Friday, August 10, 2007

California!

Hey everyone. Having to write scores of essays for my medical school applications has left me unable to update the blog but I just had to write something about this week. After a crazy first half of the year my husband and I rewarded ourselves by taking an impromptu trip to California. Neither of us had been to the West coast but we were both curious to see if we'd like it enough to consider relocating there in the next 5-10 years.

We arrived last Saturday in San Diego, spent two days there, drove up for a day in LA, spent another day in San Luis Obispo, and are now spending the rest of our time with a friend in San Jose. Oh, and yesterday we spent the day in San Francisco. So we've gotten a nice little survey of all the major cities we were curious about. We didn't quite know where to go in LA so for now we are leaving it off our list, but we were very positively impressed by every place we have visited. I could certainly imagine a life here on this side of the country. That all being said, it will probably take the next 5 years for me to convince myself to leave the New York City area. It's incredibly emotional for me to even consider being far away from it, but there's a feeling growing inside me of wanting to start fresh somewhere new. We'll see what happens as time goes by. But at least now we have options.

On Wednesday I met Patty! Hi Patty!! It was wonderful to meet in person after 2 years of blogging and chatting. She correctly guessed that I was nervous leading up to our meeting. It's always scary to play for someone new and I was especially worried because I am at my worst shape ever; my practicing has been sporadic at best the past few months. However, Patty put me at ease and I was able to play for her and even with her (we played some duets). She sounds beautiful, of course, so the duets were a special treat. Thanks so much for the amazing time, Patty! If we move to San Jose I will be begging to become one of your official students.

We will be leaving on the red-eye tomorrow night. At this point we're pretty exhausted but also curiously refreshed. It's been nice to step out of our life for a bit and imagine a new life where the focus is us. Back home, we are being pulled in so many directions. I now feel recharged and ready to return and hit the ground running.

4 comments:

Guanaco said...

How cool that you got to meet and play with Patti!

While on vacation in San Diego in June, I too was fortunate to be able to meet another celloblogger, Pink Fluffy Slippers, and we got to spend the afternoon playing some duets.

Diving Off A Cliff said...

That's great, Hilda! What a fun trip.
I'm really amazed at the people who meet on blogs and then meet up later in real life, and have a great experience. It's kind of like what the Amateur Chamber Players Assn is supposed to be like, but I never get a contact. :(

nat* said...

WOw, Hilda! That's really really cool! Do visit if you decide to drop by Singapore :P
YOu're on my blogroll by the way ;D

Anonymous said...

Hilda, as I wrote at my blog, I really loved meeting you and hearing you play. You are quite accomplished! Now you just have to MOVE HERE so we can play more duets!

(Hey, maybe you'd also become my doctor at Kaiser, eh? ;-)