This weekend was wonderful - I spent Memorial Day in New York with my friends Sanjay & Nirupa. I met them was I was in Peru, and they invited out to their place for the weekend. We went rock climbing near Lake Placid (home of winter olympics 19-something or another).

Saturday was a decent day, but we didn't do anything too exciting. Nirupa had organized a beginner rock climbing class through EMS, so we basically learned how to tie knots and make anchors the first day. Chad, our instructor, suggested that we check out this restaurant called Carribean Cowboy for dinner, so we headed over there after a chilly day of climbing. The food was good and the atmosphere was very chill. We had dinner and margaritas and then went back to crash at the 3 bedroom place that we were renting.

Sunday turned out to be a very exciting day. Chad had planned for us to do a 6 pitch climb up a small mountain. This was the first time that I had used cams and rock nuts, and also the only time that I've climbed outdoors and done multiple pitches. We spent the majority of the day making our way to the top; but time didn't matter. We were all in good spirits; the rainy weather had cleared, so it was a beautiful 80 degree day. Beautiful until I realized that I should probably have sunscreen. I would regret not thinking about that on Monday...

We reached the top around 3:00, headed back to the car, and arrived back in Jersey City around 10:00pm. All of us were tired from the weekend, and the long drive home so we crashed fairly early.

Nirupa & I spent the day in Manhattan on Monday. We didn't do anything in particular; my only request was not to visit any tourist attractions. We walked about 4 miles along 5th Avenue through lots of different neighborhoods before ending up in Soho. We met up with Sanjay for lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant, as he was studying for most of the day. The food was great; I had been meaning to try Ethiopian for a few years, but I never had a chance the last time that I was in Washington DC. One may wonder what Ethiopians eat besides dirt and water - I'm here to put that fallacy to rest. Our meal consisted of many different types of lentils; it was very similar to Indian food. We ate with our fingers and used bread to pickup the food. I wish I could remember the name...it starts with an 'm'. We headed into Chinatown for bubble tea before it was time for me to go to the airport.