Aerial silk, yoga, brain.

Hello there. It´s been a couple of days, I know. Well, let´s see.

Thursday evening was really pretty cool. Ivan and I went to a class; something he does regularly. It´s a place, a home, of several circus folks and acrobats, so I gathered. And on their rather large patio, our class instructor built a sort of railing. Hard to explain, see picture:

Pretty cool. Ivan and I were the only class members, which was good, considering it was in Spanish and Ivan could take a moment to say, ¨straighten your back¨. The first 45 minutes or so was spent stretching, yoga, and ab exercises. The next hour and half was spent, what I called ¨roping¨, but is really called ¨Aerial silk¨. Here´s how wiki explains it:

¨Aerial Silk, also known as tissu, ribbon or fabric, is an apparatus used in aerial acrobatics where a performer or performers hang and perform acrobatics while suspended by a special fabric. The performer climbs the suspended fabric without the use of safety lines, and rely only on their training and skill to ensure safety. The performer/acrobat uses the fabric to: wrap, suspend, fall, swing, and spiral their body into and out of various positions. Aerial silks may be used to fly through the air, striking poses and figures while flying. Routines are an exciting display of athleticism, coordination and flexibility.¨

Ivan had been doing this for some months and did some really cool stuff. But, I must say, I did some neat stuff too! I wish I had more pictures, but check these out:

Ivan and Christian:
Me!:

Needless to say, this was a work out!!! My hands, forearms and biceps were quite tired. And in the end, after the final stretching, my body felt light as a feather. It was wonderful! I will go back!Yesterday was spent with a trial run. I made sure I could get to school via bus, and successfully. I learned my lesson on Sept. 20, 2005, my second day in Chicago after Katrina, and my first day at Northwestern. I tried to take the Purple line (express!!!) up to Evanston from Belmont... at noon-ish. I didn´t realize that the Purple line only ran during rush hour. Well, I could´ve and tried to take the Red line up, but there are a lot of stops! A lot! And I wasn´t able to make my first meeting because of it.

So, yesterday, I did a trial run: to see if I could actually get to school in a timely manner. And I feel good. I can´t wait to start classes Monday!!!! Spanish!!!!

I walked around a bit more. I went to a shopping slash tourist type area on Florida St. Lots of hasslers, beggers, stripers (trying to get you to head over to their club), shopping, junk, paintings, musicians, Burger Kings and Micky D´s. Dig some pix:

After Florida street, more walking and random pictures below:

Oh here´s my roof top:

Chimneys, for when the house used to burn their own trash:

Okay for now.

Really miss you folks.

P.S. It´s really, really hot in my apartment. No A/C. No breeze. Sweating.