'appy new year!

Mi amigo Kyle Goodman lives right out of Tempe AZ - and over my xmas break, while I was in Woarshington, he was like “hey Nicole come spend new years with me in Glamis (on the border between San Diego and AZ), a bunch of us are going camping in the dunes and I’ll even come pick you up in a jet… yada yada yada…” so of course I’m like “errrr-ok I’ll think about it and get back to you when I‘m back in CA”. so it’s the eve of new years eve and kyle is like “hey were not going anymore but you should drive out with david and we’ll go to the Tempe Block Party”… the alternative was to go to a Wine Tasting party in San Clemente with Jon, Tris and Brynne - but seemingly as I am 20 and, therefore, underage I opted to take the road trip instead… this is the last opportunity to see my buddy Kyle before he heads off to Germany for the next 9 or so months. My friend Rodrigo tagged along as well - he was recently cold-shouldered by his female of over a year and didn’t want to sulk in a lonely dorm room. I don’t blame him.
Rodrigo - from HIU men’s soccer team AND Peru - and David (kyle’s old roomie) and I made the 5 hour trip inland in Rigo’s Jetta. We departed a rainy and foggy California and arrived in a flat and dry Arizona. The trip wasn’t half bad- I drove the first 4 hours and Rigo finished off the rest (yep that makes just 1 stop). We were passing Phoenix when Kyle called and informed us of the plan of events for the night - instead of the Tempe Block Party we were now going to a house party hosted by an ASU sorority where the girls were to wear dresses and the guys, well, collars and ties. Yeah I think we pretty much all wanted to rip Kyle’s head off - especially me. Nonetheless - Rigo, David and I got a all “casued-up” and we headed to la casa de some ASU chic.
It was slightly reminiscent of central Washington - or at least this house I stayed at in Yakima during a leadership conference my senior year. Huge ramblers with great entrances and great rooms - and, of course, each was adorned with a pool (the pool part is for AZ).
On the drive to Arizona we lost an hour, so we celebrated new years a little prematurely - it was kind of strange getting a bunch of phone calls around 1am an on.
We crashed at Kyle’s place and I had a bedroom all to myself - I swear you can’t count on your hands how many rooms there were - craziness. Rigo and David weren’t up until 2ish the next day so I entertained myself with my Itunes and my Ipod (of course I brought my comp w/me =) - I swiped a bunch of CD’s from Rigo’s car and ripped them to my library.
Serena is from phoenix, and I would rather have spent the evening with her but she was with the boyfriend and a church all-nighter. After the all-nighter they all went straight to church and so she didn’t go to bed until around 1 in the afternoon - about the same time Rigo and David were getting up. We drove to Serena’s to visit and say que pasa and went to IN N OUT - yep they do have some in AZ. After our quick rendezvous we headed back on the road again - can’t wait to be on the road again (shrek, don’t ya remember). Anyway we made it back safely to a rainy California around 10:30 pm (which is amazing because we left at 6:40, so add the hour we gained from the time chain and it only took Rigo 4 hours and 20 minutes to make it back).



I scheduled a practice for my LM girls Monday morning at 10 - they chose the time actually (I was hoping for later in the afternoon). Buuuuuuut my assistant coach Texts me at about 9am asking if we’re still having practice because it was raining. The whole concept of not playing soccer in the rain is new to me - but I looked outside and it was coming down pretty hard, and we were playing on grass - so I let them off. Yeah yeah, never did I think I would see the day when I would sink to such a level. But it was a wise decision because now we are flooded - and the sirens outside have started their own rendition of the dawn chorus (yes I’m semi-quoting an idea from Alex Garland’s “The Beach” -don’t tell on me =) Good book so far by the way.

I changed my myspace name to “punky brewster” and I’m getting fan mail =). Oops. (it’s a nick name from Rigo - he would call me that during soccer season because I always called him “sonic the hedgehog”)