

This weekend was incredibly busy, full of activities, sun, food, and people! Doug and Rachel had company coming into town on Thursday evening. Doug's son, Joel and his girlfriend, Emily, drove in from OK. Doug's good friend, Bart, from Thunderbird grad school came as well with his wife, Jennifer, and two son's, Aiden and Bryson from Texas. It was a full house!

Friday we had a bbq dinner and everyone got to meet eachother. Everyone has a great personality so we had fun getting to know each other. Saturday was a day for everyone to do their own thing. The weather was beautiful so I ventured down to a local coffee shop, Crowfoot Coffee, and read my book for a couple hours while enjoying my soy hazelnut latte.

That afternoon I checked out the Cherry Creek Art Festival with Molly. It is one of the largest art fairs in the United States. I noticed many artists had flown in from all over the country and even from foreign countries. I was walking by a booth when some shiny tin caught my eye. I looked in the tent and found some art pieces with 3D townships painted and arranged on them (some made of tin). Immediately I told Molly, "That's South Africa!" She asked me how I knew and I told her I recognized the style of the art because of a similar piece I bought in Capetown when I was there last year. Sure enough, I chatted with the artist, a born-and-raised South African. I told him about my semester and he explained how he loves Pietermaritzburg and knew of the Garden Route that I drove from PMB to Capetown. It was neat to have my memories refreshed by this conversation.

After the festival we headed to the Rockies game with Molly's sisters, Beth and Ali. Traditionally they go to the July 2nd game as a "sister" outing. I felt honored to be the 4th sister! ;) After the game (which the rockies won!) there was the most amazing fireworks show I have ever seen! It lasted 20-30 minutes and was coordinated to loud patriotic music coming through the speakers. I was in awe, the show never stopped! The finale was absolutely incredible too. I will have to post some pictures but am sure it will not do the display justice! After the fireworks we hurried home as we had to wake up at 4am the next morning to hike our first fourteener!

Sunday morning's wake up call came all too soon. Groggily Molly and I crawled out of bed and managed somehow to put on hiking clothes, shoes, and gather snacks for our trek. Doug, Rachel, Joel, Emily, Molly and I drove out to Mt. Evans for the hike, which was about 2 hours away. I was a bit nervous about the altitude climb since I have asthma. Nonetheless, I was prepared with my inhaler and was just fine!

The Mt. Evans website had warned hikers about "a faint trail that sometimes disappears" and some "willow-bashing" that would occur. Not knowing exactly what we were getting into, we trekked on. Well, for the first hour or two we could not find ANY sort of trail, let alone a "faint" one! We defintely made our way through thick bushes and willows (which seemed to whack us more than we whacked them! We all ended up with war wounds and scratches down our legs and arms. Too, we encountered little patches of snow that provided some entertaining snowball fights that I always seemed to be on the recieving end of. Another "fun" aspect of the hike was the melted snow that had created nice marshes for us to trek through. All of our shoes were soaking wet for the entire hike as we would sink into deep muddy marshes. How fun! After this part of the hike we ended up having to climb this practically vertical mountain of boulders for well over 1,000 feet. It was the hardest hike of my life. We were using our entire bodies to pull oursleves over these rocks. My arms, legs, back, and shoulders are still SO sore!! The way down the hike was actually quite scary as we had to go back down the steep wall of boulders. My legs were shaky (from exhaustion and nerves) as I went from boulder to boulder. It took us about 4 hours to get back to the car from the top. We hiked for over 8 hours! We were all so proud of ourselves though! We all managed to keep positive attitudes, laughing and joking along the trail. We got some great pictures that I will have to post (to boast about the feat that I accomplished!). The scenery was absolutely gorgeous too. Needlesstosay, when we got home that evening (at 7pm), we were anxious for a shower, large plate of spaghetti, and a nice glass of wine!

After a great meal outside on the patio with the whole gang, we migrated downstairs to end the night with a couple hours of karaoke! Rachel is from the Philippines, and on one trip that she and Doug took to visit her family, they picked up a karaoke machine. It is too funny because many of the songs have typos and incorrect translations of the songs. That just adds to the hilarity of the karaoke! At times I was laughing so hard I was crying. Doug's friend, Bart, blew us all out of the water as he performed a rap for us! Absolutely hysterical. That was a great ending to a long but fun day!

Monday, we all slept in a lot later than we usually do. Our bodies were so exhausted so it felt wonderful. What didn't feel so wonderful was trying to get out of bed and feeling every single muscle in my body scream at me! I have never been more sore in my life. I am still a bit sore today. I am trying to continue to move, to keep my muscles loose and not give them a chance to tighten up.

After enjoying a nice brunch Monday morning we spent the day watching movies, playing card games, and bananagrams. That evening we had a great bbq dinner on the patio. We enjoyed steak, kabobs, hot dogs, hamburgers, salad, watermelon and corn. It was SO good! For dessert we got to experience Doug's signature dish, banana pudding with nilla wafers on top! It was delicious! After dinner we watched a few fireworks shows from the deck and then called it a night as I was still so exhausted.

It has been quite the week, can't believe that less than 2 weeks ago I was in Belfast! I am really enjoying my internship and am not looking forward to it ending!