A Castle Fit for a King & A Dream Fulfilled

Usually I would try to come up with some witty lead-in. But as I wipe the sleep from my eyes, I realize that I am just.too.tired. Please prepare yourselves for the randomness that is this blog post. Ordinarily, I would have the time to post about all of these things separately, but since my time is not my own anymore, I'm going to jumble them all into one post. Bear with me, folks.

First things first, I thought my parents might appreciate a picture of my first day of grad school.

With the first two weeks of school under my belt, I'm feeling pretty good.

We decided to head south for Labor Day Weekend. I still spent a good chunk of the weekend getting my reading done for school, but we were able to take one day to visit the Hearst Castle in San Simeon. Just to give you a brief history, during their heyday in the early 1900's, the Hearst family owned approximately one fifth of all newspapers in the United States, plus 8 radio stations, movie studios, and a magazine publishing company (which the family still owns and includes such magazines as Good Housekeeping, Town & Country, and Cosmopolitan). William Randolph Hearst inherited over 250,000 acres of land when his mother passed away, and he decided to build a 60,000+ square foot castle into the mountainside. Ever seen the movie Citizen Kane? That movie is said to portray Hearst's eccentric personality. Anyway, when he passed away in 1951, the family donated the property to the state of California. Actually, they still own the property itself, but they allow the state to use the castle as a historical monument. (Only in California can your house turn into a historical monument simply because of the fact that you inherited a large fortune that was built primarily by your predecessors. But I digress.) This place is truly something to see!

Although this looks like a church, this is actually the front entrance of the house.

Here is the view of the ocean from the house. My lens was dirty, so pardon the smudge.

Here is the dining room. Interesting story behind this: Hearst sat in the very center, with new guests sitting next to and across from him. When Hearst would extend invitations for weekend visits, guests were expected to move one chair further away each time they came. When they reached the end of the table, they had overstayed their welcome and were not invited back.

The Roman Bath House. A portion of these tiles (the yellow ones) were actually made of 24-karat gold, and this entire room is covered in tile from the bottom of the pool, to the walls, to the ceiling.

Here we are by the outdoor pool. This was my favorite part! It's hard to capture the beauty of this pool with a camera.

Ok, onto other things. Last night we attended a concert that I have been looking forward to for months! One of my favorite bands since middle school broke up a few years back and then decided to get back together and do a reunion tour. I know most of you who read this are not huge punk fans, so I'll keep it short. We got to see Taking Back Sunday, Weezer, and, ::drumroll please:: Blink-182!!! The concert lived up to all my expectations. Here's a pic of Pat & I on the lawn. (I just realized that Pat is wearing the same shirt in the Hearst Castle pics as he is in the concert picture below. He does own other shirts, I swear. He just happens to really like that one.)

Alright, I think that's it for updates. It's hard to believe that we've crammed so much into the last few weeks.

To quote one of my favorite songs, "I'm alive and well," and life is very good right now. Peace out.