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"Last night".

I'd woken up in the dead of the night (2.30am) feeling really hot, and feeling as if there was a hot plate right under me, so I went to get water. Gapa was asleep. I came back to bed and heard a tapping sound, thought maybe Gapa was knocking on the door. I opened it, and he was still sleeping. Confused and sleepy, I lay down to sleep and after a lot of tossing and turning and hearing things, I slept. The air seemed rarer too, and it was stuffy and hard to breathe.

Piece together the story.

We all woke up, and Gapa usurped my spot on the bed while I went to brush and change. My nose was slightly bleeding from the effort of having breathed all night. He hadn't been able to sleep properly on the couch outside. Ashlene also hadn't slept well, and apparently had heard a keyboard-tapping kind of sound all night, and was aware of me waking up and she also tossed and turned a lot like me. We kind of creeped out at that, because the typing sound could easily have been tapping, which is what I thought was knocking. Creepy room!

Moving on: Ashlene and I went and had tea and breakfast while Gapa was in the shower. We also found out that there was a ski slope (still) open close by, so we decided to go skiing instead of sightseeing, as somewhat planned the previous day. We asked for an extension, to check out of the room at 1pm instead of at 11am, and we got it! :)

Mammoth mountain.

After a lot of waiting, bad timing and slight irritability, we ended up driving to Mammoth Mountain where we were told the ski slopes were. It being 4th July and Independence day in America, they'd celebratorily (is that even a word?) kept the slope open on this (last) day. Except, we ended up going to the opposite side of the mountain which was a hiking trail. We walked around there for a while though, and took some pictures. We also saw a lot of people there with some BEAUTIFUL dogs. Man, furry, thick coated beautiful dogs that were frisking around in the snow and ice cold lake :) Lovely!!

So we asked a hiker, and he told us the ski slopes were on the other side of the mountain. To the other side of the mountain we went.

Skiing.

The place was PACKED! Lots of cars parked, and there were a lot of people. We could see the ski slopes and the ski lifts, and we could see people skiing on the ski slopes. We got excited. When we finally got to the correct building, Gapa was already saying that this was taking far too long and maybe it would've been better to just go sightseeing. But!:) When we got there, we bought our 1 hour ski training time and picked up our equipment. Ski boots are SO very heavy! I felt like I was walking on the moon!! We took all our gear - skis, ski poles, helmets. I had come armed with a big fleece jacket and gloves, and I wore them, but it was SO hot, even in the snow, that I wish I'd just worn regular clothes. Excitement ran high.

We walked out to the place where we were told our instructor would meet us, and where a big snow mobile was apparently going to be waiting for us, but we walked around a lot without finding anyone (again, service in India is so much better!) for a while, and then finally our instructor found us.

Oh boy ! :)

We went in the snow mobile to the top of the slope, where she gave us our first lesson. To stop, push your heels out so that your toes are closer together. Did that, put on our skis, and we were going down the slope ! I picked up speed, turned instead of stopping, and almost ran off the slope so I tried something else to stop myself and ended up on the ground - first fall of about 5 - 6 falls :) Man, what a rush though! I picked it up pretty quickly, and so did Gapa. Ashlene was a little stuck. Gapa and I went all the way down the slope and then we hiked back up with our skis. Lol, apparently the snow mobile would've picked us up.

Again, all the way down the slope we went, and this time I fell only a couple of times. It was so much fun! I was so happy to have gotten the hang of it! :) It was great!

Last slope up, the snow mobile took us higher up, and we came all the way down the slope, and I didn't fall at all! :) I had asked a random other woman who was standing at the bottom of the slope to take a video, and she got us in the video! :) So cool it was. I wasn't speeding down the slope or anything, but I got the hang of it!!:) Funnnnnn!

I fell twice on the way back to the ski equipment rental area! :| With a lot of effort, I took my stuff back up to the rental, and then we returned the shoes, skis, helmets etc. and got our stuff back (it was in the locker). Good fun! :)

Rush.

We rushed back to the hotel because we had almost reached check out time, and well, we didn't want to pay for an extra day. In a rush, we had showers, and we checked out quickly. We then went and ate some food (at Pita Pit which is like Subway, except with Pita bread), and ended up starting to head back only at about 2pm.

Speeding.

I decided to sleep in the car and take over from Gapa after a bit. I woke up in time to see him getting pulled up by the Highway Patrol cop car for speeding! :) Haha, fun experience. Although slightly scary and definitely not fun for Gapa.

I took over from him shortly after.

Driving, driving, driving.

I drove for nearly 5 hours after that, before passing the wheel back to Gapa. Driving is so enjoyable here!!!! No one breaks the rules, everyone is good on the roads, and the roads itself are SO good! :) Man, it was a lot of fun! And the views were oh-so-beautiful that we kept stopping to take pictures, and from one frame to the next, I wasn't able to catch my breath from it having been taken away each time!

We were approaching Santa Clara, when we turned on the radio and the RJ announced that there were going to be 4th July celebration fireworks in SF. So we decided to change course, and instead make way to Berkley Marina to watch the fireworks. We went there full speed (we were afraid Gapa might get another ticket :P) and we made it to the Berkley bridge 15 minutes before fireworks. The rest of the traffic was also going just as fast, so we weren't the only ones going super fast :D Unfortunately though, the exit we had to take was closed, and we ended up stuck in crazy traffic on the top of the flyover. And our phones had also died one by one, so we were not able to get directions, so we just randomly took the Albany (?) exit, and drove off the bridge. We parked on the side and took out Gapa's laptop, to which we hooked up Ashlene's Nexus so we were not directionless anymore :)

Fireworks.

We started to drive back to Santa Clara and on the way, we saw a car stop on the side to get a faraway view of the Berkley Marina fireworks. So did we, and then another car, and another car, and another car, until there was a line of cars there watching the fireworks. It was pretty, and nice to see the sky lit up like that. And then we started to drive. The hourlong drive took us past at least 10 other firework displays! :)

In-N-Out burger.

We drove straight to In-N-Out, and I had my first authentic American burger. It was good :) We drove back to my corp apartment.

New Roommate.

As soon as we walked in, the new roommate, Sophie, walked out of her room (my old room), and she said hi and spoke to us for a couple of minutes. She seemed nice. Ashlene, Gapa and I all just changed, brushed, put our things away and went to sleep! :)