Get a Grasp on Life

This is EXACTLY my life at the moment.  Actually most of the time but particularly right now!  Thank you xkcd for, once again, knowing precisely what's up?

Photo Finish

As previously mentioned, on my travels I often had difficulties getting a connection reliable enough to load photos in blog posts.  Some of you (I won't say who, so as to maintain the size of your preferred internet footprint) are not on Facebook and have patiently waited to see pics on here.  Well wait no longer!  This weekend I have gone through a few past posts and added several thousand words in picture form.  And as a thank you for your patience, I will give you photos that facebookers have yet to see ;)

I will update the list below as I get to more posts.  Hope you enjoy!

Birthday Bliss

Taj Mahal!!

Amritsar

Jaipur

Context Clues

I am a big fan of collecting quotes of the day. I just love looking back on them and laughing until I snort/cry/drool all over again. Sometimes it takes me a minute to remember the context and it makes them even more bizarre and hilarious. I thought I would flick through my notebook and share a few with you. (You can highlight between the brackets below the quotes to get the context - I know I always read ahead when I'm curious so I'm hiding it for cheating readers like me). WARNING: it's heavy on Nepal references....again...as my travel journals are the ones I currently have with me. One day I will stop talking about it. Not soon though. ;)

"It was painful, but it was surprisingly acceptable."
[Markus referring to having his foot run over by a car.]

"There is dog cheese?!"
[My niece misunderstanding something my brother said. Still not sure what he actually did say.]

"Why does it always hurt when I'm with you?"
[Me referring to Alex and the fact that I always get a sideache from laughing so damn hard with him. I have been mocked ever since lol]

Fun with Collages

On my trip I took a series of photo collages to put together at a future date.  With our internet being down the last few days, I have had some offline computer time to work on them.  Here are a few for your viewing pleasure. *they should open into a new window to let you look at the big versions up close*

River in Soppong
I will probably redo this collage a bit as it was my first attempt and I learned a lot from the following two.  I love the colors though!  Yafit and I played in this waterfall for quite a while our last day in Soppong.  It's got a natural, mini water slide at the bottom and a few bathing pools up top.  Pretty much perfect.

Rae of Light

After participating in two and a half months of what I can only describe as felony-grade nacho abuse, I have recently been immensely pleased to discover that I am, in fact, much more fit now than I was six months ago.  Apparently the progress made over three months of carrying a backpack, walking, hiking, climbing, swimming, playing, jumping, diving, cartwheeling and being indoors only while sleeping cannot be entirely undone by two months of binge eating, bonding with Morpheus*, binge drinking, road-tripping or the consumption of SIX seasons of How I Met Your Mother.

I fixed up Rae this weekend (changing a flat and giving her a much needed scrub down to remove the cobwebs, dirt and slugs that built up in my absence) and I have been amazed at how much easier riding is now compared to February.  When I arrived in Utah, freshly back from a month of all-day-every-day hiking, I noticed a significant difference in my fitness.  Suddenly I found myself on my bike at the tops of hills I never would have even thought about going up before.  And not only at the top of them but at the top of them without being out of breath or wanting to die.  In fact, I felt more energized and excited to keep going.

What I did not expect, however, was that after a not-so-brief stint of laziness and excess in the States I would find the same thing happening in London.  I am currently staying at the top of a big hill but it's been noticeably easier to get back here after a long night out than it ever was before.  For the last two years I have had several markers along Shoot Up Hill to see if my abilities were improving - willing myself to just get to the first tree, the bus stop, the street sign.  Now I get to the top without having to coach myself at all.  I'm riding faster and stronger than I ever did before, all as a result of no purposeful training whatsoever.  The only change in my life was going from a desk job and studying to walking around all day every day - often while carrying a backpack....or a pina colada.  I guess it just goes to show that being even a little more active every single day does really add up after all.

*for the uninitiated, Morpheus is the obscenely seductive sofa who lives at my parents' house.  He will suck you down the rabbit hole faster than you can say, "why oh why didn't I take the blue pill."