Busy weekend

I had a busy weekend, one of those good busy wekends that makes you want not want to go towork and then makes you want to sleep at work.

Friday I went out to eat with my co-workers. I love them, to put it simply, their awesome.

Staurday was my schools sports day. Basically all the students come to school on Saturday along with a big chunk of the community to play games, run races, and maybe make money (the school I mean). It was generally boring, but hilighted by me running in the teacher relay that required me to eat a cookie hanging precariously from a wire suspended perpendicular to a flagpole. When my turn came, I bit and pulled and pulled down the whole cookie tree. Yup, embarrassing. We also got taken out to a banquet by the PTA. Taiwanese banquets are a combination offun and strange and tiring. Food is brought out in waves and you are never sure when it will stop so you don't know how much of each thing to eat and basically nibble for 2 hours. Meanwhile the head hanchos of the event, in our case the Principal and various PTA guys (yes in Taiwan what they call PTA is a money raising organization populated mostly by men) go around to each table again and again toasting them with whisky. Luckily green tea looks just like wiskey in color and most women get away not drinking (or better or for worse, I often feel I would prefer the wiskey, but I try not to unsettle things).

Sunday I was in Taipei to run a race with Colin. I decided to do it because it was at Yuanmingshan which is a beautiful mountain. Silly thing I didn't consider was that running at a mountain was going to mean running up a mountain. We had serious hills up for the first five km and then ran down them in the second half. I walked up the major hills and was still panting and I am sore today. I didn't run the half marathon like Colin though, which sounded really brutal.

We returned to Colin's appartment to find his landlord their with some guy. It's really creepy to me that Taiwan doesn't have that law that they have in the States where the landlord can't come over without notifying you. Anyway we were soaked with sweat but couldn't shower so we ate a pineapple instead. Finally Colin's landlord decides to talk to him and let him know he was being evicted so they could remodel and move in. He asked if many people would be coming over and if the landlord could tell him when they would be coming over and the response was "maybe not." So it's not a huge loss except that this month is busy with his parents and my dad coming to visit, plus his dragon boat race and moving is a pain. We did manage to check out an appartment that day though. One of Colin's classmates is moving out of his appartment. It was perfect. Clean, beautiful, in a suburb (sortof) against the hills and along the river and near the metro. Unfortunately they didn't want him because I will be moving in in July and August. This might be a challenge.

We also went to wedding photographers. We found a few good ones and tones of super cheesy places. If you just stop outside these places to look at the photos you get ushered in, feed tea and cookies and then they pitch the wares. It was pretty exhausting, especially if you didn't like the place you were in and were just trying to escape. Now we just have to bargain, or see if that is appropriate.

We also applied this weekend to be on the Travel channel and travel around the world. It's more than a long shot, but you got to throw in your hat to get a chance.