Day #12, India Festival and Birthday Festivities

I think Saturday was finally the end. It’s been warm and beautiful all week. I feel hayfever coming on. I don’t think we are going to have any more snow, at least not down here. I’ve never been so disappointed to see spring! But Saturday was another GREAT day on the mountain. We practiced jumping and the half-pipe all day! The regulars are becoming more bold with us. The parking lot attendants, ski lift workers, and cooks always greet us now and we are starting to make friends with other boarders. Yippee!

Colare had an India festival last weekend. It opened with a North Indian Classical music concert on Friday night and closed with an Indian Classical dance performance on Sunday night. I attended both. On Friday night when the musicians walked onto stage and started tuning the sitar and tablas, my eyes welled up. There is something about those sounds and then when they start playing, their expressions! It really made me miss India and the energy it exudes. There were two Japanese musicians and one Indian man. The Indian tabla player was so expressive. The other two were into their music but not the same way. His entire face contorted with excitement and pleasure in his own music. He also controlled the group, sped them up, slowed them down, got them energized and calmed them at the end of each piece. And he got me pumped. You could tell he loved what he was doing. You could tell he wasn’t thinking about anything else. You could tell he was in love with the moment and the experience. And so was I! I go crazy for that shit. It wasn’t the best classical music concert I’ve seen, but it was good!

The other highlight of the India festival-they printed about 35 of our pictures to display in the entry! So walking in really did feel like going home, we got to see our own pictures blown up! It was really cool!

On Saturday night Kanako, Jamie & I celebrated our birthdays at our favorite bar- Koshi! The Koshi boys poured the drinks and for two hours we had a free flowing fountain! A ton of people showed up and it was really fun to see everyone and live it up! I got an extra large bar of chocolate and made everyone try it! I’m not sure what happened to it, I think I left it on a table somewhere. I hope someone took it home! I had big baking plans for it! I got a lot of birthday love from everyone! I couldn’t have asked for more. HG tried to crash at my apartment, but fortunately I already had guests! I think that mondaiji had to walk home to Asahi. Zannen desu ne!

On Sunday I cooked up some India food and watched a mediocre dance performance before going to my JTE's house for dinner. She originally invited me for a hina matsuri, girls day, doll viewing. But it turned into a birthday party. She has the two cutest girls in the world. And they sang happy birthday to me. Thinking about it in the car on my drive home made me cry! It was so so so sweet. And I think for the first time it made me realize that when I do leave on August 1, 2007 (yes, it will happen), I might be sad!