The weather yesterday was fantastic, so it called for an adventure. The last Friday before the Vernal Equinox. I was gonna get in on this paganism. Contacted my friends Abs and Pierre, and we decided to meet on top of a viewing tower in Kaseda to have a drink as the sun set. Kind of sappy, but I can’t imagine a more powerful force in paganism than the sun.

The thing is, to have a drink in the next town, I couldn’t drive, cuz then I’d have to crash in Kaseda and I just didn’t feel like doing that. So I decided to bike the 9 km, and bike it back at the end of the night.

Utterly gorgeous! The mountain forests exploded in golden light as I biked over, and the air was the perfect temperature to keep me cool as I navigated the mountain roads. I stopped at a liquor shop nearby the tower, and purchased a wee bottle of some apricot-honey wine (not mead, but the bestI could do… it ended up being pretty good). Then I climbed to the top of the tower, and looked over the town and the fading mountains as the sun set behind me in a subtle splash of color. Abs and Pierre each enjoyed a beer, and we hung out and shot the shit for a bit.

After that we got some dinner, then loitered on the streets of Kaseda, enjoying brew. I saw three of my students that had recently graduated, they were quite startled to see me in settings outside the school. It was also hilarious how quickly they had donned punk-kid appearances. They dyed their hair into splotchy copper patterns and got their faces pierced in various areas. These kinds of appearance alterations would’ve landed them into big trouble if they were still attending school.

Finally, the night was drawing to a close, as Abs had to get some rest to catch a bus really early the next morning. So I threw on my reflective “Please Don’t Hit Me, O Fast Cars” sash, activated my mp3 player, and biked back in the darkness.

Only it wasn’t so dark. The moon, almost full, illuminated the sidewalk fantastically, and I could see the silhouettes of the rolling mountains all around me. The air was crisp and cool, and the entire ride home was exulting. Completely beautiful.

So it was an excellent Friday night. Honey wine, dinner with friends, gorgeous scenery, a bright moon, and some of my first solid exercise in months and months. This place is wretched in the winter, but with even a bit of warmth, the magic comes back.