Well, if I had any last second desire to ditch Cairo and return home for the summer, I've got to forget them now, because that plane has left. Literally.
Today, May 29th, was my original date of departure from Egypt. In fact, I'd probably be somewhere over the Atlantic right now if I hadn't opted to stay here until August. Instead, I'm sitting here in the dorm, gathering the rest of my belongings, and preparing to make the final move down to Maadi, where I'll be living for the next two months.
I've had a lot of people ask me if I'm happy with my decision to remain in Cairo for the summer. To be honest, I tell them, I am and I'm not. I make no buts about the fact that I have mixed feelings about forgoing a couple months back home in favor of remaining out here. It's interesting to see how people react to my blunt answer. I think most of them were expecting a simple "oh, absolutely, can't wait!", the generic type of response for these generic types of questions (you know the type: "How are you?", "Did you have a good semester?", "Was your vacation fun?").
The 21 year-old college kid in me wants nothing more than to return to Minnesota and be out on the lake everyday, drink some brews, stuff my face with Culvers food and relax with my high school buddies who I rarely see now a days. I think these feelings are especially pronounced due to the fact that not only was I barely home at all last summer, but I probably won't be around those parts much next year, assuming I get a job and all. Don't even mention what the chances of me spending an extended period of time at home will be once I have a career that probably forces me to relocate to the East Coast.
In addition to all of that, the fact remains that Cairo, while not a horrible city and one that I've had a pretty good time in, isn't a place that I'd ideally like to spend my summer. It's noisy, polluted, overcrowded, and it's going to get pretty hot and nasty come June and July. I eat primarily chick pea paste and cookies, and probably can't even afford to buy a box of imported cereal. Many of the luxuries I take for granted back at home, such as satellite TV, recreational activities outside, video games, and the ability to just get in a car and go somewhere, aren't readily available to me over here. After four months in Cairo, I feel like I've grown to appreciate the city, but at the same time think I would've preferred trying somewhere else out for the summer.
With all that being said, I recognize that staying in Cairo for the summer is the right thing to do. I have an incredible opportunity to advance my proficiency in Arabic, and all on someone else's dime. The intensive course that I'll be taking part in over the next two months is exactly what I need to give my language skills a much needed boost, a move that will assuredly help me down the road as I seek out employment in the foreign policy sector. Suffice it to say, staying here in Cairo for the summer is an opportunity I just can't pass up, a gift horse I shouldn't look in the mouth, a once in a lifetime chance that will pay dividends down the road.
I'm growing up. Sacrifices have to be made; that's an axiom I've come to terms with a long time ago. While part of me is dying a little knowing I'm passing up on possibly my last opportunity for a summer at home, I know that this was the right decision, one that had to be made. That didn't necessarily make it easy.
But you know what? Knowing what I gave up at home in order to stay out here is going to serve as my motivation to make this summer count. I'm going to hit my Arabic books as hard as I've ever and I'll make every effort to find opportunities to use the language as much as I can each day. I may miss the taste of a Butter Burger in my mouth or the cool, refreshing waters of Whitefish on my feet, but I'll persevere.
And plus, I've got WeFest to look forward to.
May 29, 2010
Sunburn, Sinai, and a whole lot more...
Apologies; it's been a while. When I last posted (two weeks ago), I had just signed the lease for my summer apartment in Maadi. A lot has happened since then, including the conclusion of my time at the American University in Cairo, a quest for relaxation and comfort gone awry, and some very exciting news stateside. This entire semester I've been successfully posting at least once a week, so I'm kind of disappointed in myself that I broke that streak. I'm going to punish myself by writing a very long and tedious blog post. Bear with me.
Where to start? Well how about some updates concerning the apartment-situation. A week after signing the lease, Shannon and I got a call letting us know that the flat had been vacated, and we could move in. I still planned on staying at the AUC dorms in Zamalek until the end of May (free internet, free laundry, etc), but I decided to move a significant amount of my junk down to Maadi.
We arrived at the apartment in the late morning and learned that "ready to move in" apparently means "in the middle of painting and cleaning and moving everything around." There was dust everywhere, rubbish strewn about, and beds hadn't even been put in yet. While I wasn't planning on staying there much over the next couple of weeks, Shannon was, and she also had a friend flying in from the States who needed a play to stay. Needless to say, she wasn't too thrilled. I wasn't exactly happy either. This incident, along with whole run-around of being temporary placed in an apartment that we hadn't viewed, didn't exactly leave me feeling confident that our two month stay will unfold without complications (aka, getting screwed over). We'll have to wait and see...
Anyway, by the next day the apartment was decent enough to have a few friends over for a house-warming party. It wasn't a big event by any means, but it was still a fun little get together, and was especially warranted as the semester drew to a close and people began to go their separate ways. Anyway, as you can see, we had a decent time, especially Chelsea.
As it stands now, I've only slept at the apartment one night, and haven't even been back there in about a week. I think we have to move out of the dorms tomorrow, so I'll probably finish packing my things and move down to Maadi on the 30th. I won't even bother unpacking considering that we'll be moving to a different flat on the 3rd or the 4th of June, during which time I'll actually be traveling in Turkey.
This last week also marked the four month anniversary of my time in Egypt and also the conclusion of my experience as a student at AUC. Overall, I have to say I didn't like it, for a variety of reasons:
Despite my hang-ups with AUC, I was still in a good position coming into the last week of school. My finals few days of class were no joke though, at least not entirely. I had three finals on one day and a take home final that night. I also had a 15 page research paper for my Women, Islam, and the State class, which not only did I start way too late, but I had to change topics about five pages in. I've gotten four of my grades back so far and I'm in pretty good shape, but the last one remaining is for the gender studies one. An "A" is possible but I would be content with an "A-". Let's just say that class wasn't my cup of tea.
So with classes done, I decided to treat myself to a few days of sun, surf, and Sinai. Dahab, the cozy little Red Sea resort town, seemed to be the perfect destination do get some of all of the above. My friend, Mae, bought me a bus ticket and I planned on meeting her at the Turgoman station for the 12:15 am bus. But as usual, there were complications. Due to the fact that I was in a state of delirium after for about 36 hours straight in order to finish my Women, Islam, and the State paper, I didn't realize that my passport was with half of my belongings in Maadi until about 11:15 pm. A passport is an absolute essential when traveling on the Sinai Peninsula, as there are apparently check-points every few hours along the way. There probably wasn't enough time to get down to Maadi from Zamalek and then back to Turgoman to catch the bus.
But even in my sleep-deprived state, my brain pistons (I just coined that one) were firing as well as ever. I called up Shannon, who was down in Maadi, instructed her to find my passport and then begged and pleaded for her to meet me at the station. I grabbed a cab to Turgoman and then began the waiting game. 11:45 rolled around, and still no Shannon. 11:50...11:55....I was really starting to worry. At about midnight, I finally saw Shannon walk up to the station, collected my passport from her, and paid her for her services (gave her money for the cab ride, you dirty minded people). Then I rushed inside to catch my Dahab-bound bus.
Mae was relieved to see me; she apparently thought I was going to ditch her (of course not, silly!). I acquainted myself with her friend, Anna, who was visiting from the states, and then somehow managed to fall asleep for the duration of the nine hour journey (I think the fact that I hadn't slept in about a day and a half was probably a contributing factor).
We arrived in Dahab the next morning at about 9 am, jumped in the back of a pick-up, and were shuttled to our seaside lodgings at the Red Sea Relax Resort. I didn't arrange the accommodations, so at $10 a night, it was a little pricier than I would've gone for, but it was also about 1,000 times nicer than the places I usually shack up. There was free internet with computers provided (I had actually planned on escaping from the internet for a while, but they were providing, so hey), an scrumptious continental breakfast, a nice little pool, a roof top bar, and fairly nice rooms.
Dahab itself was also pretty excellent. The town was definitely touristy and made no attempt to hide this fact, but it was also still very quaint and relaxing. I'd actually compare Dahab to a smaller version of the Mexican resort town of Puerto Vallarta, while it's counterpart to the south, Sharm al-Sheikh, is more similar to the glitz and glam of a Cancun or a Maztlan. Dahab doesn't need to resort to cheap visual tricks because it has an abundance of natural splendor. The Red Sea waters are an azure blue, made even more striking against the backdrop of harsh, earthy-red mountains.
After getting our rooms figured out, we headed down to the beach and began soaking up the sun. Apparently, I soak up the sun much too quickly, and in doses that aren't quite healthy. Although I had applied a decent amount of sun block (SPF 55 mind you), I had forgot a pretty vital area: my legs and feet. My long, fair legs certainly got some ill-advised solar radiation, but my feet took the brunt of the sun's wrath. After about an hour, they were the color of a stop sign. What a great way to start off a three day vacation.
Following some swimming and more flesh-baking, I took a nap in my room and then met the ladies for dinner. While Dahab is certainly cheaper than Sharm al-Sheikh, it still is a far cry more expensive than Cairo. I had reservations about paying for anything more than 20 LE on the menu, but eventually convinced myself that I was on vacation and deserved a brief reprieve from my money-grubbing ways. I splurged on a 25 LE pizza.
The next morning we met in the lobby and were soon on our way to the famed Blue Hole. If you don't want to hear my amateur description, here's its wiki page. Basically, the Blue Hole is a coral reef with a big hole in the middle of it that leads 130 meters down to the ocean floor. It's notorious amongst the diving community, and apparently is billed as one of the most dangerous dive sites in the world.
Fortunately for us, we weren't going there to scuba dive, just to snorkel. After getting fitted with masks, we headed out to the entry point. By this time, my feet were in a great deal of pain, and I even considered wearing socks over them when I put the fins on. But I didn't, because this would've looked silly, and we all know my number one priority is maximizing my photo-genetic ability in any given situation. After jumping in, we began swimming in the open sea, heading south along the coast with the reef by our side. It was a pretty marvelous experience. The unknown depths of the sea lay to our left, while a stunning assortment of tropical fish darted about on our right. These fish came in all shapes and sizes and in a wide array of colors. There were long, skinny ones, with horizontal black and white stripes, that looked like pencils Luna Lovegood would keep in her desk (yes, a literary reference!). There were others whose fins were seemingly every color of the rainbow. Anna even said she saw a sea turtle. Despite the fact that the mask didn't really seem to want to stay on my face, snorkeling in the Red Sea along an ocean reef teeming with aquatic life was definitely one of the highlights of my time over here thus far, although I guess there have been a lot.
We returned to Dahab from the Blue Hole in the afternoon. Next on our agenda was Mount Sinai. We'd be taking a 2 hour bus ride that left late at night, so I used the downtime to tend to my seared skin and rest up for the early morning ascent we were about to embark on. By 11:00 pm, we were in a small tour bus and on our way to a living piece of biblical history.
Mount Sinai, in case you're still wondering, is the place where many believe Moses received the Ten Commandments from God during the Israelites exodus from Egypt. Climbing the mountain in the middle of the night and watching the sun rise is a very popular thing to do in Egypt, whether one be a pilgrim or a tourist. As always, here's a link with some more info.
We arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai at about 1 am. Apparently we had a guide provided for us, but we wanted to go at our own pace, so we soon separated from the main group. I have to admit, being in the middle of this mountain range in the dead of the night, with nary a soul around us, was a little surreal. I mean, this place just didn't look like something I've come to expect to find on planet earth. People were not intended to traverse such barren and desolate landscapes, let alone idle through them on some sort of tourist excursion. Yet there the three of us were, making our way up the steep path, avoiding the occasional camel, and cracking jokes and singing the whole way up.
After reaching the base of the summit at about 3:30, with more than an hour still until sunrise, we crashed in a Bedouin tent for about 45 minutes. About half an hour before the sun would be coming up, we continued to the top, and found a good vantage point for which to look eastward. Then we waited. Even before the sun was visible, the mountaintop view was something to behold as the rocks around us began to reclaim their color from the night. What had been varying shades of gray and black morphed into browns and oranges and blues. Even though we were on a small summit with hundreds of other visitors around us, it was still possible to look off into the vast distance and feel pretty incredibly alone and insignificant. Nothing like some humble pie and solitude.
Finally at 5:50 am, the sun became visible on the horizon and began creeping its way upward. There was a little bit of cloud cover hanging just above the mountaintops in the distance, and once the upper lip of the sun cleared this it transformed from a soft ball of orange into a glowing disc of light (don't worry, the corniness will end sooner or later). Obviously, the sun and its various rising and fallings are fascinating to behold and its no wonder many ancients were particularly obsessed with it.
After we'd had our fill of Sinai sunny delight, we began our descent. We changed up our route and took the "steps of penitence" on the way down. Instead of winding around the mountain, this path cut right through it. The going wasn't quite as easy, but the views, though not quite as panoramic, were much more up close and personal, as we saw several jagged cliff sides and fascinating rock formations. I felt like I was back in Petra all over again.
We took a brief peek into St. Katherine's Monastery (the oldest in the world) and then headed back to Dahab. Though we had originally planned to stay for three nights, we concluded that it made more sense to take the 10 pm night bus back, rather than leave at 10 in the morning and waste daylight. So after a delicious dinner on the shores of the Red Sea and some more wound licking, we boarded our Cairo-bound bus.
The ride back was pretty miserable. I couldn't get to sleep for the life of me. We stopped nearly every half hour. In all honesty, if we'd limited the stops we could've made the trip in 4 hours instead of 8. But it is what it is. After arriving in a strange part of town at 8 am, we hopped in a cab and headed back to Zamalek. I said bye to Mae and Anna and made my way back into the dorm. Another trip completed.
Although I was now out of the Dahab sun, the effects were still felt. My sunburn was killing me, especially those damn feet of mine. Putting on shoes was torture. My left foot in particular was suffering, and it began blistering pretty profusely. Che-che-che-check it out:
And I think it's safe to say that this is one of those rare instances where something hurts more than it looks, and not vice versa. My left foot is currently padded with gauze and wrapped in athletic tape, thank you very much. But despite this little setback, and the fact that I blew way to much money up in Dahab, my three day excursion to the Sinai was an excellent adventure and well worth the loss of cash and skin cells...now if only I could find a way to take some of color my foot got and spread it out evenly around my body.
Oh, last but definitely most important, I wanted to give a shout out to my kid brother David (that's such a strange phrase, especially when the kid in question is taller than you, but I feel this is an appropriate situation for it). David, DOBL, Rolly-Polly, or Baby Fatso, whichever you prefer, is graduating from Pequot Lakes High School tonight as valedictorian. In fact, the ceremony very well might be going on right now. Obviously, this is a pretty sweet accomplishment and I'm pretty darn proud of David for achieving it (although if his speech isn't up to snuff with a certain one delivered three years ago, I'll be sure to give him some crap).
However, there is even bigger and better news. David also decided this week that he'll be joining me out at Notre Dame next year. ND was always his dream school, but he received a very attractive offer from the University of Minnesota that he had to consider. In the end, I think he made the right choice. I'm really happy that I'll get to share a bit of my senior year with him, and hopefully I can pull him into Dillon Hall and continue the Big Red Liedl Legacy. Anyway, great work Davey-boy and see you in the fall. Let the display of semi-embarrassing pictures begin!
Where to start? Well how about some updates concerning the apartment-situation. A week after signing the lease, Shannon and I got a call letting us know that the flat had been vacated, and we could move in. I still planned on staying at the AUC dorms in Zamalek until the end of May (free internet, free laundry, etc), but I decided to move a significant amount of my junk down to Maadi.
We arrived at the apartment in the late morning and learned that "ready to move in" apparently means "in the middle of painting and cleaning and moving everything around." There was dust everywhere, rubbish strewn about, and beds hadn't even been put in yet. While I wasn't planning on staying there much over the next couple of weeks, Shannon was, and she also had a friend flying in from the States who needed a play to stay. Needless to say, she wasn't too thrilled. I wasn't exactly happy either. This incident, along with whole run-around of being temporary placed in an apartment that we hadn't viewed, didn't exactly leave me feeling confident that our two month stay will unfold without complications (aka, getting screwed over). We'll have to wait and see...
As it stands now, I've only slept at the apartment one night, and haven't even been back there in about a week. I think we have to move out of the dorms tomorrow, so I'll probably finish packing my things and move down to Maadi on the 30th. I won't even bother unpacking considering that we'll be moving to a different flat on the 3rd or the 4th of June, during which time I'll actually be traveling in Turkey.
This last week also marked the four month anniversary of my time in Egypt and also the conclusion of my experience as a student at AUC. Overall, I have to say I didn't like it, for a variety of reasons:
- I hated, absolutely HATED, the one hour commute to and from our dorms to campus. Horrible. That's about one eighth of the time I'm awake on a given day spent on some stupid bus. The bus ride is completely non-conducive to doing actual work, so it really is a waste of time. Can't wait until I'm back in Dillon Hall, and I can get from my bed to practically any classroom in five minutes.
- The student culture of the place was just flat out weird. People who went to big high schools said AUC had a similar vibe. Tons and tons of people just hanging out in courtyards, gossiping, drinking expensive lattes, and flashing their designer merchandise. Yuck. I'm looking forward to returning to a place where sweatpants and Grab-and-Go meals are a way of life.
- The food on campus was extremely limited. Basically, you could go to Al-Omda and get some sub-par Egyptian food (falafel sandwhiches, eggs and bastrma) or you could go throw down big bucks at an American fast food joint, such as McDonald's or Subway. That was really about it. I started fantasizing about South Dining Hall back home after two weeks of this nonsense over here.
- The other students didn't really motivate me to care much. Not just the Egyptian students, who often didn't bother to show up to classes, but even some of the other study abroaders. There just seemed to be a lot of complacency, which really didn't create an environment where learning was sought after. Granted, I copped out as well, but I still feel something like this just wouldn't happen at ND.
Despite my hang-ups with AUC, I was still in a good position coming into the last week of school. My finals few days of class were no joke though, at least not entirely. I had three finals on one day and a take home final that night. I also had a 15 page research paper for my Women, Islam, and the State class, which not only did I start way too late, but I had to change topics about five pages in. I've gotten four of my grades back so far and I'm in pretty good shape, but the last one remaining is for the gender studies one. An "A" is possible but I would be content with an "A-". Let's just say that class wasn't my cup of tea.
So with classes done, I decided to treat myself to a few days of sun, surf, and Sinai. Dahab, the cozy little Red Sea resort town, seemed to be the perfect destination do get some of all of the above. My friend, Mae, bought me a bus ticket and I planned on meeting her at the Turgoman station for the 12:15 am bus. But as usual, there were complications. Due to the fact that I was in a state of delirium after for about 36 hours straight in order to finish my Women, Islam, and the State paper, I didn't realize that my passport was with half of my belongings in Maadi until about 11:15 pm. A passport is an absolute essential when traveling on the Sinai Peninsula, as there are apparently check-points every few hours along the way. There probably wasn't enough time to get down to Maadi from Zamalek and then back to Turgoman to catch the bus.But even in my sleep-deprived state, my brain pistons (I just coined that one) were firing as well as ever. I called up Shannon, who was down in Maadi, instructed her to find my passport and then begged and pleaded for her to meet me at the station. I grabbed a cab to Turgoman and then began the waiting game. 11:45 rolled around, and still no Shannon. 11:50...11:55....I was really starting to worry. At about midnight, I finally saw Shannon walk up to the station, collected my passport from her, and paid her for her services (gave her money for the cab ride, you dirty minded people). Then I rushed inside to catch my Dahab-bound bus.
Mae was relieved to see me; she apparently thought I was going to ditch her (of course not, silly!). I acquainted myself with her friend, Anna, who was visiting from the states, and then somehow managed to fall asleep for the duration of the nine hour journey (I think the fact that I hadn't slept in about a day and a half was probably a contributing factor).
We arrived in Dahab the next morning at about 9 am, jumped in the back of a pick-up, and were shuttled to our seaside lodgings at the Red Sea Relax Resort. I didn't arrange the accommodations, so at $10 a night, it was a little pricier than I would've gone for, but it was also about 1,000 times nicer than the places I usually shack up. There was free internet with computers provided (I had actually planned on escaping from the internet for a while, but they were providing, so hey), an scrumptious continental breakfast, a nice little pool, a roof top bar, and fairly nice rooms.
Dahab itself was also pretty excellent. The town was definitely touristy and made no attempt to hide this fact, but it was also still very quaint and relaxing. I'd actually compare Dahab to a smaller version of the Mexican resort town of Puerto Vallarta, while it's counterpart to the south, Sharm al-Sheikh, is more similar to the glitz and glam of a Cancun or a Maztlan. Dahab doesn't need to resort to cheap visual tricks because it has an abundance of natural splendor. The Red Sea waters are an azure blue, made even more striking against the backdrop of harsh, earthy-red mountains.After getting our rooms figured out, we headed down to the beach and began soaking up the sun. Apparently, I soak up the sun much too quickly, and in doses that aren't quite healthy. Although I had applied a decent amount of sun block (SPF 55 mind you), I had forgot a pretty vital area: my legs and feet. My long, fair legs certainly got some ill-advised solar radiation, but my feet took the brunt of the sun's wrath. After about an hour, they were the color of a stop sign. What a great way to start off a three day vacation.
Following some swimming and more flesh-baking, I took a nap in my room and then met the ladies for dinner. While Dahab is certainly cheaper than Sharm al-Sheikh, it still is a far cry more expensive than Cairo. I had reservations about paying for anything more than 20 LE on the menu, but eventually convinced myself that I was on vacation and deserved a brief reprieve from my money-grubbing ways. I splurged on a 25 LE pizza.
The next morning we met in the lobby and were soon on our way to the famed Blue Hole. If you don't want to hear my amateur description, here's its wiki page. Basically, the Blue Hole is a coral reef with a big hole in the middle of it that leads 130 meters down to the ocean floor. It's notorious amongst the diving community, and apparently is billed as one of the most dangerous dive sites in the world.
We returned to Dahab from the Blue Hole in the afternoon. Next on our agenda was Mount Sinai. We'd be taking a 2 hour bus ride that left late at night, so I used the downtime to tend to my seared skin and rest up for the early morning ascent we were about to embark on. By 11:00 pm, we were in a small tour bus and on our way to a living piece of biblical history.Mount Sinai, in case you're still wondering, is the place where many believe Moses received the Ten Commandments from God during the Israelites exodus from Egypt. Climbing the mountain in the middle of the night and watching the sun rise is a very popular thing to do in Egypt, whether one be a pilgrim or a tourist. As always, here's a link with some more info.
We arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai at about 1 am. Apparently we had a guide provided for us, but we wanted to go at our own pace, so we soon separated from the main group. I have to admit, being in the middle of this mountain range in the dead of the night, with nary a soul around us, was a little surreal. I mean, this place just didn't look like something I've come to expect to find on planet earth. People were not intended to traverse such barren and desolate landscapes, let alone idle through them on some sort of tourist excursion. Yet there the three of us were, making our way up the steep path, avoiding the occasional camel, and cracking jokes and singing the whole way up.
Finally at 5:50 am, the sun became visible on the horizon and began creeping its way upward. There was a little bit of cloud cover hanging just above the mountaintops in the distance, and once the upper lip of the sun cleared this it transformed from a soft ball of orange into a glowing disc of light (don't worry, the corniness will end sooner or later). Obviously, the sun and its various rising and fallings are fascinating to behold and its no wonder many ancients were particularly obsessed with it.
After we'd had our fill of Sinai sunny delight, we began our descent. We changed up our route and took the "steps of penitence" on the way down. Instead of winding around the mountain, this path cut right through it. The going wasn't quite as easy, but the views, though not quite as panoramic, were much more up close and personal, as we saw several jagged cliff sides and fascinating rock formations. I felt like I was back in Petra all over again.
We took a brief peek into St. Katherine's Monastery (the oldest in the world) and then headed back to Dahab. Though we had originally planned to stay for three nights, we concluded that it made more sense to take the 10 pm night bus back, rather than leave at 10 in the morning and waste daylight. So after a delicious dinner on the shores of the Red Sea and some more wound licking, we boarded our Cairo-bound bus.
The ride back was pretty miserable. I couldn't get to sleep for the life of me. We stopped nearly every half hour. In all honesty, if we'd limited the stops we could've made the trip in 4 hours instead of 8. But it is what it is. After arriving in a strange part of town at 8 am, we hopped in a cab and headed back to Zamalek. I said bye to Mae and Anna and made my way back into the dorm. Another trip completed.
Although I was now out of the Dahab sun, the effects were still felt. My sunburn was killing me, especially those damn feet of mine. Putting on shoes was torture. My left foot in particular was suffering, and it began blistering pretty profusely. Che-che-che-check it out:
Oh, last but definitely most important, I wanted to give a shout out to my kid brother David (that's such a strange phrase, especially when the kid in question is taller than you, but I feel this is an appropriate situation for it). David, DOBL, Rolly-Polly, or Baby Fatso, whichever you prefer, is graduating from Pequot Lakes High School tonight as valedictorian. In fact, the ceremony very well might be going on right now. Obviously, this is a pretty sweet accomplishment and I'm pretty darn proud of David for achieving it (although if his speech isn't up to snuff with a certain one delivered three years ago, I'll be sure to give him some crap).
However, there is even bigger and better news. David also decided this week that he'll be joining me out at Notre Dame next year. ND was always his dream school, but he received a very attractive offer from the University of Minnesota that he had to consider. In the end, I think he made the right choice. I'm really happy that I'll get to share a bit of my senior year with him, and hopefully I can pull him into Dillon Hall and continue the Big Red Liedl Legacy. Anyway, great work Davey-boy and see you in the fall. Let the display of semi-embarrassing pictures begin!
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