Long overdue vacation post, #4 - St. Goar

When we left off, we were boarding the bus in Amsterdam, H&M bags in hand.  Next stop:  Germany!!!!!  We were both so excited to see Germany, specifically Munich (Munchen), after a brief pit stop in St. Goar (pronounced Saint Gware).  St. Goar was essentially a rest stop between Amsterdam and Munich, but was a cool little town right on the Rhine River.  Our drive to St. Goar took us on the Autobahn, where we learned that if you have a German-registered car, you can still drive as fast as you want.  However, new EU regulations mean that non-German vehicles are subject to a speed limit.  Since our bus was Hungarian or something, we had to obey the traffic laws.  No speeding for us.

The weather was kind of dreary, so most of us took the opportunity to catch up on some sleep while we traveled on the smooth highway.  Once we got closer though, we started to see castles!  It was the neatest thing, driving down the Rhine valley seeing castle after castle up on the mountains, along the river.

Also along the river, up the sides of the mountains were miles and miles of vineyards.  We took photos out of the bus windows, which don't do the slopes justice. 

The town of St. Goar is pretty small.  One main street, a hotel, some bars and a few shops.  Its definitely a tourist town and I'm sure that its a whole different place in the spring, summer and fall.  We were there on a pretty dreary, rainy day, so there weren't many people out and about.  Our bus was the only one in town and we seemed to fill up the hotel.  We arrived at Hotel Montag, a small family-owned hotel on the banks of the Rhine River and had a few minutes to freshen up before dinner and wine tasting.  Our room was pretty tiny, it reminded us of a dorm room.  Unlike the hotel in Amsterdam, it had a shower curtain.  This made us both happy,  almost as happy as the clean clothes that we were going to get to wear the next morning.  Dinner was surprisingly good - spaaten noodles, soup, meat and salad and of course, a mug of beer.  We ate and then headed to a wine tasting in a 17th century wine cellar.

On our way to the wine tasting, we happened to be walking with Johnny, our bus driver.  He motioned us down an alley and to a gate, where he said, "Stick your camera in there, make sure the flash is on, and take a picture."  Of course, I couldn't resist, so I did.  Here's the picture.  It still makes me laugh.

The wine cellar was very neat.  Definitely old.  We headed down the stairs and walked into a room with lots of empty bottles and huge barrels.  You could tell that Contiki helps to keep this place in business.  All of the barrels were filled with signatures of past Contiki tours.  I took the opportunity to capture our lack of luggage situation, "screw the luggage, we have wine!"

 

 

When the wine tasting was over, we all headed back to the hotel.  Some of us stayed up and drank some  more beer before bed.  The bar was small, but great for chatting, so we ended up staying up a little later than we had intended.  We were grateful that we had saved a sandwich from one of our rest stops en route.  I'm pretty sure that it saved us both from a hangover the next day.

Are you terminal?

The answer is no, I'm not.  But someone made a bit of a joke about it a few weeks ago when they found out that I was about to embark on my first 1/2 Marathon.  The exact statement was, "Are you sure you're not terminal?"  It was mostly because we had just returned from a dream vacation in Europe and then were planning to run 13.1 miles.  Why?  Just to say we did it.  I say we, but this little endeavor was totally my idea.  It was one of those things that I had always wanted to do, but that I could never get the guts to actually attempt.  I would come up with every excuse from, being too fat, to not having time to train, to not knowing where to start.  You name it, I thought of it.

This time though, I outsmarted myself.  I registered for the race in February.  Yep.  Early-bird registration.  This means that I was committed and had to figure this thing out.  So, I found the training plan, running shoes, running pants and finally a perfect bra configuration, and got things under way.  We ran our short distances during the week and long runs over the weekends.  Side note:  We ended up taking two weeks off for Europe (planned in the training schedule) and another week (unplanned) post-Europe as we both recovered from some gnarly chest colds.  For us, the three week hiatus wasn't the best of ideas, but it was the situation and we made the most of it.

For me, running is about 90% mental and 10% physical.  For some reason, I get it in my head that I can't do it, won't do it, am not built to do it, etc and then I start walking.  I know that I'm strong and cardiovasularly fit and able to do this, but no matter what I told myself, I wouldn't just KEEP GOING.  This was a source of ultimate frustration for Nick, because he is my #1 cheerleader and he knew I could do it.  He'd been trying to tell me for weeks actually, but I refused to listen. 

Three (I think?) weeks before the 1/2 marathon, we had to run about 7 miles.  I had a crappy day and couldn't even finish 3.  Pissed was an understatement.  I knew that I could do it, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.  That makes sense in my head.  Nick finished more than I did, but even he didn't get farther than 6 (which to me might as well have been 60). 

The next weekend was the breakthrough that I had so desperately needed.  We ran from the Hills Market, down to Antrim, around the lake and back.  I made it about 7 miles before I had to stop.  Yep!  Seven!  I couldn't believe it.  The next weekend, I was able to do the same route, but add another lap around the lake - all without stopping.  I was so proud that I wanted to cry. 

The following weekend was the race.  I was so nervous and excited and scared all at once.  Of course the weather didn't cooperate with us, and the rain started to come down.  I had started out a little faster than I would have liked, so I ran out of gas a lot sooner than I had wanted.  Originally, I had hoped to run about 10 miles before I would have to start "wogging", but I feel like I didn't make it much past 5 before I had to alternate.  Add to that the rain, and it was a pretty miserable race for me.  The important part though?  I finished.  I jogged across the finish line and completed my goal of 13.1 miles.  The thing that made me mad?  I did it in 3:04.  My goal was under 3:00.  However, I did it.  I finished and didn't allow quitting to be an option. I listened to my body and slowed down when it needed me to.  I allowed myself to enjoy the experience (as much as possible, anyway) and to inspire other people like me who thought that 13.1 miles would never be an option.  I allowed myself to enjoy running.  That in and of itself was the ultimate achievement.

Nick

  Me

Time flies when you're having fun

This is Chino's birthday week. Yes, we celebrate his birthday.  Are you surprised?  If you're a regular reader of this blog, I'm sure that you're not.  If you're new, let me catch you up.  I'm a psycho-dog mom and my husband humors me. The end.

So my puppy is turning 4 on Sunday.  Yes, 4!  I can't believe it either.  To celebrate, I want to take a stroll down memory lane and revisit the the best and dumbest decision that we ever made.

This is my favorite picture of 8 week old baby Chino.  He is the free puppy that I convinced Nick that we should go and "look at".  He is who shushed Nick's nagging voice of reason.  He is the little furball that was already named (Full name:  Neato PaChino, Cap, Frap and Al Pa) before we met him.  He is who cried and screamed for almost 24 hours and who we almost returned.  He is single-handedly (pawedly?) responsible for shattering our perception that puppies were little bundles of rainbows and sunshine.  It sounds corny, but this is what I still see when I look at him, even when he's taking up 1/2 the bed or when he almost takes out my kneecaps during a crazy running fit.

Long overdue vacation post, #3.5 - Amsterdam

The morning after our impromptu bar hop in Amsterdam, we woke up thankful that we had decided to eat pizza the night before.  I forgot to mention the pizza in the previous post.  AWESOME pizza at a random stand was the perfect ending to a fun night out.  I would have taken a picture, but it took two hands to wrangle that slice.
 

After a great phone call with British Airways (IN INDIA), where it was established that our luggage had finally made the trip to London and MIGHT, just MIGHT be joining us in Austria, it was time to head out to explore Amsterdam by day.  We grabbed our lack of luggage and loaded it onto the bus.  Our first stop was the Anne Frank museum.  Our driver, Johnny, was nice enough to drop us off at there, since most of us wanted to go before the lines got too long.  

 

We weren't allowed to take any photos while inside the museum, which was understandable.  Being there was very surreal.  Nick and I had both read The Diary of Anne Frank, but reading it and BEING there were too different experiences.  Being there was powerful, as we made our way from room to room, looking at pictures, reading letters and watching a story unfold.  It wasn't until we made our way upstairs to the Frank family's rooms that everything really came together.  We saw the walls that Anne decorated and the curtains that blocked the light.  We heard her words from her diary.  The littlest details made everything real.  It was more than reading the accounts of what happened, it was seeing PROOF that these people lived here for as long as they did, filling in the blanks, humanizing this family.  After we viewed the rooms, we walked through a final hallway that was dedicated to the liberation of the concentration camps.  Otis Frank was on video, speaking about his family and about the experience that they went through.  That is real.  That was history.  We were privileged to stand there and see the images and hear his words in the place where he lived and experienced his life.  As we made our way out of the museum, there was mostly silence.  I think that Nick and I looked at each other and asked the question, "How could someone ever claim that this never happened?"

Once we left the museum, we headed off to find the tourist area, which was supposed to have a few H&M stores for us to do some quick shopping.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), H&M wasn't open yet, so we wandered around the souvenir stores and tried to take in some sight seeing while we waited.

Every canal was picturesque, even though the day was a bit gray and chilly.  I found myself stopping to take pictures of all of them, knowing that when I got home I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them.  Nick found himself rolling his eyes and stopping while I took pictures of everything.  In this picture, he's only smiling because I'm standing across the street, zooming in, and yelling for him to smile.  After I took this photo, he reminded me NOT to get hit by a bicycle when I came back across.  I crossed without incident.  The minor bicycle incident ALMOST happened in Munich.  Thank goodness for my cat-like reflexes.

Ok, so where was I?  Oh yes, the souvenir and tourist district.  H&M was still not open, so we wandered around, into and out of some of the little shops.  We bought our magnet (tradition and a long story) and a latte.  I also happened upon pot seeds, pot brownies, pot lollipops, pot chocolate and other miscellaneous legal (in Amsterdam only) paraphernalia.  Sadly, the voice of reason piped up again and I looked, but didn't buy.  We did buy some Gouda cheese though.  We fell in love with it when we were in Curacao, so imagine our excitement when we came upon an entire cheese store!?!?!?  My dad's souvenir purchase - DONE, after a bit of free sampling by us.

Finally, it was 11:00am and H&M was open for business.  Imagine my dismay when I discovered that ALL EUROPEANS WEAR SKINNY JEANS.  Yep.  SKINNY JEANS.  I am not built for skinny jeans.  I'm ok with that and am normally able to find other wardrobe options.  In fact, I consider it a public service that I keep myself OUT of skinny jeans.  However, in my desperate attempt to find and purchase clean clothes, I tried them on.  Um yea, bad idea.  Of course, Nick found what he needed, it was just me, having a semi-meltdown in the H&M dressing room.  Not so much because the jeans didn't fit - I KNEW that they wouldn't.  The meltdown was more because I so desperately wanted to be wearing clean pants. Instead, I stocked up on shirts and unmentionables and socks, and decided that I would figure out the denim situation later.  Well, later came about 1/2 hour later when I found "boyfriend cut jeans" at a different H&M on the same street.  These were pretty horrid, but they were clean.  Beggars can't be choosers, apparently.  So, clean clothes in hand, we headed to the bus to meet  our group, say goodbye to Amsterdam and hit the road to Germany.  But not before I took one more canal picture for the road.

Long overdue vacation post, #3 - Amsterdam

On the bus ride to Amsterdam, we got the chance to get to know our tour group a little better.  Everyone took a turn to answer the following questions:

• Name
• Where you're from
• Traffic light color (Green, Yellow or Red)
• What you're most looking forward to seeing 
• Bad joke or most embarrassing moment (I opted for embarrassing moment)

It was a cool way to get everyone chatting and get some quick and dirty background information on who was who.  Of course, we didn't really know many names until later in the trip, but its hard to keep track of that many people.  Other than that, the bus trip was uneventful.  We had a couple of rest stops before we arrived at our hotel - which was nicknamed "Hotel Slut".  Ha.  We "de-bussed" and made our way up to our room, where Nick decided to do some impromptu laundry, since our luggage was still hanging out in NYC or London.

Lucky for us, we heard that there was decent shopping in Amsterdam - H&Ms galore, so that was on our agenda for the next day.  But for now, we were ready to get out and see a little bit of Amsterdam, so we signed up to do a canal cruise (all you could drink beer and wine, how could we NOT have signed up?) with the majority of our group.  It was very cool to cruise the canals of Amsterdam, looking up at the houses and into the awesome buildings.  Apparently IKEA is just as popular there, as it is here, because I saw a lot of pieces that I recognized, since people in Amsterdam apparently don't believe in curtains.

After the cruise, Nick and I decided to hit the town and do some exploring.  A couple of our friends from the group joined us to check things out.  We stuck to beer since it was so early in the vacation, but it was so strange to walk by some of the coffee shops and get a whiff of what makes Amsterdam so famous.  Fun fact:  Coffee Shops = weed, Cafe's = coffee.  Who knew?  Anyway, in our typical vacation fashion, this turned into a bit of a bar hop, as we tried different beers and explored different places.  This was definitely a place that we'd love to come back to, but we were lucky enough to get a taste of what Amsterdam nightlife has to offer.  It was definitely a "chill" type of atmosphere, and one that we really enjoyed!

Long overdue vacation post, #2 - London to Amsterdam

We left off as Nick and I, luggage-less in London, were about to embark on our two week tour of Europe, starting with Amsterdam.  We arrived at the coffee shop to meet our fellow travelers.  Surprisingly, we were the first to people to arrive.  This is very unlike me, but since I had no other wardrobe options than what I had with me, my getting ready time was drastically reduced.  As we waited, we began to meet the other people in our group.  It came as a huge relief that they all appeared to be around our age.  We found out later that everyone was dreading being the old married couple, suck on a bus with 48 18-year olds!

First things first.  Everyone's luggage got weighed, to make sure it was in line with the requirements for the bus.  No problem for us though.  However, it should be noted that our luggage WOULD have passed with flying colors, had it shown up on time.

Once that formality was over, we all loaded up onto the bus to begin the journey to Dover, as in the White Cliffs of:

Here, we caught a ferry to Callais, France.  This was exciting for many reasons.  1.  We got our passport stamped as we were leaving England and heading over to the EU.  2.  There were DUTY FREE SHOPS ON THE BOAT.  Duty free meant that I could buy some toiletries to tide us over until we were reunited with ours.  3.  Nick gets a little nauseous on boats, meaning I was able to run amok, by myself, in the duty free shop, without that nagging voice of reason following me around.  So, I got a new purse AND the passport holder of my dreams.  4.  They had bacon sandwiches.  Yes.  Bacon.  On a sandwich.  I added a latte and fell in love.

All in all, a successful ferry trip.  Once the announcement was made, we went back down to the bowels of the ship to board the bus and continue our trip to Amsterdam.

Long overdue vacation post, #1 - London

We've been back from vacation now for almost a month now and I've been MIA on this blog.  My dad called me out this week for my lack of updates.  I've been busy, catching up on work, DVR and cramming for a 1/2 marathon, but before I can jump into everything else that's been going on lately, our trip deserves its own post, better late than never.

First, lets start with Contiki.  Contiki is a tour company that caters to our people - 18-35 year olds, not necessarily interested in 4-star accommodations, but more interested in sight seeing and fun.  Early on, we settled on this as our company of choice so that we avoided a bus load of retirees as traveling companions.  With a company that caters to younger people comes some "aggressive" itineraries.  Ours was:  London, Amsterdam, St. Goar, Munich, Innsbruck, Florence, Venice, Rome, Lucerne and Paris.  Woah, right?  This crazy list of places began with my mandatory:  Paris, and Nick's mandatory:  Rome.  It then evolved into a  bit of "let's see how many places we can see in two weeks, while including both mandatory places."  Our thought was that we'd get a little taste of each place so that we can see where we'd like to come back to and where we could skip the next time around.  If you want to see the places that we saw, please check out my pictures on Flickr.  I think its more important to capture the EXPERIENCE that we had, rather than narrate the places that we visited.  You can see those for yourself, and believe me, they are pretty much...awesome.

So.  Let's begin at the beginning, shall we?  Let's shall.  For some reason I was having a hard time with the concept that WE WERE GOING TO EUROPE FOR TWO WEEKS.  I blame a number of things on this state of mind, including, but not limited to:  hormones, work schedule, a daunting to-do list, and a disbelief that we were actually about to embark on such an adventure.  Thankfully, Nick really stepped up and helped with the laundry and the pre-vacation check list.  I don't know what I would have done without him.  After piles of laundry and a few to-do lists, the bags were packed, the light timers were set and the plants were watered and we loaded everything into the car to drive to my parent's house.  (We decided to fly out of Pittsburgh because it was a little cheaper and it included free dog boarding and parking.  Who can beat that?)  The drive was uneventful except for a near-incident involving Chino demanding to sit in the front seat at the same time that I was holding two drinks and two value meals.

After a good night's sleep, we were off to the airport.  Unfortunately the trip started out a bit shaky with a delayed flight to JFK, followed by an extraordinarily long flight.  Unfortunately the delay and the extra long flight resulted in us missing our connection to London by FIVE MINUTES.  Missing that flight caused us to have to wait in a line for two hours with some equally disgruntled people.  Thankfully, I chose to kill the gate agent with kindness and we were re-booked on a British Airways flight for the next morning.  Unfortunately this also resulted in a night at the Holiday Inn Express and our luggage staying in JFK instead of joining us in London.

I'm not going to lie, I almost cried when I found out that the luggage didn't make it.  Don't get me wrong, I was pretty excited that WE made it to London, but really bummed that my carefully packed and coordinated bag didn't.  We filled out our claim form and then made our way to the hotel, determined that this wouldn't ruin the trip.  However, I must apologize to Nick because my mood on The Undergroud was so awful, that I wouldn't entertain any of his "Cockfosters" jokes throughout the entire ride.

We did manage to check two items off of the list.  #1. Nick wanted to try a Guiness in London (not quite Ireland, but close).  #2.  Fish & Chips in a British Pub.

Next:  some sleep before we met up with our tour group in the morning to make our way to Amsterdam!