A really good day

After getting in to Newark last night (don’t get me started on the stupidity around the cabs, buses and njtransit.com), I made it straight to Dan’s place. Settled in pretty quickly, had a pleasant evening.

Today, Dan had to leave early for a conference which took him most of the day. I slept in, and fooled around online for a bit. In the afternoon, I went to the city, and met up with . We chatted for like an hour and half, while checking around the bus center for the elusive open information desk, and heading to chelsea piers for the open floor gymnastics night.

I had barely set foot outside the lockerroom on the way to the gymnastics room when I saw Bobby Diep, who I knew from the open floor gymnastics I did at UC Berkeley. I did a bit of practicing with my handstands, trying to work my way up to handsprings. David suggested I talk with Randy, one of the coaches. A small group of us assembled. I got to feel like I was top of the class, as we did handspring warmups. And after the handsprings, we moved to the trampoline to practice back tucks with the belt. There I was the bottom of the class. Randy started teasing me that I was fucking up my landings just to give his hands ropeburn. David joined us to practice his double back tucks, and got the same playful ribbing from Randy. Afterwards it was on to back handsprings. Which is probably my favorite thing that I can do, gymnastically speaking.

Dan was going to join us, but sadly, when he finally got to the gym from the conference he realized he only had the (dress) clothes on his back. We didn’t see him, and he turned around to head home. I was meanwhile practicing handsprings after warming up. Half way through I stepped out to call him, and persuaded him to come back and watch.

Afterwards, Bobby, Dan, David, and me went out to dinner. (Neng-li, another former berkeley person walked with us to the subway, then went home). We went to Zen Palate (one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants). Dinner was faboo, and we lingered afterwards. Bobby lived nearby, but David saw us off to our bus. And now I’m back in Jersey. I was a good day. Meeting rocked and it’s been great seeing Dan again. Like so many places, I want to come back… =)