Feb/March

I haven't posted in a while, and that is mainly because I have been studying for my "supplementary" comprehensive exam—"supplementary" because I took the full exam last semester and didn't quite pass, but did well enough that the ACO committee wanted me to retake just a portion of the exam. Anyway, I took the exam last weekend, and passed! So YAY, I have overcome one of the big hurdles on my way to a PhD.

Over the past couple months, I've taken two separate trips to Southern California to visit Heather: first, in early March, we rented a car and drove to Claremont for the alumni track meet, then to the mountains to go snowboarding; and second, over my spring break (last week) I hung out in Heather's new home in Marina del Rey (where she and Leslie moved, just a few weeks ago, from their old place in West LA). So, I have photos to share!

Back in Claremont: Scripps College courtyard

At the track meet with fellow 07ers Danny and Lindsay

Mudder at Mudd

The weekend was rainy, which meant snow in the mountains—so to test the new snow we headed up to Mountain High resort with snowboarding gear that Heather's coworker Lee had loaned us. Unfortunately, several thousand other people were also bound for the slopes on a Sunday with perfect snow conditions, but we got insanely lucky by grabbing a parking spot right next to the resort. This made our day, because it gave us ~2.5-3 hours instead of maybe 1.5 hour to snowboard (we were on a tight schedule, because we had to get me to LAX that evening).
Here I am in some snazzy snowboard gear (courtesy of Lee)

And here's Heather in the unashamedly pink costume provided by Lee's wife Eleah

Neither of us did very well. We definitely needed more time (and maybe some actual lessons) to make it down even the easy green slopes without falling frequently. But being clueless beginners did not prevent us from having a great time.
Heather "thrashing" the slopes?

I tried crouching low to keep my balance, but it didn't always work.



Speaking of snow… on the last day of February, I ran a half-marathon trail race in a park about an hour away from Atlanta after the area had received about 24 hours of continual (and continuing) rain… one of the muddier experiences I've ever encountered… but it was good that I got my long run of the weekend in on Saturday, because the next day (March 1) we had a freak snowstorm in Atlanta!
Here was the view from my porch—near freezing, so it was wet, sticky snow.

Statue in our yard

On a sunnier day, our landlords' cat Uncle Junior celebrated the nice weather by acting cute in our driveway.


Now, back to California. Heather's new apartment in Marina del Rey is much nicer than her old apartment, both inside (slightly larger rooms, dishwasher, better kitchen space) and outside—not only is it in a quieter area with fewer cars, but it is a FIVE MINUTE WALK to the beach (and a less-frequented beach, at that.)
To celebrate Pi Day (3.14) we baked an apple (sort-of)-pie, and took it to the beach to enjoy. :-)

It was amazing to see the ocean basically every day…I was really starting to get used to it! But man, now I'm back in landlocked Atlanta…
[By the way, random fun trivia question: a country is "doubly landlocked" if it and all its adjacent neighbor countries are landlocked. There are only two doubly landlocked nations in the world; what are they? Answer at the end of this post.]


Back at the apartment: Heather's room, with sunlight coming through the balcony window

More about the past week in California:
We didn't do a whole lot of "big things" (the first weekend I had to study for my exam, which I took on Monday, and Heather worked her usual long hours during the week), but we did go on some really nice runs, usually around the marina, or up to Venice/Santa Monica or further. Also, on Saturday we donned our wetsuits and went for an ocean swim, which was awesome! On Saturday, Heather and Leslie and I hosted a St Patrick's Day/house-warming party at the new apartment with some Mudd friends and co-workers of Heather/Leslie attending… good company and a rousing game of Time's Up.
Heather and my other main activity of the week (besides doing taxes…) was to work more on planning our upcoming trip to Eastern Europe. For those of you who don't know, I'm presenting a paper at the Eurocrypt conference in Cologne, Germany, at the end of April, and after that I will head to Vienna, then Budapest, where I will meet up with Heather for an epic Eastern European vacation! Well, it will be as epic as a week-long trip can be. We already have most of the trip planned out: 2 days in Budapest (YAY!!!), then a train to Croatia where we will rent a car and drive down the Dalmation coast for 5 days, with stops in Zagreb, Plitvice Lakes National Park, Zadar (?), Krka National Park (?), Split, and Dubrovnik in Croatia; as well as a side trip to Mostar, Bosnia, and a day trip to the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. I can't describe how excited I am!!


*Doubly landlocked countries: Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan. Props to anyone who got even one of those.