Trip to Utah

On the first day after my classes were over, we were on the road to Salt Lake City, Utah, to spend a couple of weeks with our friends Carlos and Adriana. Plans? Snowboard, snowboarding, snowboarding. Getting there was quite an adventure already, though. It all started, early morning on Dec 17, 2006. Very early morning. 4. a.m., local time. Internacional played the FIFA club World Cup Final against Barcelona, supposedly the best soccer team. Internacional was to prove it wrong. And it did… for 10 minutes, then Barca started dominating the game. Barca tried and tried, but found an untrespassable Colorado. Then, at the end of the second half, one of soccer’s maximums came to light. If you don’t score, you’ll get scored (or something like that). And in a fulminating counter attack, 8 minutes before the end of regular time, Inter beat Barca 1-nill. The world is red; Inter is the new World Champion; and I’m a happy driver.



Off to Utah, but going there wasn’t going to be a straight trip. There was Wyoming on the way. Actually, there were winter road conditions on the Wyoming way. More specifically, there was snow on the winter-y road on Wyoming. Only one more time, there were four trucks, entangled on the Wyoming road, snow-crashed in the winter. Solution? An U-turn. If you have a map, you'll see what I mean. About an hour west of Cheyenne, the aforementioned event took place and all the roads going west were closed. Asking around, we found out that it would take probably more than a day to clean up the mess. Then, instead of waiting, we decided to go back to Cheyenne, go south to Denver, take west on I-70, then go north again on I-15 by I-28. So after a detour of more than 5 hours, the 12-hour trip became a 18-plus-hour trip. Sorry Carlos and Adriana do disturb you at 5 a.m. You guys are great hosts!


In spite of all road adversities, we got there safe and sound, and had lots of fun in Salt Lake City. We played in the snow. Some of us snowboarded, some of us skied. We played 8 and 9 ball. We even had a pool tournament going on. We had some heavy board-games action going: Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan, and Bohnanza (hey, I'm a geek of some sorts, remember? I don't deny it). Wii and X-box. Christmas gifts. 3 National parks!! If you can't go to them all, check out the Arches Park! You cannot miss that one! So, so amazing.

All these pictures can be found here.

Everything was perfect. Guys, I just wanna say again. You rock! Whenever you wanna come to Nebraska to... er... check out our corn fields(!), you know that you're gonna have a warm welcome! Mi casa, tu casa!

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and we soon got some really nasty weather on the road again. 25 miles/hour on the highway? Yeap, you hear it right!

Home for the new year's party. More on the next post.

Andre

A New Life

Wow. Almost 7 months. Well, I've been busy. Also, there are many, many things to tell.

Last year's semester was pretty intensive; lots of projects, programs, papers, and tests that drove me crazy. I didn't know back then, but it wasn't too bad compared with what was to come. But before going there, let's talk about some good news!

Remember that I said on October last year, that I had some great news that related to me? Well, here it comes: Lucas, my brother's first son, my first nephew is going to be taking his first breaths some time by the end of this month (May). :D We're all very excited about him. He's going to be the first Canadian in the family, and our mom's flying across the globe to be there with her first grandchild. I wish I could be there as well, but I have one little problem that prevents me from going. No, it's not money. Well, not just money. The real problem is California! More about it later (I always say that, but the later never comes. This time it will).

Well, Lucas, welcome to life! We're all expecting you full of love. Don't believe when others might say to you. Life is beautiful! Life's what you make of it. Grow and be great!

Love,

Uncle Andre