Colorado Military Spartan Sprint Race - May 5, 2012
Just realised I never blogged about my Colorado Sprint Race back in May . . . so I woke up at the butt crack of dawn to drive to Logan airport, but look how awake we look (lol)!!
I flew into Denver on Friday morning, enroute someone feels something dripping on their head . . . come to find out there was a bottle of milk for a child in the overhead container - glad I didn't have that seat!!
picked up the rental car, had some lunch and drove to Colorado Springs. Checked out the hotel, did a bit of pre-race training (lol)
That afternoon I picked up Aja at the Colorado Springs airport - like 5 minutes from our hotel! We spent the afternoon at packet pick up, meeting other OCRacers and just in general chillax mode. We went to bed early in order to get a good night sleep and be ready for our RACE DAY! This was going to be Aja's first Spartan race and turns out my college friend Jill would be joining us as well - she and her family had drive down from WY to join in the fun.
Saturday morning we wake up, have breakfast in the hotel and then head over to the base, get in line for the shuttle bus and I apparently I'm the only idiot who forgot to bring sunglasses.
Aja, me, Jill
me & Aja showing off our guns PRE-race!
A great shot of the whole group PRE-race
(Kym's sister & brother in law, Jeff, Kym, me, Aja, Chris, Mies and Jill)
We take off at the 9:30am heat and within minutes realise that 80 degree temps with not a cloud in sight and the dryness of CO might be an obstacle we hadn't been able to train for! Here is another group shot post barbed wire crawl (with guns) - Jill, Aja (pink), me, and Chris.
On the slippery wall, I managed to tweak my knee, so I was forced to slow down a bit and be extra careful on muddy and slippery surfaces. We did a sandbag carry up a steep hill, where I learned many people were puking, but not this Spartan Chick or any of my group for that matter :) Luckily they had quite a few water obstacles so that helped to keep us semi cool and they also had 2 water stations and a very kind person who happen to live along the route was spraying us down with a hose (if we wanted, but let's be honest, who didn't want it?) Just before getting out of the water pit, I noticed a camera man, so I grabbed my chicks and got a nice group shot - gotta love those white smily teeth!
Climbing out of the mud pit we realised we were nearly done - just a cargo net (which is cake easy), fire pit (my fav!!!!) and then taking on the Gladiators before crossing the FINISH LINE!!!! It had been an obstacle intense 5 mile course - I'd not seen anything like it before, but I have to say I really enjoyed it - tested me to new limits.
After everyone had crossed the finish line, we all re-grouped for this POST race photo
Aja, me, Jill, Mies, Chris, Jeff, Kym, Kym's sis and bro-in-law.
This is probably my favorite photo from the race . . . we couldn't be any happier to have run together and finished together!!
Labels: friends, obstacle racing, photos, spartan race
Cassava Farming
learning about cassava farming
Labels: photos, travel, travel blog
basket weaving photo
My attempt at weaving a Rwandan basket . . . takes this lady 1 week to make a small one - would have taken me more like 3 months!!
Labels: photos, rwanda, travel, travel blog
Another Photo update from Rwanda
300 cupcakes + 300 sodas + 275 children = amazing day!
Loving their cupcakes & Toucan straws thanks to Mies!!
Ives, me and Alice
The "gang" at Claudine's house
Itafari's country director, Christophe and Itafari president/co-founder Vicky
Labels: photos, rwanda, travel, travel blog
my dear brother Arthur & I trekking the gorillas
hold up your straw if you love it
Labels: photos, rwanda, travel, travel blog
Photos from August 29th
my friend Arthur's house, should be finished by November - sooo beautiful!
this is what I look like after a 10 minute walk home in the rain from the city centre to home
Labels: photos, rwanda, travel, travel blog
Sunday August 28th Photos
Boys Choir from the Congo singing at church this morning
My niece Tracy with her Grandma Vitsy and her new teddy bear
My beautiful Rwandan niece Tracy with her new dress
G'ma Vitsey showing Tracy how to use the flip video
Self portrait with Susan in the background
Tracy loving the video feature with Vitsy
Labels: photos, rwanda, travel, travel blog
Presidential Suite
Living room (note the Summit Base water bottle & chocolate covered pretzels)
dining room
kitchen
pantry
stairs to 2nd floor
view from our balcony
bedroom #1 (note the Norwich University flag)
Labels: photos, rwanda, travel, travel blog
Photos
So I have to be honest, we've been in so many meetings and catch ups with friends I haven't been taking that many photos, but here are 3 taken over the past few days which I hope you'll enjoy....
Here is a view of the tv screen in the Brussels airport woman's bathroom . . . interesting place for a telly if you ask me
This photo's really just for Vicky, she loves apple juice when flying with me, but this time she was sleeping, so I got one in her honour & decided to document it . . .
Lovely lunch today at the MTN Centre after a 4 hour meeting about our Sponsored Children's program. clockwise we have green beans and carrots, beans, beef, rice, pomme frites, sweet potato, and plantain.
Labels: photos, rwanda, travel, travel blog
!ndia photos
Fatehpur Sikri - a fortified ghost city which was the capital of the
Mughal empire from 1571 to 1585
Palace of Winds (cool place to be during the summer apparently cause the wind blows through all the windows)
sunset
me, Erin,
Radena & of course the
Taj Mahal!
Labels: photos, travel
CanAm Thanksgiving report
So CanAm Thanksgiving was a huge success! Since Jen's studio doesn't have an oven, I made the mashed potatoes, stuffing & sweet potatoes ahead of time. Jen prepared the salmon (she doesn't eat meat, so no turkey) vegetables and butternut squash soup. She also managed to find apple crumble at Whole Foods for £2.99, as compared to the apple pie which was £9. It was pretty darn tasty if you ask me!
Here you can see my plate:
Here we are enjoying our meal, you can tell we're North American because of our thumbs up :)
Labels: photos, thanksgiving
32nd and 33rd - Austria & Slovakia
Friday August 14th, Jen & I met up at London Luton for a weekend adventure. We flew into Vienna, Austria that afternoon, dropped our stuff at the hostel and met up with James (an American History teacher from DC who Louise & I had met at our hostel in Budapest) who happened to be in Vienna for a few more hours before heading to Switzerland . . . see I'm not the only one who travels a lot!
We had a wonder around looking for an Austrian style food place to eat, which proved harder than we'd thought since we were on the south west side of the city & the main street which brings you into the centre is primarily clothes shopping (similar to Oxford St) which has lots of little cafes, but not what we were looking for. Finally James broke out the Lonely Planet guide, found an "authentic" place & we bee lined it there as we were running low on time before James had to catch his night train to Switzerland. Along the way James recommended places to see & things to do. As we turned the final corner we spotted the restaurant sign, but the windows looked rather dark - closed for summer holiday. We headed back to the main street & decided Jen & I would head over to the Film Festival going on at Rathaus (City Hall) since there were sure to be food stalls there. James headed back to the train station.
The Film Festival's food stalls were full of people, but Jen & I meandered our way to the Austrian style food (they had all varieties available, Thai, Chinese, Iranian, Mexican, American, Australian, French, Spanish, Greek, etc) and ordered two dishes to share, one meat & one veggie. The food was delicious, with large portions and even served on real plates, no paper/styrofoam crap ones :)When we were done eating we made our way through the crowds to check out the film which was being shown. It happened to be an opera, which neither Jen nor I am a huge fan of but we stayed for a little while.
The Film Festival shows a film of a recent musical event in Austria every night for the months of July & August for free - VERY COOL! Saturday night we watched Lang Lang (pianist) play with the Austrian Philharmonic.
We hopped on the U-ban (subway) back to our hostel & decided to call it an early night as in order to catch the first bus of the day to Bratislava, Slovakia in the morning we had to wake up at 5am! PJs on, teeth brushed, clothes set out for early morning adventure, climbed up to my top bunk and fell asleep for a little while until the others from the room returned. They were obviously drunk & had no regard for others. They arrived around 1am, turned the room light on, spoke in normal voices, and eventually got into bed . . . what Jen & I didn't realise was that actually the two who'd come in were not actually both suppose to be in the room. One was a visitor who'd been brought back for the night. Ever hopeful they'd just pass out Jen & I tried to fall back asleep, but to no avail. The couple decided it was time to chat, giggle, and make out rather loudly for the next 4 hours - YES I'm not exaggerating at all! We'd fall asleep & then be woken up shortly later either for another member of the room returning or from the couple in the bunk opposite us. So 5am arrived quickly, we got up, showered, and ran out the door, but since neither of us had gotten a full nights sleep we were rather sluggish & missed the bus by 15 minutes. Next bus was not until 8.30am, so we bought our tickets, went upstairs to the waiting room, eat our breakfast which we'd bought along the way & took a nice hour long nap.
Bus arrived, we all clamored on, again Jen & I took a nap and 57 minutes later we'd arrived safe & sound in Bratislava, Slovakia. We jumped off the bus & headed off exploring the city. It's a beautiful, quaint city with lots of character & fun statues to find all over the place.
We had a lovely meal at a restaurant which was recommended by Lonely Planet guide and we'd never have found it if weren't for the guide as it's on a quiet side street away from the main historic square where most of the tourists were milling around.
After lunch we saw a few more sights before heading back to the bus station for our bus back to Vienna. Another hour long nap in attempts to catch up on our night of missed sleep and we were ready for a bit of sightseeing in Vienna. Here you can see a statue of Mozart with a beautiful floral design in front of him.
Around 5pm we were starting to run out of steam, so we decided we needed a lil pick me up and thanks to Louise's recommendation of Sacher Torte, we headed right for the cafe! An apple strudel, a Sacher Torte & two Sacher teas later we were on a nice sugar high :)
For dinner that night we headed back to the Rathaus but this time checking out their Mexican & Indian delights. Again we stopped for a bit of the free concert (Lang Lang) and then home for what we were hoping would be a more peaceful night of sleep . . . it was!
Sunday morning we woke up & got the tram over to Schroenbrunn Palace.
Luckily we got there early as the queues can get rather long & being a warm sunny day we didn't want to be delayed as we had a plane to catch at 16.45. We took the hour long interior tour of the palace rooms before exiting to the beautiful grounds which are covered in different gardens,
fountains & such. One of our favourite parts was the maze & labyrinth playground.
It only took us 40 minutes to figure out the hedge maze, but we did it :) A quick lunch at a cafe before we headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags & mosey on back to the airport.
Labels: Austria, photos, Slovakia, travel
