This last while...

This last while has been reasonably interesting. The last three weeks have been spent talking to clients in California. The work itself is interesting and I'm learning a lot as I go along. It has been easy to slip back into the flow of things over here. Week days are basically, work, eat, work, eat, do something fun, go to bed, repeat. It can get a bit repetitive but the weekends have been great fun.

Each of the days over the weekend I've been biking around the bay. It reminds me a lot of two years ago except this time I can handle my bike a lot better. The hills around Ireland are so much more technical then over here. They have trained me well :) The main points about biking in California are:

• The trials seem like a paved road in comparison to Ireland. (My hard tail Stumpjumper handles it really well)

• When it is hot, the up hills can be grueling!

• Downhill == roller coaster (except a much better rush)

For the 4^th of July, we all headed to down Santa Cruz to which 10,000 crazy people let off fireworks on the beach. As far as I know, rockets are illegal in California – but tell that to anyone down there! It seemed pretty dangerous at the start as fireworks were landing in the crowd close to the ocean. We stayed back a bit from the ocean and it felt a lot safer. (Or maybe it was because it was darker and we couldn't see the rockets landing in the crowd) Anyway, we sat round a fire, chatted and toasted marshmallows. It was cool.

Last weekend myself and Fergal went to Great America (Ok theme park) The best thing was the Xtreme Skyflyer. You are basically winched up 153 feet. When you pull a rip cord, you free fall and eventually (6 feet before the ground!) pull up into a swinging motion. It was a lot of fun. Hitting 60 miles per hour going head first towards the ground is something I havn't tried before. I think the next thing for me will be either a bungee jump or a parachute jump. (Mel has been trying to get me to do one for ages – I want to, I just haven't had a chance yet :( )

Today was also notable in that it was my last day of work for a while. Tomorrow morning I'm flying out to Bangkok and then on to Hanoi. I have been looking forward to a break for so long.