weekend getaway, part two...

March 30, 2009 / mercurialmusic

       oh, what a lovely weekend. good friends, good food, good views, good times. starting where i left off, saturday afternoon brandon and i went to old chicago to watch the mizzou elite eight game. good game, but, alas, mizzou lost. really, i didn't care much, but it was a lot of fun stuffing our faces with stuffed spinach artichoke pizza and loaded nachos and gossipping like two old church ladies. we got a slight touch of food poisoning, but nothing serious, and we had some interesting laughs over our stomachs' competition to be the loudest.

       that's when he brought out a gift for me. he was in thailand several weeks ago, doing some research for school, and he had quite a bit of time to get out and see the city and experience the culture, including getting a chance to go through a few of the markets. he got lots of cool trinkets and various foods and carvings and a few randoms, but then he pulls out this bag stuffed with what looked like some red herb. he tossed it to me and i read the package. he bought me two freaking ounces of saffron! for those who don't know, saffron is one of the most expensive spices you can buy. it's amazing stuff, simply the dried stigma of the saffron crocus flower. i priced it last night when i went to wal-mart. it's about $15 for 1.7 grams. i'm not great with math, but it's a little more than 28 grams to an ounce, which means that he gave me nearly $500 worth of saffron. i still can't get over that. it's good saffron, too. the greatest part? he bought it for $3.

       that night we went back over to his girlfriend's house (who isn't really his girlfriend, but for the sake of keeping it simple we'll pretend) and i taught them how to make chocolates. lots of fun. while we were there, simon, a guy from kenya who was there studying political science, stopped by for a visit and to try some chocolate. he was so animated and passionate and funny, i was enthralled just listening to him speak. we talked about the two cultures and politics and food and life. it was so great being in that atmosphere with people my age who had similar interests. then val, brandon's not really girlfriend, asked him, "what makes you happiest?" his reply was simple: "dancing." he said the music didn't matter so much, but he loved to see a crowded dance floor where the people were moving together and forgetting the rest of the world for a moment. i thought that was a beautiful answer, and it made me want to dance, but then i remembered i'm a 5'8" chubby balding white guy with two left feet. continued to have some excellent conversations, including one with leah, val's roommate, who is going to hungary in the fall to teach english for a year. exciting stuff, no? we left around one a.m., but we stayed up 'till three anyway, talking about the evening and half a dozen other things.

       sunday morning (when we finally woke up) we decided to skip church in favor of whole-wheat blueberry pancakes with portobella mushrooms and sauteed onions (sounds odd but they were amazing) and a trip to the konza (the prairie i mentioned in the last post). it had snowed the night i arrived, but it was 50 degrees on sunday and most of it was melting fairly quickly. unfortunately that left the konza trail pretty wet and treacherous, but we braved it anyway. so worth it. it was amazing. so beautiful. i took some pictures with my crappy camera phone (i really need to get a good camera), but they don't do it justice. i wish you could have been there. it was more of a workout than i was expecting, especially trudging through snow and trying to keep my balance, but coming up over the top of one of the larger hills and being able to see forever -- made me feel infinite. we sat on some boulders on top of the hill and enjoyed the breeze coming off the prairie and the smell of grass and snow, and we watched the little streams of snow-melt glinting in the sun as they wound their way to the larger streams in the valleys. i wish i had a spot like that where i could go all the time -- because i would definitely be there all the time. everything felt connected and peaceful, and being there with one of my best friends made the whole thing perfect. we had a slightly awkward but pretty important conversation up there, and we shared about our lives and our loves and our hopes, and it felt for a while like everything was going to be ok.

       we parted there at the konza and i began the four hour drive home, listening to lifehouse and coldplay and feeling pretty darn amazing.

       i had today off. went to the store and bought seeds for an herb garden (and some chocolate don't tell!), then i returned the car and enjoyed the walk back to my apartment, stopping for a while in the park to read and watch the people and the squirrels. now jordan is banging on my door wanting a walk, so i'd better go. later taters.