2007-07-15 Follow The Leader

I'm way too tired to check my blog merely to confirm a superlative, but I think it's save to say that today was one of the most exciting days of this whole year!
Mario visited me, which is in itself a rare and welcome event, considering that he lives 500 kilometers away from me. He went to a party on Saturday, so he came over afterwards (the party was exclusively for smart people, so I wasn't invited). When I say "afterwards", I mean at 3 o'clock in the morning. But hey, it's a weekend and we were both not sleepy. So we talked and talked and talked until about six o'clock. Then we had breakfast and went to sleep.
(Random tangent: I almost bought a hammock this week. If I had, Mario could have slept in it, but since I didn't he had to be satisfied with my couch. He didn't complain, though.)
At eleven, after five refreshing hours of sleep, we had breakfast again and left the house at noon to go climbing. Outside, for a change. It was a-ma-zing! For the first time in my life I lead a climb! For those of you who are unlike me no climbing experts (you can't see it, but I'm typing with one hand and patting myself on the back with the other), I'll explain what that means.
The usual way to climb, especially indoors, is called top rope because, obviously enough, the rope is fixed at the top of the route. But outdoors, there is no rope to begin with. They don't usually hang around and give people funny ideas (as opposed to apples, but that's another story that has been told a long time ago). So in order to provide the joy and simplicity of top rope climbing to all the others, one person has to get a rope up there. Today that one person was me. w00t!
There are many protections on the way, of course. After all, climbers may be freaks, but they are not mindbogglingly stupid. We want to live and tell our stories, you know. Still, knowing that one wrong grip might bestow you with a ten meter fall (top rope: half a meter at most!) makes you pick your grip quite carefully. At any rate, it's a thrill and I want to do it again some day.

Mario took one zillion photos, but they are only on his computer now. I might post one or two as soon as I get a hold of them.

PS: Okay, I lied. Actually I was kind of invited to the party. But I don't think I would have fit in there. Really.

PPS: It felt a little like that, too.