Of high mountains, pain, goats and other social events

As usual, things happen quicker than I can record them here. So, without much ado, here is what you've been missing out on (ne ne ne ne neeee) in the past month.

Starting with the most recent, Retezat, or "the weekend of pain". Setting off bright and early on a crisp Sunday morning, we proceeded to blindly follow this man, the bringer of pain, the uphill-speeder, the always-way-ahead-of-us bright eyed and bushy-tailed spirit of "come on people, chop chop, look how late it is, that cloud is getting near, you can gossip on the summit etc etc".

After an 8 hour high-altitude stroll and only 8 hours' sleep for the whole weekend, 5 zombies turned up for work on Monday morning (only because the other 2 weren't working). Aside from that, which was quite fun in itself, the scenery was otherworldly. Lookie here:

We walked through forests and meadows,
and over miles of blooming rock,
and over miles of barren rock,
and over snow,
We saw chamois goats,
and acted like them
"What do your elven eyes see?"
Pit stop:
Top o' the mountain to ya!
View from the peak, with Lake Bucura:
The way back:
The way ahead:
Me, tired? Naah..
On the way down. Game: how many people and how many goats can you spot in this photo?

Can you imagine, I forgot to take a pic of my shoes from the top of the mountain. So this one will have to do ;) I had repetitive dreams of that blue-triangle track marking the next night, hehe.

* * *
Other events of note for the past month would be...

... my 10-year highschool reunion, which was a lot of fun. The picture is silly, cheerful and disorderly, just like we were as a group:
...the small-scale miracle of my brother's graduation,
... two new ear piercings and a very good master's thesis (not pictured in this post).

Same valley, different perspective

It seems we can't get enough of this place. There are still so many nooks and crannies to explore, and each rock, village or valley renders itself to a different activity. This time it was rock climbing, which I tried for the first time:

The pics make me look way professional, don't they? It took a significant amount of huffing and puffing, a couple of bruises, two grazed knees, a bump on my head and a good serving of giggles from the people at the bottom until I (sort of) made it to the top. My arms and legs still hurt. But it was so much fun, I'm definitely going to do it again.

Well-worn, dusty and very shaky hands:
Another swing to add to the survey (NZ swings continue to be the best by far). Behind me, sneak preview for Jocke:
I know, I know, those bloody shoes again! But I can't help it; wherever there's height, there will be a shoe pic.
The batteries in my camera ran out rather early in our trip, so I don't get to show you the most beautiful part, namely Saturday night's full moon illuminating the ruins. I won't even attempt to describe what I thought only existed in romantic painting and victorian novels. Some things are better just felt and unshown.

Oh, and one more thing! It's summer! :D