“What river runs through the Grand Canyon?”  The Colorado, of course!  Yes.  Easy questions.  This is going to be fun.  I sure was wrong about the easy questions.  They got hard, weird, and obscure.  They were also hard to hear.  In the entire restaurant, there was only one speaker, and we were around a corner from the speaker.  Lots of people were talking also so we couldn’t hear over them.  With these problems, we were getting tired of trivia and left halfway through.  We didn’t want to struggle through another hour so we headed home. Free food is always good and delicious.

When you’re trying to do a trivia thing with people reading the questions in a loud restaurant, make sure everyone who’s trying to play can hear.  Add more speakers!

At 1:00 we all met in the Burton-Conner lobby.  All of us except for maybe two are freshmen.  We walk all the way to the Kendall T stop and Itaru is surprised.  “Never have I been in a group larger than like three where everyone had a CharlieCard.” All of us climb on the Red Line and change at Park St. to change to the Orange Line where we get off at the Wellington stop so Itaru can call the people to ask for a shuttle.  We wait there for probably a good 20 minutes before Itaru calls again only to find out we missed the van.  We wait another few minutes and a green minivan pulls up.  We clamber into the van.  It’s 10 of us plus two more people and the driver trying to fit into a 7 passenger van.  No need to say it was a tight squeeze.  We finally make it to MetroRock.

We head into the rock climbing facility and sign the waivers.  (Edit:)Unnamed(16) is of course “18 years of age” so she doesn’t need the parental consent and can sign it herself.  We all get our gear and suit up and head to the little section upstairs where they will give us the belay test.  I pass easily having belayed before for my high school interims.

The place is crowded and everyone is watching the dyno competition.  Dyno is a maneuver where you are not in contact with the rock for a time.  Think of the jump Leonidas did in 300.  THIS IS SPARTA! Speaking of Leonidas, there was even a guy who had the exact same beard and everything.  I watch a few jumps, but am more interested in climbing myself.  Caroline and I begin a simple climb and quickly finish that.

Going to another climb, Caroline begins.  She tries to go up but wants to give up four feet off the ground.  I refuse to let her down and make her go up all the way.  During the climb she gets progressively angrier at me refusing to let her down.  It takes her a little while, but she eventually makes it all the way up. Of course, after making her climb, I let her down only after she sings a Disney song.  We eventually get to this one climb.  I again force Caroline to do it, but this was a very easy climb.  I want to have fun with this climb and just scramble up as fast as I can.  It probably took me less than a minute (probably 20 seconds) to make it to the top.  For my last climb, I try the hard climb Caroline took earlier.  I find the climb hard, mainly because the wall comes out toward me and the handholds are far enough apart to make it a challenge.  I fail a few times and joyfully sit in my harness regaining my energy.  I eventually make it to the top and see why Caroline struggled with it.

We finish up climbing and decide to get food.  After all, we had another hundred or so in our IFAF budget.  Everyone is hungry so our group goes to Pour House.  We make it there at around 6:05 and wait until 6:45 to finally sit down and order.  Andrew, Stephen, Zach, and I each order a double Texas burger and a Frap.  That’s 4 burger patties with bacon, fries, and chips, with a milkshake.  We finish all the food except for Stephen who still had most of his Frap to go.  I was so full after that meal, but it was well deserved after an afternoon of climbing.

When belaying, never let your climber down even if the crazy asian girl on the other end of the rope will bite your head off when she finally makes it back down.