trip north

The trip north was ... interesting, with some delightful parts and some parts that were just weird.

The good:

• Getting to know work colleagues in other departments.
• A glorious cross-country skiing expedition with an engineer who insisted on my going. We skied along a half-frozen river on groomed trails under brilliant blue skies, then sat in a hut and ate hot veggie chili and fresh bread.
• Getting a massage.
• Swimming outside in a hundred-degree pool at the bottom of a ski slope. (Yes, there was a fence between the slope and the pool, but from parts of the pool, you could watch the descent.)
• Having some quiet time and some social time.

The bad:

• A friend fell on the ski slope and ended up in the emergency room. I think he's ok, but he gets checked out today.

And yes, there was some ugly:

• Apparently, some of my colleagues form a hard-partying crowd. While I didn't particularly participate (no late night poker games, no hard drinking, no drinking games on the bus home for me), it was a little hard to be around it all. For one thing, I have plenty of past demons around this stuff. And for another, when someone's on drugs, they're usually at least interesting. When someone else is drunk and I'm sober, I perceive them as boring and narcissistic. It doesn't even look like *they're* having fun most of the time. As my dear friend Mark used to say, "I think we had more fun hearing about the party than being there."

All in all, it was a good trip, with some parts that I'll know to avoid next time. Maybe I'll have to form a little clique of hard-partying tea drinkers who like to have lights out before 11.