I’m coming home this Friday, June 20th!!

It’s finally that time folks, get excited…

This has been a truly great experience and I am really glad I had the opportunity to live over here for a few months. However I am really looking forward to being back in NY and in my own apartment (although I am really going to miss having someone clean, cook, and do my laundry). Let the countdown begin!

Went up to Sopot last weekend which is on the north coast of Poland; a beach town on the Baltic Sea. I wasn’t expecting much (hey, this is Poland), but it actually turned out to be a pretty cool little town. It’s small and has only 1 main street, but has lots of good cafes and bars. I was amazed at how much new hotels and other stuff was being built. Definitely is or will be soon the place to go for a summer weekend around here. Big plus was a running / cycling path going next to the beach, plus they actually let you hang out on the beach at night (which tons of people did) instead of kick you off at night like they do back in New York. Gdansk was cool too but just like most of the other towns I’ve seen on this trip.  Pictures from the trip below:

Sopot and Gdansk

Exactly 18 weeks or 126 days from yesterday, is the Chicago Marathon. My 5:30am run this morning marked the first run of the official 18 wk training program. Definitely a scary thought thinking that I’m going to be a part of the 45,000 people running 26 miles 385 yards on Columbus Day weekend in Chicago. Even more because this is #1 for me- never done a marathon before. At least I’ll know a few of them since about 10 of us from NY are going out there for it. I’m looking forward and very excited about this challenge though… so here we go.

ps I can’t take credit for that quote from one of my friends, you know who you are – thanks!

This was definitely my favorite city – old buildings, small streets, and little squares. My favorite activity was just wandering the small streets and discovering great places. I even climbed up the biggest hill (mini mountain) ever to get a cool view of the skyline at night. Actually I think I climbed up every hill, church, and tower I could on this vacation to get a great view and pictures, definitely worth it. On the way home I was treated to fireworks over the Charles Bridge. Then it started to storm, and that’s where I took the great picture above. Also, Czech beer is great (and cheaper then water there!)
Don’t worry I was cultured as well – went to a classical music concert which was pretty cool. Also toured the Jewish area which was very interesting and very depressing at the same time.
Overall this was a great place to visit and I highly recommend you make it a stop on a future trip.
Check out the pictures below

Prague

Well after getting over the shock of being surrounded and slightly harassed by sketchy people at the ghetto train station, Budapest was great as well. It was weird coming here from Vienna, since Budapest is a decade or so behind other cities in terms of redevelopment, etc. Actually kind of a cool perspective to see it now when you think about it. Anyway the city was a little more run down, but def still had many beautiful areas. The Hungarian parliament makes the White House look just OK, and Hungarian goulash, yum. Strolling along and sitting at the restaurants over looking the river and castle hill was a great experience, especially when the orchestra guys playing music at the place find out you are from NY and they serenade you with “New York, New York.”

Check out the pictures below

Budapest

This city was seriously sculpted out of pure marble. Every building and square was so white and spotless; definitely the most elegant city I’ve ever been to. Unfortunately it rained the first two days, hence way less pictures. Luckily however, Vienna is also known for its cafes. The pastries were to die for, and I’m pretty sure we tried almost every café in the whole city (Liz definitely could write a book on who had the best Sachertorte). We also saw them setting up for the European Football championships which start here in a couple of weeks. The fan zone in the middle of the city had tons of big screens and can hold 70,000 people! All of the buildings were huge and picturesque, even in the rain. Overall a great (and expensive) city to visit.

Check out the pictures below

Vienna

Rookie mistake. Upped the mileage a bunch over the past several weeks, and then went on vacation. I don’t think the word vacation registered with me, because I continued to run every morning and then go walk around sightseeing ALL day. What happens when you do that?– You get injured.

Luckily nothing major and my strained hamstring is on its way back. Had to take most of last wk off but was able to get back out there w/ some shorter slower runs this wknd. Hopefully back to normal later in the wk because… MARATHON TRAINING STARTS JUNE 9, 1 wk from tomorrow!!

Time for a much needed vacation… leaving in a few hours for 9 days away. Prague, Vienna, and Budapest here I come. Probably not brining the computer with so will update the blog when I get back on the 25th.
I’m pretty excited for the trip, now I should prob go pack since I’m leaving in 4 hrs and it’s really late here.

This has nothing to do with my trip but I just watched this on ESPN. It’s one of the sadder things I’ve ever seen, but it’s well put together and definitely worth watching. length: 12 minutes

from sports.espn.go.com posted with vodpod

Yes you heard me correctly, Hooliganism and Peacocks. Went to the football match (no it’s not soccer over here folks) of the Warsaw team this weekend. Polish football is definitely nothing compared to the games I saw in England last year, but it was still pretty cool to see. The stadium was practically falling apart, and the fans were mostly thugs. I definitely kept my head down and mouth shut. This team actually got kicked out of European competition last year because of their fans causing riots at a match in Lithuania.

If it weren’t for the hard core riot police, huge fences separating fans from the field and the home fans from the away fans, I could definitely see riots or at least fights breaking out at some matches here. Glad I didn’t see that this weekend.

I went to Warsaw’s huge park yesterday, and I must say, it puts Central Park to shame. This thing was awesome, had a lake and streams, lots of palaces, cafes, swan boat rides, and tons places to wander through the wooded paths or just sit out and relax. Oh yea, there were also tons of peacocks wandering around just minding there own business and strutting there huge colored wings or whatever you want to call them.