A lovely, somewhat imbalanced weekend to recap you guys on. All my fun things were condensed on Friday:
Andrew visiting
One of my best friends from home came to visit this weekend. He currently goes to Harvard and was on fall break, so we caught up in Astoria over delicious paninis at Il Bambino, a spot I’ve been wanting to try for a while. The sandwiches were SO YUMMY! Astorians, I highly recommend.
I see Andrew every few months or so, and it’s always a fun time. He always has hilarious stories to update me on, and it’s nonstop laughing with the goofball. We made tentative plans to go on a hiking trip in early November. I call him my hiking husband, since that’s our number one favorite thing to do together back home. I was looking to do a trip after my exam; and now I have something to look forward to 🙂
Rock climbing + BBQ + fancy drinks
Later in the evening, I met up with a friend to go rock climbing at The Cliffs in LIC. I had gone with this friend once before, and it was a pretty tough experience. I had completely underestimated the difficulty of rock climbing, thinking that my triathlon fitness would make me above average…boy was I proven wrong.
This time, however, it went a lot better!! I was surprised how much I built from last time as far as climbing strategy goes – I upgraded from the level 0’s level 1’s (yay). The limiting factor was of course my muscle capacity, seeing as I literally never work out my upper body. After several tough climbs, I was beat!
My friend says it right: “rock climbing will find your weakness and exploit it.” I ended up waking up incredibly sore in my forearms, triceps, shoulders, lower abs, upper back, and hamstrings…so basically my whole body.
I’ll definitely be going back to Cliffs! The gym was not crowded (we both took off work early to beat the rush) and overall a huge blast 🙂
Afterward, we went to John Brown Smokehouse for some BBQ…just what we needed.
Then, we decided on making fancy cocktails and watching Planet Earth for the evening. We’ve been trailing through Planet Earth the past few weeks, and Friday we finally finished it! I definitely recommend the series; the filming is superb and you see some really spectacular parts of nature.
El Diablo – tequilla, ginger beer, creme de cassis, and lime. Simple, tasty, and definitely hit the spot 🙂
Super silent Saturday & Sunday
Contrasting a super packed Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent completely in isolation…as in, the moment I woke up Saturday to sleeping on Sunday, I was completely alone in my apartment, only leaving it twice for the gym and groceries. The rest of the time was spent studying, netflixing, studying, sleeping, eating, studying, studying, and then some more studying…thank god it was a rainy weekend or else I’d have some major cabin fever.
It’s crazy how being in study mode has completely helped adjust my mindset. I used to HATE weekends like this, being alone in my solo pad for long periods of times. But I really didn’t mind it this time, in fact, I enjoyed it. It’s kind of nice to take a break from social obligations, get some full nights of rest (very rare on normal weekends), and do things on my schedule.
I got in my long run on Sunday – 7 miles on the treadmill! The original plan was to go for 9-10 miles in Central Park, but the rain shot that plan down. I was more than happy to get some ‘mill time though, taking a break from the books and tuning into some podcasts and music.
I Run Like A Girl 