Day 22 - Climbing makes me so happy!

Sunday wasn't the most exciting day at work. I ate lunch with Tanmay, Clay, Tamara, Lior, and Jordan at Jubilee, and got to hear other stories about weekends in Jerusalem. In the afternoon, I made 5 samples for the TEM, including single-walled, double-walled, and multi-walled nanotubes, and left them to dry for the night. Once I was finished, I sat with Noa and chatted as she did tensile tests on her epoxy/nanotube composite samples.

As we talked about various things and examined her samples, Nitzan called me to let me know we'd be climbing tonight. I asked if there would be a space for a friend in the car, and he said no. So about 10 minutes later he called back to tell me there was a space, and I told him I'd call a friend and call him back to let him know. About 30 seconds later, before I had even had a chance to decide who to call, Nitzan called me again to inform me that the spare spot was only in one direction. Of course. I laughed and told him I didn't have any friends who wanted to come climb and then stay there FOREVER, and he said we'd be back, it wasn't a big deal, they'd only wait about a week. So before hanging up I asked if my spot in the car was both ways. "Nope, only 1/4 of the way," he replied. "We'll drop you off halfway there." Har har.

After a few more of Noa's samples, I called it a day and headed home. I caught up on some blogging and changed, then went to wait for Nitzan. Yaron and Dave joined me sitting just inside the gate, but of course Nitzan was waiting with the car just ouside the gate. After a few minutes he texted me: "?" Very pithy. So we found him and got in.

Yaron drove there with Yael, who is relatively new to climbing. We met her once we all arrived there, and I gave her a refresher course on belaying. We all rotated and belayed each other. I gave her some tips as she climbed, and she belayed me on a route I had never done before which was challenging but really interesting and which I think was very technical. Nitzan belayed me on my first two lead climbs ever (!), which were very exciting because I wasn't clipped in to the top rope as a backup. The first one I did was a relatively easy climb that I had done before, and it was totally fine except for a momentary panic halfway through when I forgot about the leading and wondered for one brief, shining moment where the heck my rope was. Luckily I suppressed this emotion and had a good climb. It felt pretty good!

After a few more climbs and belaying, Nitzan had me try a slightly harder climb on lead. It was new as well, so I had never tried it. I think I led well, but I really liked the route. I got to yell "take" for the first time ever, which felt peculiarly natural. I took a brief rest at that point, and when I reached the top and clipped in, Nitzan had me take a fall so I knew what it felt like on lead. It was...frightening, and he told me after I had reached the bottom that it was a bit longer a fall than he had intended. Oh wonderful :)

Throughout the evening I also watched Yaron finish this problem which had been torturing him for a while. He almost finished it twice before his third, successful attempt. It is a ridiculous overhang, and the clips are oddly placed and make foot placement hard, but he did it! Nitzan also finished some crazy routes, then had me try to lead one last climb. I made it halfway up and took a spectacular and unplanned fall. It didn't scare me that much, but the next, short one did, mostly because it was caused by a foothold rotating in the wall and had me near the adjacent wall. After that I came down.

We bouldered a bit, which was nicer than usual at this place because they had rearranged and replaced a bunch of the holds, so there were some clean and nice ones. The place was closing, though, so we had to leave. I gave back my harness and noticed the ice cream chest was gone. The dude behind the counter said I could go to the back and choose a popsicle, which is what I wanted, because I had exact change. I chose one that was pink-and-white diagonally striped, which turned out to be bubble gum flavored. As we walked toward the car, I was informed that the plastic stick was filled with bubble gum! This was an exciting discovery, and in the car on the way home I did my best to blow an epic bubble but mostly just got gum all over my face.


We dropped off Yaron and our other passenger, then Nitzan, Dave and I decided to go get some late dinner near the "science park." The place we ended up, called "Tuk Tuk," served sushi. I got sweet potato/vegetable sushi and a special containing cucumber, shrimp tempura, Swedish cheese and salmon. It was delicious. Nitzan shared a story about the worst thing he's ever consumed, which I won't recount because it still scares me. But it was an entertaining meal.


When I returned, I noticed that Jonathan and Stephen's light was on, so I knocked and entered. Both roommates were awake and relieved to see me alive. They hadn't seen me in a while, and said that when they checked my blog and saw that it was three days out of date, they were almost seriously worried. Jonathan had even written on my wall! He said if I hadn't responded in a week, he would have actually texted me. What a good friend. Anyways we chatted a bit and then I went to bed.


Here are some more pictures from the weekend, mostly from the shook in the Old City: