How I Spent My Summer Vacation Part 1: Ohio

I am officially back in Geneva to begin my second year after spending a wonderful month back in the United States. I had the chance to do quite a lot while home, including 5 major cities, a wealth of friends, 4 concerts, a zoo, an (American) football game, plenty of Mexican food and various other miscellany.

I returned home on Friday, August 24th and quickly got back into things, hanging out with the remains of the old Pickerington crew that evening and the next day. Greg, Maggie and I went to the Columbus Zoo for a few hours in the afternoon, which despite the intermittent thunderstorming, was fun.




The zoo’s answer to the Jet d’Eau? A fountain on the lake.


Nice-looking dragon from Asia Quest


The Red Panda takes a break from laying around and actually moves


And I’m wild about you, Jack Hanna


Hooray for penguins

So after that, we headed for dinner at a great Japanese place in the Short North where we were joined by Matt, Brooke, Todd, Jon and his girlfriend, Sarah. Following that, we headed to a bar called the Surly Girl which has an amazing selection of microbrews from around the world.


Sarah, Jon and Maggie


Brooke, Matt and myself

The next couple days were pretty low-key and I drove down to Cincinnati on Tuesday to see some friends and catch a concert at Bogarts by the Format, an indie-rock two-piece from Arizona. The show was really entertaining and quite fun.







On Wednesday I went wake-boarding with Maggie and Greg on his family’s sweet new boat. While I’m still a complete novice, I finally executed a couple successful side switches which made me pretty happy. Plus, it was a beautiful day and the lake was almost vacant.

Not bad for 5 and a half days...