ptpinit

Well, we finally had our first class after the cancellation last week. This is going to be a great class I can tell. Our instructor’s got a very dry sense of humor, and he’s moving along pretty quickly, but it is just a class for those wishing to visit Italy in the near future. If all goes well, I may even take Italian I next term. It’s just a fun language to read and speak! Oh, and we’ve semi-nailed down some dates to go visit next Spring, molto bene!

I picked up mandolin about 7 years ago (after playing violin for 14 years through high school, they’re strung the same way, pick vs. bow). I had a great teacher as well that started by teaching me the basics of bluegrass mandolin but eventually introduced me to my current mandolin passion: playing Brazilian choro and samba. I play in a choro/samba group here in Portland, Rio Nights – http://www.portlandchoro.com. The music is definitely challenging, melodic, and clearly unusual for Portland. Although I no longer take lessons, I’m sticking with the group and learning new tunes so we can expand our setlist.

It’s only half a marathon, c’mon! Just kidding. I started from scratch (3 miles) and worked my way up to marathon distance. Now I’m sticking to halfs because they require less training time and less recovery afterwards. In fact, I’m running my third one this year on the Fourth!