Allow Me One Post to Gush About Seattle

I will get back to yoga tomorrow - I have a post all ready for y'all. But allow me to gush about my first day back in Seattle. What a joy! I love where I live, despite the fact that it was 49 degrees and rainy...summer really doesn't kick in until July 'round these parts.

Anyhow, I woke up around 7 a.m. and did some emailing and puttering before 9:30 a.m. yoga with Saiko. She was so supportive of both Christian & I in our prep and execution of teacher training, and she was my last class at home before training - so it seemed fitting she be my first class back. A bonus though was that Nina, who taught me and Christian in our first Bikram class ever, was there too! She has been gone about a year and got back while we were at training. It was so fun, I practiced right next to her, with Jill right behind me - what a nice welcome back!

Class was so different than before. I did have two other teachers near me and I felt like the new kid at school, kinda. They both have stunning (re: brochure-worthy) practices and well, I don't. So I felt a bit klunky and whatnot but had a good practice, especially after 3 days off and a long day of sitting on an airplane. It was weird to be in such a small room with only around 25 people (I used to think the room was big, holding up to 60 people!), and just seeing such a range of skills, focus and interest. Things like everyone not moving together, laying down in Awkward, and other little things were a big change from training. Plus, the low humidity here made the room feel like a hot, dry heat vs. the humidity fest we had in Acapulco, where I'd be drenched by the end of Pranayama and here, I hit that same level of sweat somewhere around Triangle. Crazy. I had notions of doing a double, but I was pooped and decided instead to hang with my gal.

Jill and I then went to Lighthouse for my first Seattle coffee - my usual, a double tall soy latte. I nearly teared up - 9 weeks without a decent, well-made espresso drink was a long, long time for Seattle-based Jenn. I was so happy! Then we cleaned up and met my sister Megan for Thai food for lunch (Seattle is laden with Thai food, but my 'hood in particular has a particular density of it). Mmmm! It was such a nice change.

After, a little shopping, and quick visit to Jill's business partner who had a baby 5 days after I left, so I got to meet the little guy - and then off to see the new Sex in The City movie at one of my favorite (dumpy, old, charming) theaters. I did stop to have one of my favorite cupcakes and an Americano beforehand :) The movie was fun and after, Jill said, "let's go to Presse." Not a suggestion you have to make twice with me!

So, we headed to Capitol Hill for amazingly good crazily cheap French food, it was like a little date, the whole evening, and super fun! Last stop was a little thrifting at Value Village (Monday is 1/2 price day!) where I picked up a couple 'finds' including a cute pair of Prana pants for $5. Woo-hoo!

I'm still unpacking and getting organized. Here's some news: I have two official, real classes on the books! Monday June 23rd & 30th at 8:15 p.m. in Laurelhurst. Yay! Mock class is still on for this Thursday at 12:30, also at Laurelhurst. I also sent a bunch of emails out to get my organizing business drummed up again - and here's a good little lesson. I had a very lucrative job scheduled for May 1 that I had to let go of in order to go to Teacher Training - and today, when I checked my mail, I got one saying that the gig moved to July 1st and could I still do it? - Honestly, it gave me great pause at the time, thinking I could do this job and it would essentially have paid for TT in the fall. But in this case, turns out I got to have my cupcake and eat it too! It's best to always trust that things will work out, they often do!

Back to wrapping up yoga camp tomorrow! Thanks for indulging me :)

Pix: Above, quintessential seattle coffee- I'm home! Class #1 at home :); Coffee, Thai Food, Rainy Day Jenn; Cupcake; Movie; Dinner at Presse; Thrifting!

Before & After: A Few Comparison Photos

Before & Afters...

1st class; last class. What a difference!
Flying to Acapulco; flying home.
Christian & I after the first class; and after the last!

Day 64: Heading Home!

It’s hard to believe it’s really, really over. The training, of course – the real part is just about to begin: Teaching. Still, saying goodbye to people who I’ve come to expect to see daily was difficult. We were pushed to practice non-attachment this whole 9 weeks – the idea that when you can let things happen and flow and trust that all will be well – simply put, makes life easier and more peaceful. So leaving today was just another transition in life, really – as I mentioned, I was pretty comfortable with the notion that the 9 weeks would have an end. Still, it’s sad to think this time will never be again – never will this group of people be in the same place at the same time doing this same (er, crazy) thing.

We were on our way on time, around 9, and found a bunch of yogis at the airport headed to Mexico City as we were. There, we got to spend one last meal with Steve & Priscilla, along with a few others who we happened upon on the journey. As the day went on, more and more yogis fell out of the fold. By the time we got on our flight to Seattle, though, it was down to just Christian, me, Jill and Colleen, from Bellingham. And soon, we’ll all be back home doing our own things and having to work on integrating this whole experience into “real life.” I’m excited for it, truth be told!

Travels home otherwise were flawless. I studied my dialogue and caught up some blogging on the plane. My good friend Mikey picked us up and we got home around 8:30 p.m. He stayed and visited for a while and I can already see that I seriously drank the kool-aid, so to speak, and I will be finding it hard to rattle on about anything other than Teacher Training for a while (sorry friends & family). Getting back to our house and my girlfriend, my kitties and little things you take for granted – art on the walls, colors you haven't seen in living space in a long time, my kitchen, green lush northwesty trees and grass...Yay, home!
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Pix: Last buffet (I was a little sad!) with my final Huevos Rancheros; Acpulco from above; the Northwest waters...a different look; Seattle from above; my car; my house! Above, me and my old lady kitty, Headbutt. :)

Day 63: Jenn Sees Acapulco!

Leaving the compound on the weekends was pretty much unappealing when you feeling beaten to a pulp, having to study and maybe, just maybe, relaxing a bit. Other than a handful of dinners out, I never saw anything here other than the hotel. Seems lame, I know. Hard to explain, really. (For anyone planning to come: More reason to learn your dialogue ahead, then you and the two others who know it before you come can go and play ☺)

Kudos to my lovely girl Jill who got us ‘out of the house’ today. We had room service breakfast and a leisurely morning (yes, I opted out of the yoga class at 9:30 and the advanced class at noon) we headed out around 11:30. The smartest $50 we could spend was dropped on Ruben, a lovely cabbie whose services we rented for 4 hours (along with his cab) to take us around Acapulco. Jill did the research and the two of them blathered on in Spanish working out the route for our touristy day.

We started with the uber-famous cliff-divers. Now, I’d had mixed reviews, and in the end, we were glad we did it the way we did. It’s way on the other side of Acapulco, so it takes a good while to get there (50 minutes). There were two options - $40 for two, or $7 for two. We paid $7. It started at 1 p.m. and around 8 guys dove each one getting higher and higher on the cliff. It was pretty amazing to see – and for $7 and 20 minutes of my time, it was a good spend of energy. At night, apparently, torches are involved ☺

Next stop was the throwback Flamingo Hotel, built by Red Skelton and some other Hollywood bigshots with a focus on Johnny Weismuller of Tarzan fame, who had a big round room/suite, which is still there today. It is touted as the “Hollywood gang hideaway” from 1950 – 1984. Ruben walked us around and showed us the bushes shaped like jungle animals, various views, helped us pick mangos off the tree and gave a good overview of the kitsch that abounded. It was a fun stop, just a few minutes past the cliff-divers.

After that was the town square, a flea market and then a veggie/fruit market. We were started to feel a little spent but had fun walking around and seeing the weird foods and other goodies. We didn’t buy anything, but it felt fun to be in “old” Acapulco and see local people doing their thing.

We got back to the Fairmont around 4 and had some pool time. Greg was walking around pouring tequila out of the bottle into the mouths of many yogis; I partook if only for the photo op – it was truly just a splash. Jill and I ordered snacks and relaxed by the pool for a bit before dinner. Packing ensued, and we had dinner at the ‘fancy’ place onsite with Todd & Christian - what fun to order a glass wine with the steak! Our server took a ton of Bikram classes, 72 of the 94 we did! All workers at the hotel were invited to take the yoga for free. He loved it, hadn’t ever done yoga before, and now plans to take training in the fall. How cool is that?

We fly out at 11:35 a.m. tomorrow!!! YAY!
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Photos: Cliff divers in action; Flamingo Hotel; Old Acapulco; and my poser shot of me with a splash of Greg's tequila (I'm not exactly a drink from the bottle kinda girl!)... :)

Day 62: Graduation Day Part 2 - In Words

Well, by now you reviewed the riveting photos of the crazy graduation day. I will give you a run-down of the festivities.

I woke up a little stressed, not really having anything good to wear…so we went down to the boutique in the hotel where I found a perfect dress in my size for a mere $700. It’s still there. Jill, however, found me a nice little scarf for $27 that would nicely dress up a simple black dress I had, so we went with that, stopping off to get my toenail polish changed at the spa to match exactly. Then, I called pal Morgan who had mentioned having an extra dress…I went and tried it on and it fit like a glove (a tight glove in some areas) and get this – the scarf and toenails were a PERFECT match to the purplish design amongst the peach dress. Again, I learn…”why do you worry about anything. Everything always works out!” So, once dressed, we headed down for the 11 a.m. start.

The graduation ceremony itself was…well, I can’t lie…long. There were some speeches, the yoga demonstration (which was wicked cool), and then a long list of thank-you’s to people who absolutely deserved them. There were just a lot of them. Awards were given for best dialogue, best ‘bulldog determination’, the ‘flower petal blooming’ award for the person who improved/grew the most (Yay, Roy!), and a couple others (sadly, there was no award for ‘best blog’ or I’d have entered.. ;). Bikram gave a nice short speech, and a few others people spoke, then we had a break before the calling of the names.

Each person’s name was called by Craig, and then we got our certificate from Bikram, had a photo, and then thanks Rajashree before exiting the stage. Bikram was very sweet and genuinely congratulatory to me in that moment, and I appreciated it a lot. Whether he’d know me on the street is another question, but it felt nice on the stage.

Afterwards was a different buffet that was built-up in a way that caused a bit of disappointment. Still, the effort was there and the food was fine. We headed to Todd’s room for champagne with our crew – Todd, Jennifer (+hubby Dennis), Steve & Priscilla, Alysse, and of course, Christian, Jill & I. Our first alcohol after 9 weeks! Whooo! Of course it gave me a little headache. Then Jill and I headed to the pool a while later and I had a margarita, after which I was (to be) done with alcohol for the day…more on that in a sec. We headed in for a nap before the beachside bonfire/s’mores and cash bar.

Around 7, the evening fun began. Despite not planning to drink more, I had another margarita that I didn’t even finish. I was way more excited for toasted marshmallows, and 4 of them made their way down my throat in mere moments. Various groups formed and people drank/visited at the hotel bars (which we’d all looked at from afar, but never visited in 9 weeks!), and Jill and I took a small respite before heading down around 10:30 for dancing in the club in the hotel. They hired an off-site DJ who was pretty awesome.

A lot of the younger folks were passed out by then (no kidding!) – room 501 apparently was party central and a lot of folks really (and I mean really) let loose. It seemed us older folks made it to the dance floor and had a great time! Different people milled in and out and for me, just about all my pals made an appearance. Jill and I danced like crazy and well, (back to those drinks…) someone offered to buy us drinks and I figured, “ok, one for the dance floor would be fun!” And then a while later, another offer…which again, I took. I by no means got drunk though (they were not exactly ‘generous’ pours), just enough to have a good time and dance and all that. Sadly, both Christian and Todd didn’t come to the club portion of the night, but the rest of the gang was there mostly sitting among the tables drinking – it wasn’t too loud so you could talk and whatnot. We got back to our room around 1:45 a.m. – way earlier than some lecture/movie nights!!!!

On the way to the room, we ran into the staff who also seemed to enjoy the alcohol-ban being lifted ☺. Nonetheless, I had a chance to thank Craig for my experience directly and I was glad for that. While a lot of people struggled with some of his methods, overall, I didn’t. I connected with a lot of what he had to say and worked hard to integrate many of his words into my practice, my dialogue and hopefully (someday, in the future) my teaching.

It was a super fun day, and the feeling was really positive and happy. Still, I started to feel the disjointedness/fracturing of the group, which made me a little sad. For me, that last class on Thursday afternoon really felt like the climactic ending, already by Friday a few folks left, or just didn’t opt to participate, and it started to set it that whoa…it’s really over.

Some people really didn’t want it to end for various reasons, be it the monotony of home, uncertainty, or just really having fell in love with the experience. For me, I don’t want to imply that I am ambivalent about this experience ending; but that fact that it was a 9-week process was clear to me and having worked really hard to “be here now” when the time came for it to end, it made perfect sense to me. I miss my life, my family, my friends – and having Jill here was a really wonderful transition back to that life. So, after one more day here together, we head home on Sunday morning. By that evening, I’ll be in our little house, with my little old-lady cat who would come milling around the computer anytime Jill and I Skyped and she heard my voice; sleeping in my bed (!!!!) and getting up in the morning for a rockin’ amazing double-tall-soy-latte at Lighthouse. Amen to home!

Day 62: GRADUATION!!!!!!!!

A much, much longer post will follow, but for now, enjoy pictures of the big day. It was great fun, a huge release/relief, and a scary stepping off point for the next stage - teaching!

Bonus: Get your "Love Your Camel" T-Shirt Here!

Remember the cool "Love Your Camel" t-shirt I posted a week or two back? Just in case, here it is again. Now you can get one! Check it out! It's a super fun shirt, and there is an alternative for the boys.

http://www.loveyourcamel.com

Oh, and if you're here at teachering training, they'll deliver it to your room Friday or Saturday, check out the teacher training special listed. For the rest of all'y'all, they'll ship it!