K Pitty in the City

Experiment #3 - Pan-fried Pork Chops with Fruit Chutney

2011-06-17T23:45:00.002+02:00

Pan-fried Pork Chops with Fruit Chutney

Chutney:

2 tsp olive oil

½ cup chopped onion

1 pear, cut in bite-size pieces

1 apple, cut in bite-size pieces

2/3 cup fresh or frozen cranberries

1/3 cup water

4 center-cut pork chops, about 1 inch thick (8 oz each)

¼ tsp each of garlic powder, salt, and pepper

1. Prepare fruit chutney: Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add pear, apple, cranberries, and water. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes, until fruit is tender and saucy.

2. Meanwhile sprinkle pork chops on both sides with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.

3. Coat a large nonstick or cast-iron skillet with nonstick cooking spray. Place over medium-high heat, add chops and cook about 5 minutes per side, turning once. Transfer to plates and let stand 5 minutes.

4. Season chutney with salt and pepper; serve with the chops.

So far, we have loved all of the recipes we have tried! This one was another hit - really yummy flavors, and pretty healthy!! :)

Experiment #2 - Enchilada Pie

2011-06-17T23:44:00.001+02:00

This one was also a success... unfortunately no pictures this time - we liked it so much that we ate it really fast and forgot to take pictures! :) The only change we would make is potentially using beef next time for more flavor.

Enchilada Pie

Serves 6. Active: 20 min/Total: 1 ½ hour (plus 10 min cooling)

Good with a tossed green salad

1 T olive oil

1 c. chopped green or red pepper

1 lb lean ground turkey

2 tsp ground cumin

1 can (14 ½ oz or 15 oz) diced tomatoes with garlic and onion

½ c enchilada sauce

1 can (4 oz) chopped green chiles

1 c frozen corn kernals

¾ c canned sliced black olives

Four 6 to 8 inch corn or flour tortillas

1 bag (8 oz) shredded light 4 cheese Mexican blend

Toppings: sour cream, chopped tomato, onion, scallion

1. You’ll need a round 3 qt glass baking dish (casserole)

2. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add pepper. Saute 3 to 4 minutes. Add turkey. Cook, breaking up chunks, 5 minutes or until no longer pink. Stir in cumin, tomatoes, enchilada sauce, and chilies.

3. Bring to a simmer and cook 10 minutes to develop flavors. Off heat, stir in corn & olives.

4. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

5. To assemble: Line bottom of baking dish with 2 tortillas. Top with ½ the meat mixture, then about 1/3 the cheese. Top with a tortilla, the remaining meat filling, ½ the remaining cheese, then remaining tortilla. Cover with foil.

6. Bake 30 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle with remaining cheese and bake 10 minutes or until filling bubbles. Cool 5 to 10 minutes before cutting into wedges. Serve with toppings.

Experiment #1 ~ Festive Bean Chili

2011-06-13T03:10:00.002+02:00

Festive Black Bean (Plus Chicken!) Chili

This recipe was originally a vegetarian dish from Moosewood’s Low-Fat Favorites. It’s a pretty hearty dish, but we thought adding chicken would make it even better. Actually, Brian's comment was, "I liked it, but where is the meat??". ;)

This dish can be served as an entrée or as a side at any potluck. It’s especially tasty complimented with tortilla chips. We topped it with some cheese and sour cream as well. It’s also very easy and quick.

Serves 4 to 6

Total time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

2 cups chopped onions

2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

½ cup water

1 T ground cumin

1T ground coriander

1 cup prepared Mexican-style red salsa

2 red and/or green bell peppers chopped

3 cups cooked black beans (2 15-oz cans, drained and rinsed)

3 cups diced tomatoes with juice (1 28-oz can)

2 cups fresh or frozen corn kernals (11-oz package)

Salt to Taste

Tabasco or other hot pepper sauce to taste

¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro, or to taste (optional)

In a covered soup pot, cook the onions and garlic in the water on high heat, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes. Add the cumin and coriander and stir on high heat for a minute. Stir in salsa and bell peppers, lower the heat, cover, and simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the black beans and tomatoes; simmer for 10 minutes. Add the corn and continue to cook for 10 minutes. Add salt and Tabasco to taste. Stir in cilantro as desired.

Experiment #1 was a success. Experiment #2 was too... but we'll see when I get a chance to post that one! :)

I'm back...

2011-06-07T01:24:00.002+02:00

Due to the harrassment of my friends over the weekend, I'm back on the blog scene! I'm not sure why I'm going to do this in the middle of a new job, planning a wedding, moving house, and starting the amazing summer in Portland, but I guess they made me feel THAT bad (yes, Michelle - this means you!!).

So... what am I going to blog about now that I don't have crazy weekend trips all over Europe anymore? Well, I think the first thing is this...

I've been known as a bit of a pack rat. With that said, I have been clipping recipes and keeping them for over 11 years now. And, you would think that after the work of finding recipes and storing them, I might have actually TRIED some of them. haha - you would think. Not the case.

In the process of moving, Brian and I have really been trying to simplify and organize, and I found my gigantic pile of recipes - probably about 200 of them.

I am bound and determined to try each one, and, if they pass the test, I will add them to an electronic cookbook that I am creating of the recipes we like. If they don't, then we will say bye-bye to them.

I'll post the recipes and pictures, along with our votes. We tried the first one last night, to much success!

More to come... :)

Weekend of Endless Energy...

2010-08-16T01:51:00.002+02:00

This weekend, marathon training called for a 20 mile run. I was mighty dismayed when I found out that BOTH of my training partners were going to be at the coast, thus leaving me on my own for a beast of a run... I was SO relieved when Anna told me they had room at their beach house, so Brian and I drove out to the coast on Friday afternoon to hang with that crew. Anna's husband Travis's mother invited us out to her home in Beaver, OR for a salmon dinner, which was amazing. :) Prior to dinner, however, we had another classic KP moment. Brian has officially decided that he is in charge of directions after this one... I say "OKAY!". :) To get to the Southern Oregon coast (where we were going), there is a bit of a bypass on highway 6 that cuts diagonally across the state. I, um, sort of missed that in the directions, so we drove all they way west to the coast, then took highway 101 all the way down. Neither Brian nor I minded the scenic route, especially since it was his first time seeing the Oregon coast, however, I felt like a total idiot. A drive that should have taken maybe 2 hours took us over 3. Oh, and to make matters worse, when we got there, we were greeted by Travis's stepfather saying, "Oh, so you are the ones that always get lost...". Nice. :)

Anyways, the next morning, we met at 7 and hit the road. We had an amazing day for a run - not too hot, not too cold. It was super peaceful to run out on the country roads... kind of reminiscent of home. :)

Anna, KP, and Michelle... post run and still smiling. :)

After the run, I was pretty ready to hit the road, so Brian, Anna and I headed out to the Pelican Bay Brewery in Pacific City for a well deserved burger and beer. :) It was actually my first time in Pacific City, so it was a little strange for me to see cars driving on the beach... not very picturesque to be honest. But, the drive afterwards was... :)

I actually put in about 22 miles on Saturday... we did a little hike out to Cape Lookout (okay, not all the way, as we decided that since things were so fogged in it was kind of pointless! :))

View of the Oregon Coast on the 3 Cape Scenic Route... This was the last thing I saw before totally passing out. :)

Brian and KP... we had such a nice afternoon. :)

After getting home, we had a couple of hours, and then the non-stop weekend continued with a concert at a smaller venue in Portland. We saw the Temper Trap, one of my new favorite bands, but I also really liked the opening band, Blue Giant. They are a local band and sing a lot about finding the sun and gray skies. hehe - go figure. ;)

Sunday was my maiden voyage on my new bike. It's much, much different than my Dutch bike, including the fact that it is WAY lighter. :) I went out with Brian and my good pal Allison on a little waterfront tour. They are both pretty experienced bikers, but were super patient with me. I kind of felt like a 7 year old all over again... but I guess you have to start somewhere. :) I was doing pretty well until a darn train track jumped up and grabbed my tire... um, or something like that. Anyways, I bit it pretty good, and have some nice scrapes on my leg to show off tomorrow. :) I guess the first crash had to happen sometime, so I'm glad to get that over with. :) I'm going to start riding in to work with Allison a couple of times a week, so training for the triathlon has officially commenced. :)

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekends!!! Lots of love from PDX! :)

Just a glimpse...

2010-08-14T01:15:00.000+02:00

Just a hint as to why I can't remove the smile from my face... :)

Good Stuff

2010-08-01T23:24:00.008+02:00

Yes, a generic title this time... but it's the only one I could come up with that truly captures my life over the past few weeks... it's been all "good stuff".

I can honestly say that I can't remember any other time in my life that I have been so uncontrollably happy. The whole "re-entry" process to the US has been difficult at times, but I'm really starting to feel like I am getting in my groove. I've had a few great weeks with friends, enjoying some of my favorite things, and pushing myself to experience some new things as well...

One thing that is relatively new is that I've been swimming. My friend Krista is an amazing swimmer (she is in an underwater hockey league!), and, when we were at the coast a few weekends ago, volunteered to teach me how to swim. It's pretty pathetic that I turned 30 without knowing how to swim... but... that's the way it was. So... Krista started meeting me on Wednesday mornings at the Nike gym to teach me all kinds of important things - like how to open my eyes under water. Yes, seriously. ;) It's getting SO much easier, and I'm really enjoying it. I think I've even talked myself into doing a triathlon next summer. I know, I know... I never do anything halfway. :)

The other new thing is that I got a DSLR camera that totally rocks my world. If you could be in love with an inanimate object, I am in love with this camera. :) I see so much beauty in the world around us that I am so happy to have an instrument that will better capture this... The pictures on this entry were all taken with the new DSLR, so hopefully you can see the difference. I only wish I would have had this in Amsterdam to capture all of my amazing adventures there.

Playing around with the camera...

Last weekend, Michelle and I drove up to Seattle to see one of my favorite artists, Amos Lee. We drove up on the early side, so we could enjoy the city before the concert began. We went to one of my favorite places for lunch, Elliot's, and, of course, I had to take pictures of my food:

Crab Cakes... oh so yummy!!! :)

After an amazing lunch, we just walked around the Pike Place Market, home of the famous flying fish... so many beautiful flowers there, and an amazing selection of seafood:

The concert was that evening near the Space Needle... what a beautiful setting to listen to beautiful music. It was "green concert", so to lessen the carbon imprint (yes, this is the Wild West Coast here), the artists all performed acoustically without their backup singers. It reminded me of the first time I saw Amos Lee way back in 2005... since then, he's been touring with Dave Matthews and his music has changed quite a bit... It was an amazing night spent with a great friend. :)

Waldo & K Pitty

The Space Needle, as seen from my spot in the grass... amazing.

The next morning, Michelle and I met up with one of my friends from college, Christina, at my favorite breakfast spot, the 5 Spot. Amazing food as always, and great to catch up with a friend I haven't seen for 3 years. :)

5 Spot = Yum City! :)

K Pitty enjoying a cup of coffee... should have known better - coffee makes me CRAZY!! :)

Yes, the picture-taking of food has resumed... hard to resist when it is SO yummy! :)

Aw, such great friends. :)

Um, yep, pretty sure that somewhere on my resume, the title "dork extraordinaire" appears...

After breakfast, Michelle and I went to Gas Works Park, which is an old oil refinery that has been decommissioned and turned into a public park... it is a beautiful setting right on the water with views of the city. Such a relaxing morning... We had such a great time having a "photo shoot" with the new camera. More dorkiness ensued... ;)

Gas Works Park...

She can run, she can jump... :)

What a beautiful day! :)

Downtown Seattle...

This past weekend has been just as great... I went whitewater rafting on Saturday with a great group of people, mostly from my kickball team. We rafted on the White Salmon River, and managed to NOT lose anyone in the rapids. We did get mighty wet, but that just added to the fun. :) Unfortunately, I totally forgot my camera for this trip, so there are no incriminating photos. :) After rafting, I went camping with a special someone... I have to say, for all of my time in Oregon, I never really got into camping, but, the time spent there was just so peaceful and relaxing, I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot more time doing that in the future. :)

All in all, just enjoying life... and still smiling. Much love to all my friends and family! :)

Summertime in PDX... why I LOVE living here! :)

2010-07-21T07:14:00.006+02:00

Well, folks, summer has FINALLY arrived in Portland... These are the months that make the months upon months of rain worth it - it's gorgeous! I've been enjoying Portland so much... with friends, with my family, and just being back here. There is so much that this amazing city has to offer, and I'm taking full advantage...

Case in point... one of my favorite things to do is pick berries/cherries/fruit-in-general in the summer months. I usually like going out to Hood River, but Sauvie Island is a little closer, so one Saturday, I asked my friend Cristina if she'd like to go, since her husband was away for the weekend... it ended up becoming a kiddo extravaganza, when we were joined by the lovely Michelle & Jo, and Meghan & Davis. I think doing this kind of stuff is SO MUCH more fun to do with the little ones - the sense of wonder on their faces is just priceless... it's not really about the berries anyways... it's the experience. :)

Cristina working hard... Mateo staring down his strawberry. I believe he ate more than he picked. So did I. :)

MM, JM, & KP... don't get to bust out the red sunglasses that often, but, it was a festive day with one hour of sun, and we were in it!! :)

Another fun weekend with one of my favorite kiddo's... I drove to St. Helens to teach Samuel how to fly the kite that I got him for his 3rd birthday. We had SUCH a fun time!! :) I love it when he calls me "Aunt Pitty". Too cute! :)

He did great! :)

I was so happy to welcome my parents back to Oregon for the 4th of July weekend. It was so good to catch up, and to celebrate both their 60th and my 30th birthdays. Such a nice time! :)

It's become a tradition to stop by Edgefield on our way back from the airport - gotta have the McMenamin's tater tots! :)

We went to Cannon Beach on Saturday of their visit - one of my favorite places in Oregon! :)

Dad and I in Jamison Park by my new apartment

We went wine tasting with my friend Zoe from Amsterdam... such a nice, relaxing afternoon. :)

Mom and Dad in Wine Country... so amazing that this is just an hour outside of Portland - LOVE it! :)

The weekend after the 4th, I went to the family beach house of my friend Anna in Waldport. There were four of us there, and we had SUCH a nice time! :) Anna and I started off Saturday with a 12 mile run, and then decided to do ice baths - in the FREEZING Pacific Ocean! This is our sad face after getting chilled to the bone (okay, I'm not so good at sad faces):

We even got a bonfire going on the beach... yippy for S'mores! :)

Last but not least, I have to report on my amazing 30th birthday party... my wonderful friends planned a peanut butter pot luck picnic for my birthday... everyone brought something that had peanut butter as an ingredient. Seriously, it rocked my world. :) Check out the awesome cake my friend Michelle made:

My favorite cake... ever!! Peanut butter frosting, chocolate cake, with LOTS of peanut butter chips... heck yeah! :)

The picnic was awesome - I got to see so many people that I don't get to see that often, and we played lots of fun games, kind of reminiscent of the 4th of July parties that I used to throw in Amsterdam. :) After the picnic, the adult festivities began... we started with a few of these...

... and ended with kareoke and a trip home in a shopping cart. Quite possibly the most fun birthday I've had in my entire life. The problem is... now that I'm "old", it took quite a bit of time to get over it. Ah... life. :)

Big hug to all!

Life in PDX...

2010-06-19T01:43:00.004+02:00

I know, I know... I'm a blog failure. Since moving back to Portland, I just don't seem to have the same downtime that I had in Amsterdam. I guess that's a good thing - it's kind of nice to be busy with friends all the time! :)

It's been a few months since I've posted, and life has been as much of an adventure as ever. Who ever said that life outside of my European adventure had to be boring? ;)

I guess first thing's first... after two years of 10-hour flights, 6am phone calls, loneliness, joy at being together again, ups, downs, and everything in between, Sean and I finally got back to the same city and promptly broke up less than two months into being together. I don't really want to say much here, but just know that time heals all wounds and things are okay. Kind of a big bummer, but for the best in the long run, I suppose.

To try to get over things, I decided to take a trip with my friend Raelee to Las Vegas. This was my first time EVER being there, and I LOVED it! :) We saw a couple of shows, including the Cirque show "O" and Blue Man Group, and enjoyed nice dinners and time by the pool. I can't wait to go back! :)

Raelee and I outside Caesar's Palace

I DID end up selling my house, but the timing was not great to be honest. My shipment FINALLY arrived to the US at the end of April, however the house wasn't set to close until the end of May. Since I had already had 3 other offers fall through, I was super nervous to sign a lease on anything until I for sure sold the house, but I wasn't given any more temporary housing after my shipment arrived, so I began my couch crashing after returning from Las Vegas. I stayed with my friend Michelle Wald for a week, after which I left for a spontaneous trip to Europe. My former manager had invited me to his wedding in Germany, and, since I had no place to sleep and work was actually at a pretty slow place, I accepted the invitation. I had enough miles to fly into London for free, so I spent a few days there, then spent a few days in Amsterdam with my old friends, followed by the wedding in Germany. A really great trip. To be honest, though, a little trippy to be back in Amsterdam but not be "home". I think my home radar is a little off still. :)

KP with Stonehenge - I did one of the oh-so-touristy bus tours... but it made it super easy to get around!

Cute German Family in their native dress

With the bride and groom

While I was in Europe, I found out that they were able to move up the date of my closing on the house, so I ended up moving in the day I got back! I slept on the floor for a few days, and then my shipment finally arrived that Friday! Yippy! I'm still in the process of unpacking, but it's really starting to feel like home. :) I have moved downtown to a part of town called the Pearl, which is absolutely great! I love being so close to all the action. :)

Boxes, Boxes, Everywhere! :)

Other than unpacking boxes, I've had a great time re-connecting with all the friends that I missed so much. Here are some pictures from the past few weeks:

80's Dance party to celebrate Sara's Birthday

Samuel's 3rd birthday in St. Helens

Checking out the Grilled Cheese Grille with Michelle

Our kayaking adventure on the one sunny day in Portland so far (okay, I exaggerate, but, COME ON!!) :)

It's for sure been ups and downs since coming back. When you live abroad, life in your old home kind of gets put on freeze frame in your head, but the reality is that time marches on. Fortunately, I've been able to slide right back in where I left off in a lot of cases, and actually have made some really great new friends. Just looking forward for the summer to really begin!

Where Have I Been?

2010-04-11T23:32:00.003+02:00

By the request and harrassment of my (two!) loyal readers, I'm updating my blog with some of the goings on of my life in the two months that I have been home. Since February 13th, things have been going full-speed ahead, without too much time to reflect upon the amazing two years in Europe I just returned from. Strangely enough, it all just feels like a long, fantastic dream filled with good food, amazing sights, and unforgettable friends. Being in Portland feels so completely natural and good that it sometimes feels like I never left.

Work picked up as soon as I started my new job on the 16th. I am still working in Footwear, but my role has changed quite a bit. I no longer get to work on product, which is kind of a big bummer; I'm now working on a little higher level planning across all of footwear. It's been an adjustment, I have to admit. I had gotten really used to the European style of working - informal meetings, working pretty much just 40 hours a week, and colleagues taking long vacations and truly relaxing. I've been pretty overwhelmed the past few months with a never-ending onslaught of meetings, long hours, and stressful encounters. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so starting new jobs is always stressful for me, as I don't have all the answers, and I have to ask for help. I'm feeling much, MUCH better than when I started, but I'm still definitely learning and growing - which is a GOOD thing, I know! It's so nice to see all of the people that I started my time at Nike with, along with some friends that have also moved over from the European HQ. I sometimes miss hearing all the different languages and accents that I got so accustomed to in Europe, so it's nice to hear a whisper of Italian every once in a while. :)

Outside of work, it's been fantastic to reconnect with friends. I'm so blessed to have so many amazing women in my life. My girlfriends are all just outstanding in their own ways, and inspire me by so gracefully handling everything life throws their way. If you want to read about a really amazing girl, check out my friend Michelle Middlebrooks' blog - she's a lesson in strength. With my friends, there have been countless happy hours and dinners, and I've gotten back into distance running. A new development for me is the fact that so many of my friends have children now - they are a true delight. I love making them giggle or watching the wheels turn in their heads as they figure out a new concept. Someday...

Sean and I have been spending as much time together as possible. We went on a wine tasting trip to Walla Walla, Washington, a few weeks ago, and that was a lot of fun. He's gotten me out to the golf course a couple of times, and I am not hating it as much as I used to... haha - still not LOVING it, but definitely not protesting as loudly as before. ;)

I'm currently still living in temporary housing, as my shipment literally missed the boat on the way from the Netherlands... it was originally supposed to arrive on March 15th, and now has been re-scheduled for April 27th. One piece of good news that I should share is that I think (fingers crossed) that my house has finally sold... after 4 offers! We've come to a mutually acceptable offer, and if all goes well with the inspection, we will close on May 21st. I'm torn on what to do next, but I think that my plan will be to rent an apartment downtown for at least 6 months while I figure out where to be. The housing market is great for buyers right now, but I am just so up-in-the air on where I want to be or what I want to be in that I feel like making a rush decision would be a bad idea. So, as soon as the sale closes, I'll send everyone a new address... somewhere. :)

Here are some pictures of my recent life... not quite the same as a weekend in Venice or a cooking class in France, but I love this life just as much as I loved that one:

Sean and I at David Hill winery on Valentine's Day

KP busting out the Julia Child skills with Boeuf Bourguignon - a 5-hour production!

KP with Leslie's son, Samuel - such a fun kid!

Beer taster at Walking Man Brewery in Washington

l'Ecole Winery in Walla Walla - such a cute place!

Oregon Homebuilder Association Foundation Dinner

Couldn't resist this picture - I was kind of scared!

I've been going to the Farmer's Market every Saturday - these things are called Fiddle Head's, and taste like asparagas - I had never seen one before!

Michelle and I ran the Race for the Roses Half Marathon this morning, and had a blast! Raelee, Cristina, and her son, Mateo, joined us for breakfast afterwards - what a great day! :)

Hello, Portland!

2010-02-22T01:23:00.003+01:00

Well, I'm back in the US! I've been back for 8 days now, and it's really hard to put into words how I feel right now. I think everything is happening so fast that it's hard to actually give myself a minute to realize everything that is going on!

I have to write about my welcome home. I had a really easy flight - I'm working on making a book out of my blog, so I was pretty much just editing the layout for most of the ten hour flight. When I got off of the plane, the flight attendants were so sweet - they gave me a wrapped bottle of champagne as a welcome home gift - so nice to be back to the US, where customer service can't be beat!

Meanwhile, my dear friends, Michelle, Raelee, and Raelee's partner Andy were all at the airport waiting for me to arrive. They had made me signs and bought balloons to welcome me home. I can't describe how happy I felt to see them at the airport, nor can I really explain how absolutely normal it felt to have lunch with them afterwards. I think we all just did such a great job of keeping in touch that it didn't really feel any different than it used to, with the small difference being that we don't have to say goodbye in 2 weeks. :)

It's been a busy week of learning a new job, training my replacement, and getting settled. With all of this going on, I managed to get myself a really nice cold which made me even more exhausted. I think I'm at the end of it now, and I'm finding myself re-energized just by being around the friends that I've been missing so much and enjoying the beautiful Portland weather that greeted me (it was 60 degrees on my first day back - wahoo!).

It's so great to be home!!

My Welcome Home Sign

KP in the City!

Nothing better than a hug from a great friend!

So happy to see these ladies!! :)

And here come my bags... :)

Looking back on the past two years...

2010-02-12T15:30:00.002+01:00

What a long, beautiful trip this experience has been... I arrived here on Tuesday, March 25, 2008. Since then, I've stretched my mind and my comfort zone to places I never thought I would. I've travelled to places I'd never even heard of before I moved here. I've eaten amazing food and tried the local beverages both bad and good. I've listened to native music and joined in on local dancing. I've made some of the most amazing friends I have ever had, transplants from both home and places far away. I've laughed a lot, and cried my fair share. I've loved and lost, and loved again. This experience was one that was a risk... it meant taking two years out of the life that I had grown into so comfortably in Portland, one that was full of amazing friends, a man that I love, my wonderful, supportive family, a workplace that nurtured and grew me, beautiful nature, and my native tongue. What I didn't realize when I left was that I wasn't putting my life there on hold - I was just letting my life grow to become even better. It wasn't always easy, but the tough days only made me stronger. I am so thankful that I have had this amazing experience.

Ready to start the next chapter... I'm ready for whatever life has in store for me. :)

To my friends in Amsterdam- thank you for the smiles, the laughs, and for sharing your life with me. For my friends back in the US - I can't wait to share the small things once again.

Goodbyes...

2010-02-07T16:15:00.007+01:00

Well, folks, as hard as it is to believe... the time is finally here. I'm moving back to the United States in less than one week. I'm super happy and super sad, all at the same time. Most of all, I just feel nothing... not in a bad way, just in a way that I don't really believe that a major change in my life is coming. I experienced the same thing in Portland... at my going away party, I thought it felt like more of a birthday party than a going away party. It's exactly the same here. This past week has been made up of many good-bye dinners, capped off with a going away party thrown by my colleagues. I've met so many great people here, and they have been more than just co-workers - they have been family, so it's hard to imagine not seeing them very often. The good news is that a lot of them travel to Portland for work, so it won't be long until we get to see each other again! :)

My first moment of "wow, this is really happening" was when I got home from work on Wednesday. When people move here, they have to put up signs telling people not to park there on the moving date, because there is otherwise no where for the moving truck to go. I saw some signs posted, and then thought, "Oh, someone is moving." Then, I saw the date, and realized that it was for ME! Slight moment of panic, but no tears yet. :)

Here is the sign... and, don't freak out - dates in Europe are day-month-year... I'm coming home in February, not August! :)

I have made so many wonderful friends here... but not all of them know each other. So, rather than having one huge going away party, what I've been doing is trying to spend time with everyone just one on one, or one on two (get your sick thoughts out of your mind, seriously, people!). It's been so nice to share these last moments together. I've received such thoughtful, but unnecessary gifts. It's really overwhelming.

Last Saturday, my friend Gulsun and I went shopping together, because I wanted to have a few "european" things for my house. We had such a fun time shopping together, especially since she's a designer and has a lot different tastes than me. I ended up buying some fun new cappuccino mugs and plates (and then, upon discovering how happy they made me, ended up buying the whole set!). We had a great dinner together, both of us still in denial that these kinds of things are going to be few and far between in a week. Not thinking about it... la la la la la!!!

Gulsun and I at dinner

My new plates, getting their first use - Italian cake made by Rixt! :)

I've had a tradition for a few years now... when I travel, I always buy a magnet. It's gotten a little out of control since I've moved here! :) This is my cabinet at work before I took all of my magnets down - it made for a fun conversation starter. :)

I had the pleasure of getting to know a few Dutch people as close friends. One of them, Erwin, was a colleague of mine from day one. I got to know him and his lovely girlfriend, Marjolein, with dinners over the course of the past two years. Our last dinner was at the Tokyo Cafe, a fun all you can eat place! I'm gonna miss these two! :) You couldn't ask for nicer people!

Friday, my team in Finance threw a going away party for me at work. So many people came to celebrate - I felt so honored! They sure surprised me... all of my teammates in both the footwear group and the finance group had created an album full of pictures, memories, and other fun things from my two years here. I had to give a speech right after they gave it to me, and the tears were about to spill right over. I held it together, but, WOW! Such a thoughtful gift! I loved it! :)

Sanne, Femi, and me - how many people get to do this at work?!? :)

Camille, Gulsun, me, Jacques, Sanne

Erwin and KP - surf-style... again, what a fun place to work! :)

My brothers, Fabio and Stefano... Stefano and I were having a contest to see who has a bigger smile. I'm not putting the picture in where I won... I'm not sure ANYONE has a bigger smile than I do, but it's not exactly attractive! :)

Eric, KP, Feliz, Mayte, and Femi

So, everything is happening pretty fast... my shipment is leaving Holland tomorrow... My apartment is furnished, so I've been doing my best to get things organized, because they do everything so fast that if you aren't organized, your stuff ends up not leaving, and the owners' stuff ends up in Portland. My house is a bit of a chaotic mess right now, but after tomorrow, it's one step closer to being done!! :)

This is my "ship to Portland" room... I just piled everything that is mine in here... hope they are able to get in there to pack! :)

And these are my suitcases... all packed for 6 weeks of unpredictable Portland February/March weather! :)

I arrive on Saturday the 13th, and can't wait to see my dear friends Michelle and Raelee at the airport! Sean will arrive home later that night from a trip, and we are both anxious to begin "dating" again.

More to come as I close this amazing chapter of my life and start a new one...

PS - not sure what is going on with the formatting on this post... hopefully it is not confusing

PPS - I know my hair is CRAZY in these pictures... no worries - I got a haircut on Saturday, and we are all good now! ;)

A grand night of Italian fun!!

2010-01-30T14:25:00.004+01:00

I think you know that I love my Italians... they have become like family to me. We have shared many a meal, many a chat, and we treat each other like brothers and sisters. On Friday night, we had our "Grand Night of Italian Fun." We started out at the Nike pub, then made our way to this yummy restaurant, Greenfield's, for some of the biggest burgers I've ever seen. Those guys brought my first "holy crap, I'm really moving" tears to my eyes by surprising me with some extremely thoughtful gifts. And then, we topped the night off with some disco bowling. More fond memories with people I will never forget. My secret plan is to help all of them get jobs at WHQ so we can continue the fun on the other side of the pond... we'll see. ;)

On the left: Rixt, Stefano, Fabio

On the right: Alex, KP, Claudia, Samuele

Heck yeah! A real burger in Holland!

Everyone pretended they were going out for a smoke break! But, they were really going outside to get gifts out of the car! :)

Silly Alex, how I will miss your funny little sayings... "Don't you worry" and "Easy, Peezy, Lemon Squeezy" (you have to say these things with an Italian accent to get the full charm of them!)

Rixty & KP... haha - they thought I would be good at bowling "because I'm American"... I had the lowest score of all of us!! :)

Disco Bowl!

Motion Shot...

Awww... sweet!

Little did I know when I moved here how quickly I could get attached to people. While I'm super excited to be going home, I'm also super sad to be leaving all of these people that have brought so many smiles to my face. This is just the first of many goodbyes. Ciao, ragazzi!! :)

Athens

2010-01-30T12:10:00.009+01:00

Well, folks, this is it. Memories from my last trip during my time in Europe. Travelling to Greece took my official country tally up to 30, which I think is a fine note to end on. I officially made it to my goal of visiting 30 countries before turning 30... what's next? Good question. :)

The trip to Greece was about three and a half hours, and there was a one hour time change, so I decided that I should take a few extra days to see Athens, rather than my normal Friday night to Sunday night routine.

The view out of my plane window - beautiful Mediterranean Water and GREECE!

I got in on Thursday afternoon, and was immediately questioning my decision to go to Athens alone. The hotel where I was staying had received good reviews (unlike some others I had looked at - cockroaches - blech!), however when I got off of the metro to walk to my hotel, I started feeling uneasy very quickly. Now, I was once a naive little girl that did really stupid things when I travelled, but I have developed some good street smarts after travelling so often on my own. These street smarts were saying "get the heck out of here" immediately. I eventually found my hotel, and, despite the bad location, the staff was SO kind to me. It was something I looked forward to coming home to everyday... especially after walking through drug deals and prostitutes to get there - yikes!!!! If anyone is going to Athens, please contact me and I will tell you where you SHOULD stay - there was a much better area, but for some reason I got led astray there. :(

So, I dumped my stuff, grabbed a pita (Greek word for "pie" - basically phyllo dough filled with something yummy - spinach, cheese, meat, etc!) for a cool 1.50 euros (food was SUPER cheap here), and walked my way through the city. It's a pretty small city - I would say you only really need about a day and a half to see everything (unless you are total museum lover... but I, unfortunately, am not!). I wouldn't say it's super nice - the country was kinds of taken over by a lot of different countries, and didn't really get built to the way you see it today until the 1800's, so it feels not as nice as other European cities I've been to. Once I got closer to the "tourist area", the Plaka, I felt much safer. At one point though, I came to the main square, and there was some kind of scary looking protest with people waving Egyptian flags and yelling stuff in Arabic. Turns out it was a protest about some alleged killings of Egyptians by Greeks. Anyways, once again I was feeling like I wasn't safe, and I got the heck out of there. Seriously, I was NOT having a great start to my trip!! :(

Things started to get better after that, and continued to get better and better afterwards. Whew! :) I took one of Rick Steves signature city walks through the whole town - have I mentioned that I love that guy? Seriously - I think I have every guidebook he has ever written, and he very rarely leads me astray! The walk took me by some really cool sights, such as the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Parliament building:

Not sure what the kicking was all about, but it was cool! :)

During the walk, I also got my first taste of Greek and Roman ruins, and saw some really neat Byzantine-era churches. They are so cute and small... pictures to come. There were some really good stores in Athens that they don't have in Amsterdam, so I did a little shopping, and then had my first amazing meal of the trip... So, I travel alone a lot, and I never really get particularly special service. In Greece, however, every waiter I had seemed to have a little crush on me. Now, I don't REALLY think they had a crush on me, but I think it's the culture, kind of how it is in Italy. The men are super aggressive with women... not in a scary way, but just very quick to offer compliments (and free drinks and dessert!). This was kind of nice, but sometimes I wish they wouldn't have been so quick to bring me dessert, because there were certain things I wanted to try but couldn't, because I didn't want to be rude and say, "well, actually, I don't want that, but can you bring xxx?"... Not that I'm complaining, but, one can only eat so much baklava (my friend Kristin would disagree, but that's me!). :)

At dinner the first night, there was native dancing and the playing of Greek music by two guitarists... very cozy! :)

These guys were fun! :)

I had to start turning down the free drinks from my waiter, because I knew I had to walk back to my scary hotel, and I didn't want to be the least bit drunk - I wanted to have all my wits about me just in case I had to think fast. Maybe I'm paranoid, but when you travel as a single woman, I think it's always better to be safe than sorry.

I woke up bright and early to head out to see the sites of ancient Greece - the town of Agorra and the Acropolis. On my way there, I came across the local market, and just had to peek my head in... it was unlike anything I had ever seen before! :)

These are roosters... they guy selling them kept telling me that they are "good for sex"... uh, okay, thanks.

I think I was the only woman there, and certainly the only one with blue eyes, so, let's just say I stuck out a bit. This cute old man wanted his picture taken with me, and with his piggy friend Smokey. ;)

Note the smoking pig in the background... slightly disturbing!

After the market, I walked through the ancient city of Agorra. Now, the weather wasn't great in Athens - it was warmer than Amsterdam, but not balmy by any means. This was bad for my tan, but great to see the sights - at several of the places I visited, I was the ONLY person there. I hate having a million tourists in my pictures, so this was awesome!!! :) This site was kind of the city center of the old Athens... it's ruins are thousands of years old. It was cool to see, and I felt so strangely at ease. I loved it.

The main road, and ruins of the old "mall' on the right

The temple - the sky and the green just make me smile

A Byzantine church on site that was built by a different set of rulers

After spending a few hours in Agorra, I trekked up the hill to see the Acropolis, which is the place the ancient Greeks went to worship their city's namesake goddess, Athena. It's way up on the top of a hill, and can be seen from all over Athens. It was amazing to see something that was SO old.

Me with the Parthenon, probably the most famous of all of the buildings at the Acropolis

Loved this temple - instead of pillars, beautiful women held up the roof. :)

View of downtown Athens from the top of the Acropolis

More Parthenon... kind of hard to picture this in its original state - gleaming white marble, beautiful statues on the exterior, and a 40 foot high statue of Athena inside in gold plating

After visiting the ruins, I went to the newly opened Acropolis Museum. It houses all of the statues that have been saved from the ruins... however, I found it quite sad, as many of the marbles are actually in the British Museum, as they were taken by Lord Elgin in the early 1800's. There are just copies of these originals at the museum in Athens... feel kind of like they should be in their home, but it's a hot topic in Europe. I had another amazing dinner, more free food, and more fun guitar music. :)

I needed to get a good night's rest, because the next morning, I had decided to take the 7:30 am bus to Delphi, which is where the Oracle lived in Ancient times. I had chosen to take a taxi rather than figuring out the public transportation because I didn't want to risk getting lost that early in the morning, and I didn't want to get up much earlier than 6:30. Turns out I might have been better off taking public transportation... the taxi driver got lost, and I ended up making it JUST IN TIME! I had to sprint to the bus to catch it, but I made it! It was a three hour trip to Delphi, and it was nice to drive through a bit of the Greek countryside and mountains.

Delphi - seeing all of these beautiful mountains made me really homesick

The ruins at the Temple of Apollo - I actually couldn't quite get up there because it was closed due to a rock slide. I could see enough though. Being there alone was a magical experience.

The cities of Greece used to build treasuries nearby the temples to offer their riches to the god Apollo - this is the re-built treasury of the city of Athens - cool to see it so re-constructed

I found a really amazing store while I was in Delphi - they had not just the typical cheesy souvenirs that you normally see, but real museum-quality replicas of some of the ancient artifacts. I used to love Greek mythology in school, so this was a rare find. I spent an hour talking with the shop owner, and, before I knew it, it was time to make my way back to Athens. It was a lot of travelling for one day, but well worth it!

Sunday was my last day in Athens, and I took it pretty easy. I took a tour of an ancient Greek cemetery (again, you know I'm kind of weird... I love going to old cemeteries!), and then went to the Greek Archaeological Museum - which houses all kinds of cool artifacts from Ancient Greece.

Greek Archaeological Museum - a nice place to be on a rainy Sunday! :)

Instead of posting individual pictures of food this time, I made a big collage (click to enlarge)... left to right, starting at the top: a cheese "pita", Greek yogurt with honey and walnuts, Greek donuts, fried cheese (local Delphi specialty). Middle row: chicken souvlaki, Tzatziki sauce, chicken meatball soup, chicken souvkaki. Bottom Row: "Drunkard's Snack", appetizer sampler with spanakopita, grape leaves, and zuchinni/eggplant croquettes, mousakka

Even though the trip started off a little shaky, it got better and better as it went. The people were so, so kind and helpful, the food was amazing, and the sites were like nothing else I have ever seen. I would love to come back someday and see the Greek islands... but that, for now, will have to go onto my ever-growing "Places I want to visit list". :)

The Never-Ending Journey

2010-01-28T09:07:00.002+01:00

As I returned home from Athens on Sunday, which will be my last trip (sniff, sniff) before coming home, I came across this article in the airline magazine. I know that this grand adventure of mine leaves some of you with questions about why I travel alone a lot of the time or how I have the energy. Well, this article just sums up my feelings about travel completely. So, if you are wondering, here you go (by Peter Alatsas):

In the famous novel, "Zorba the Greek", by Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba is full of dreams and a zest for life that includes misplaced optimism. This fictional character is a metaphor for the appreciation of joy and sadness that co-exist in life. Hardship and disappointment are a function of everyday life, but their effects can be minimised with travel and restoration. Travel offers a change of scenery. Anecdotal evidence suggests that a mere change of scenery is both relaxing and therapeutic, and helps restore one to a state of well-being, much like the effect of a good cry. Such is the complexity of life. Maintaining a positive mental attitude even in the worst of times is essential. A pathos to keep on going when all else fails or when things can't get any worse is easier said than done, but not impossible. Positive words, in a way, acts as catalysts or as coping mechanisms. Often times, certain negative words like "loneliness" and "boredom" become self-fulfilling prophecies in that you get the behaviour you expect. Imagine a world without these words. Let's take them out of our vocabulary altogether. Let us not become a manifestation of the very negative words or ideas that we think and speak. On final reflection, perhaps it's the beauty of a place that brings out the best and worst in us. The mythical gods blessed Greece with an abundance of beauty, words, and stories to inspire and invigorate the body, mind, and spirit. And, of course, without a past there is no future. Perhaps this is why the relentless pursuit of meaning is an endless endeavour in such a place, as well. Nowhere is this more prevalent, at least in my view, than in Greece. You will invariably enjoy the trip. The journey, however, never ends.

Wishing you all a beautiful journey that includes whatever makes you happy. :) For me, I know it's travelling. :)

I know I owe you a post on Athens... I'm working on it!! :)

Pork-a-palooza AKA a weekend in Luxembourg

2010-01-19T21:12:00.004+01:00

I spent this past weekend with my friends Leslie and Erik (of Carnavaal fame), in Luxembourg. We had planned on going in December, however Les and Erik both got sick, so we had to re-schedule.

Luxembourg was a lovely country with lovely people. Only 450K people live there, and about half are ex-pats living there to work in the banking industry. That said, it's pretty amazing that they have their own language. If you listen to someone talking and don't listen to the word - the lilt of it is like French. But, if you listen to the words, it's very German in nature. Quite interesting. :) And a very useful language to know, I'm sure. You know, just in case.

We all had the same idea in mind - a nice weekend with good food. :) We drove down on Saturday morning, which took about 4 hours. That day, we just kind of walked around and got the lay of the land.

We stopped at this amazing chocolate shop, called Choco Shop. They have the most amazing little set up. They give you a cup of steamed milk, and then you pick the flavor of chocolate you want to stir into your milk to make hot chocolate. Yum city! :)

My hot chocolate in the making...

View across the riverbed to the big bank.

We just wandered around then until dinner-time. I managed to find a pair of black sparkly boots that I couldn't live without. :) We had a few drinks over in a part of town called Clausen before dinner. This place was amazing! It was an old brewing district that had been converted to new themed bars. We were at one that was a Flinestone's theme - sounds hokey, I know, but it was amazing! :) The only bummer is that they still allow smoking there - I can't stand smoke!

Dinner that night was the pork-a-palooza! Every single dish was some sort of pork! Erik, Les and I all ordered different dishes and shared. I was about porked out by the end! :) Another important moment in my life happened over the weekend - I lost my snail virginity. I seriously thought Erik was joking when he suggested ordering escargot, but he told me he was serious - it's one of his favorite things. So, I have the mindset that I'll try anything once, so I did. And I LOVED them. Just had to pretend they were mushrooms - much more do-able with that in mind. ;)

Escargot

Moment of truth...

Pork-a-palooza

Erik, Les and I at Mousel, where we had dinner

We had a nice night out, just going from one bar to another and checking out all the locals. Not too crazy of a night - we were in bed by midnight. :)

The next morning, we just wandered the city. It used to be a fortified city, with big walls all the way around it. For some reason, a lot of these walls were torn down in the mid 1800's, but there are still enough around to get the idea. It was beautifully picturesque.

Beautiful abbey in the city

Les & Erik with Lux

You can still see part of the wall in the left

I truly enjoyed the weekend. It was a nice, laid-back break before this weekend... Athens! :)

Hel-a-cold Helsinki!

2010-01-11T20:05:00.005+01:00

I'm on track to hit my 30 by 30 goal... I spent this past weekend in Finland, which was country number 28. I will go to Luxembourg this weekend (take two - Leslie and Erik, please don't get sick this time!), and then my 30th country will also be my last trip here (well, we'll see... I have a strange itch to see Paris one last time...) will be to Athens, Greece. Greece was tops on my list when I arrived, and, somehow, I never went. I got all of my plans together last week, and I'm excited to achieve this (somewhat silly) personal goal. :)

Anyways, on to Helsinki... I flew in on Friday night, arriving to the city around 10:30pm. It was bitter cold there... as in, so cold that my snot was frozen in my nose instantly when I walked outside. It was -18 C... I'm not sure what that in in Farenheit (my, how screwed up my mind has gotten with temperatures, clothing sizes, times, etc!), but it was REALLY COLD!! I made it to my hotel, no problem, and then crashed into bed!

When I was packing, I had found hand warmers in my cold weather drawer... now, I'm not sure when or where I bought them, but, I must say that they were a LIFESAVER on Saturday. I like walking around new cities, but it was so cold in Helsinki that I opted to take a bus tour. Before that, however, I wanted to try a local breakfast (did you really think I wasn't going to mention food?!?). I went to the Old Market Hall, and tried some of the local fish. It was a different kind of breakfast, but yummy and filling.

Salmon and shrimp on toast - yum!

View of the Finnish Orthodox Church from my breakfast spot - think it might have been cold? ;)

The tour guide on the bus was awkwardly funny. He really wanted to talk to me, but then he kept saying strange things about me finding a Finnish boyfriend and nonsense like that. Oh boy! I tried to stay as far away from him as I could! :)

We stopped at this really cool church, which in English is just "the church in the rock". It was carved out of stone in the late 60's, and was so naturally beautiful. We only got 10 minutes there, which was not really enough for me, but I enjoyed it.

The Church in the Rock

The ceiling was made of 13 miles of copper woven together.

Natural Beauty

Our next stop was at the Sibelius Monument. This was a famous Finnish composer, and his monument was really cool (remember I dig sculptures). :) I enjoyed looking at this as well - all the pipes welded together were impressive. :)

Think it snows much??

Sibelius Monument

Sibelius Monument - from underneath

After the tour ended, I went from coffeeshop to coffeeshop, taking in sights in between. I had a really great book to read, so I didn't mind the somewhat relaxed sight-seeing. :)

Lutheran Church - prettier on the outside than on the inside, to be honest

After I had done a little shopping, I decided to go the experience something quintessentially Finnish - the sauna. Okay, now, over time, my comfort level with nakedness has gone something like this - 1. immediately after arriving in Amsterdam - "must not expose skin, even in locker room" 2. a few months later "well, maybe it's okay to get dressed in the locker room without covering myself up entirely with a towel", 3. "aw, screw it - who cares who sees me in the locker room", 4. "Maybe I'll go topless in the hammam in Istanbul", 5. "maybe I'll go sans bathing suit to the sauna in Helsinki". Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I've finally got over my American phobia of nakedness. True, I did kind of keep my towel around me the whole time, but THERE WERE NO CLOTHES. :) So, in other words, I've come a long way. :) The sauna was quite an experience. Lots of naked women speaking Finnish. It was quite the social experience. The men were in a separate room, but at intervals, they would go outside in only their towels to drink beers in the snow and socialize. I kid you not. It was something unlike anything I've ever seen before!

I had had my heart set on getting a massage at the sauna, but unfortunately, the massage therapist was not in that day. I'm honestly not sure WHAT I was thinking (okay, I think I was thinking "I really want a massage"), but I decided to go to a place that had a neon sign with the words "Thai Massage" written on it. Again, what the hell was I thinking? First indication should have been that I had to ring a doorbell to go in. A Thai woman in a very short skirt with a lot of make-up on answered the door and invited me in to her HOME, to reveal another scantily-clad woman smoking a cigarette on the couch. This was not the nice spa I remembered from Bangkok - no, I'm pretty sure this was a front for a prostitute's house!!! I quickly thanked the woman and got the heck out of there! I will NEVER make that mistake again! Oh boy!! :)

The sauna...

After the sauna, I went back to this lovely cafe I had found (or rather Rick Steves had recommended), and just relaxed with The Economist for a few hours. It was just so nice to have some time to myself.

Helsinki by night was beautiful! :)

That evening, I had dinner at a really fun place... it had a tractor theme (not really sure what that was all about, but, hey, I'm a country girl!). I tried local beer and, sorry, Rudolphy, but also tried sauteed reindeer. It didn't taste so different from ground beer, but was a unique item on the menu that I couldn't pass up. :)

Rudolph on a plate - with pickles of all things!

It snowed overnight, which made the city even more beautiful. I made the trek out to see the Finlandia building, in honor of my lovely friend Suzie back in PDX. :) She's an architect and likes Alvar Aalto, who designed this building. Wish she could have been there to help me "get it", but it was a nice walk. ;)

Finlandia Building by Alvar Aalto

The snow was beautiful!

After yet another coffee stop at a cafe, the churches I wanted to see were finally open. I went to see the grandiose Finnish Orthodox Church and the stark Lutheran Church - amazing to see the contrast between the gilted alter of the Orthodox chruch and the white-washed walls of the Lutheran one. Always keeping my brain open... I take in so many new things on these trips!

The Lutheran Church

The Finnish Orthodox Church

I ended my trip at Finland's department store, Stockmann. I made a few purchases, and then made my way back to Amsterdam, where it was a balmy zero degrees. :)

HOME home

2010-01-03T12:00:00.006+01:00

Over the course of my life, I've had many places that I have called "home", but there is truly only one real home for me... and that is Ohio. I just returned today from 10 great days with family and friends, and feel renewed by being in the only place that really recharges my batteries. I flew in on Tuesday the 22nd, and this journey was reminiscent of journeys past... meaning kind of a nightmare! ;) When I booked the flight, I was already pretty nervous about all of the connections (Amsterdam to Frankfurt to Washington D.C. to Columbus), however that was the schedule that was available for the price I wanted to pay. I knew that it was going to be tight, so when my first flight from Amsterdam to Frankfurt got delayed by 45 minutes, I was worried that the rest of my schedule was going to come tumbling down, domino-style. I was pretty stressed and nervous for the whole flight from Amsterdam to Frankfurt, and, when we finally touched down, it was that classic airport scene - girl with large backpack sprinting from one end of the airport to the other, shouting "excuse me!!!" as she passes passengers with a more leasurely schedule. I sprinted all the way to to customs, and then to my gate. When I got there, I was SO relieved - that flight was delayed also! I told the lady at the desk how happy I was, and she told me not to say that so loud, because the other passengers weren't too happy. ;). This delay however made it really tight on my connection to Columbus, so it was another sprinting drill at Dulles. I thought for sure that when I got through customs, security, etc, and it was already time for my plane to be taking off that I was going to miss it. I ran to the gate anyways, and when I got there, they saw how out of breath I was and just said, "Columbus?". I seriously started crying at this point... it had been SUCH a long and stressful day, and they had held the plane for me. Unbelievable. So, I made it home on schedule. My luggage, unfortunately, didn't find its way home for 4 days! That was honestly the least of my worries!

KP, state-side!

The first few days in Enon, it was just me and my parents, so I just relaxed, got used to the time difference (6 hours), and discovered my new passion for Wii Fit. What a fun program! I also drove up to Lima to meet my two best friends from college, Ellen and Mandy. It was really nice to just have a few hours to catch up with them. :)

Ellen, Mandy, and I at Bob Evans.

Em and Matt arrived on the 24th, and we continued our annual tradition of Chinese food with my Aunt Deb, Uncle Bob, and their family. We made it to midnight mass that evening, which has been moved up to 10pm... not exactly midnight, but with the jet lag, I was just as happy! ;)

Rubbing the Buddha's belly on Christmas Eve

Ready for midnight mass...

So, every Christmas, my dad hides the pickle ornament on the tree... I think this is a German custom, but I'm not really sure. Anyways, the person that finds the pickle gets good luck for a year, plus bragging rights. I don't think I have EVER found the stupid pickle! And this year, with Matt as part of our family, I have more competition than ever! And, guess what? I didn't find it again! ;) It's all in good fun!

Looking for the pickle... sneaky santa found it this year!

Every year, we have a progressive dinner with some of my dad's family, where we eat appetizers at one house, then salads, main dish, dessert, etc. It's always a lot of fun, and this year was no different. Here is the whole crazy group at my parents' house:

Pitsticks on the loose... look out!

Saturday after Christmas, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful, but cold weather, and go for a hike to the Pine Forest in Glen Helen. It was nice to get out and enjoy a little Mother Nature. :)

Bundled up in the forest

Sean arrived on Saturday night, and so the whole family drove down to Cincinnati to enjoy a dinner at the Hofbrauhaus (yes, the sister to the real one in Munich) and to pick up Sean. It was so nice to see him... everything felt a little more complete after he got there.

yum!

Sunday, we carried on our annual tradition of a family movie at Christmas-time. This year, we saw Avatar in 3D, and it was AWESOME! I absolutely loved it -the story and the effects were great!

The whole gang enjoying one of my mom's delicious meals

Sunday night, the snow was really coming down. Since I'm still a big kid at heart, I was really itching to go out and play in it. I proceeded to get wrestled to the ground by Sean... fun times!

It's a little cold!

On Monday, Em, Matt, Sean and I went skiing at Mad River Mountain... unfortunately, my camera died, but we had a great time!!

Wednesday, Em and Matt had us over to their beautiful home for a yummy dinner. I made my first recipe out of the Julia Child cookbook I got for Christmas - Reine de Saba chocolate cake - to bring for dessert. It was a really nice evening.

The Pitwards, Pitwolfs, and Pitsticks

For New Years Eve, Sean and I decided to get out and spend some time just the two of us. We booked a hotel in Cincinnati, and enjoyed the sights there. We of course had to go to the Hofbrauhaus, and then we made our way to the Newport Acquarium in Kentucky. It was cool, but a little overpriced, I thought.

My favorites were the jellyfish!

We celebrated the New Year at Cincy's oldest bar, Arnold's, where they had a really great blue grass band playing. We made our way to Fountain Square just in time for fireworks and to welcome in the new decade.

Happy new year!!

Sean and I both left on Saturday... him for Portland, and me for Amsterdam... it was hard to say goodbye after having such a nice week. We are counting down the days until we can be in the same city permanentely... which is hopefully less than 50 at this point, but I don't have the exact date yet.

So, here I am, just me, myself and I, back in Amsterdam after such a great week. Waiting for my suitcases... oh yes, that's right, they didn't make it. AGAIN! Hoping to have them by this afternoon, but I'm not holding my breath!

Wishing you all a happy, healthy new year!!! All the best! xx

Typical...

2009-12-18T10:06:00.002+01:00

So, every Monday when my colleagues and I arrive in the office, we are always complaining about how cold it is. That is because the heat gets turned way down over the weekend, and then our Facilities Service team doesn't turn it back up until around 6am, which doesn't give the building enough time to heat up.

Rather than turning the heat on earlier (as I have to think we would do back at home where things are "normal"), here is the solution in our Facilities Newsletter:

Climate control
When you come back in the office after a cosy Christmas, the temperature may feel low around the office. We assure you that it is regulated to within accepted levels. If you are cold, an extra layer of clothing could well be the answer.

Way to go, Dutchies!! Couldn't help but post this... it kind of represents my frustrations in general. Rather than fixing a problem, just deal with it!

Wishing you all a happy (and warm) Holiday! :)

Slight Change in Plans...

2009-12-12T19:37:00.004+01:00

I had originally planned to go to Luxembourg this weekend with Leslie and Eric, but, unfortunately, the two of them came down with a horrible flu on Thursday, and we had to cancel our trip. I was bummed not to go, but, not much you can do about the nasty flu that's been going around here!

Friday night was our holiday part at work, and I had SO MUCH FUN!! It only lasted until 12:30, and the time went by WAY too fast! There were so many people out at the venue that was rented in Amsterdam that it was hard to keep track of everyone that I had come with and wanted to see. I know that I talk about all the people that I've become good friends with, but I honestly didn't have a picture of some of them until last night. So, now you can put some faces with names. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! xoxo

KP with Zoe and Nadia - my friends since orientation on the first week there! Two awesome gals from the UK! :)

Good looking bunch of gals... Marilou (my yoga instructor), Sonia (my cute Spanish friend), not sure who this chick is, Mayte (fun colleague from footwear), me, and Gulsun, who you all have seen before - my friend from Rotterdam who I ski with!

Sanne and KP - one of the footwear designers that I love and who turned me on to Bikram yoga

We had a cover band... they played Phil Collins and U2 - sometimes, the music tastes here make me scratch my head...

Stefano, my little brother, and his lovely girlfriend Rixt... love these guys! :)

Erwin & KP... I think I can say that Erwin was my first Dutch friend... love him and his lovely girlfriend, who unfortunately couldnt' make it.

Alex, my tiramisu instructor, Claudia, my dear friend from RoPa Run, and, hmmm... looks like Hugh Hefner... oh, wait, it's my crazy friend Anthony! :)

Gulsun, my buddy for the evening, Paulette from the UK, and Dom, a fun designer friend who had me over for some pre-funking...

I have to say, I am so blessed with friends. Everywhere I have lived - Enon, Toledo, Portland, Amsterdam... everywhere, I have had the most amazing friends that make living so much fun! The friends that I have made here are what is going to make it SO HARD to leave. Thanks to all of you for being you and being a part of my life. All the best to you and your families over the holidays!!

Hospitable Hungary

2009-12-08T18:45:00.004+01:00

I'm on a mission. My 30th birthday is this coming July, and my goal is to see 30 countries by the time I turn 30. After this past weekend, I'm at 26. I know, I know, I'm crazy, but these are the things that I enjoy... a little personal challenge never hurt anyone, right? :) In the meantime, I've seen enough cool things for a lifetime!! :)

So, I've pretty much seen all of the countries that are pretty close to the Netherlands, so I'm having to branch out a bit. This past weekend, I visited Budapest, Hungary. I didn't really know what to expect. One of my first boyfriends was from a Hungarian family, so I did know a little about the food, but, other than that, I went with an open mind.

Prior to going, I had been in a training class, and there happened to be a guy in my class that was originally from Budapest. I barely knew this guy, but I could tell he was really nice. I told him I was going to Budapest, and he told me that he would tell his family that I was coming. I thought maybe I'd meet up with someone for lunch or something, but, no, his family went totally out of their way - his dad met me after lunch on Saturday and took me all over the city doing sight-seeing, and then he made reservations at a traditional Hungarian restaurant and both he and his wife met me there for dinner. What a heart-warming experience. I travel by myself a lot, and, while I don't mind it, having people to share meals with was SO much nicer. I was just blown away by this hospitality - and to a girl they didn't even know! Wow!

I got in late on Friday night, and found my way to the apartment that I had rented. I like staying in apartments when I can - it just feels more like you are a part of the city, and you can get locations where there are not hotels. The location was fantastic, the woman who met me gave me a hug goodbye (seriously, these people are SO nice), and the price was amazing - 30 euros a night! That evening, I walked about 5 minutes up to the Christmas market that was alive and kicking up the street... I had a yummy dinner of potato dumplings with onion and paprika, and then called it a night.

The Market

Palace by Night

Saturday, I got up on the early side and had breakfast at this lovely cafe that felt like it was straight out of the 1920's. I then took a bus tour out to an amazing sight - it was a statue park of statues from the communist era. Might not sound so interesting to you, but, in a Europe where communism has been gone since 1989, it's not everyday that you get to see this kind of thing... most of the statues were destroyed, so this was a real treat.

Stalin hailing a cab ;)

This one was amazing - if you see the guy next to it, you can imagine the scale

After the revolt of 1956, the big statue of Stalin was torn down, Saddam Hussein-style. All that was left were his boots, and these are them (is that even proper English?? Seriously, the longer I am away from home the more I start to think things sound funny!!)

When I got back to the city, Mr. Hamori met me and walked with me around the city. First stop was the big Market in town, which was designed by Gustav Eiffel. It was sensory overload once again - food, crafts, people - wow!

KP with the Market

After a few hours, Mr. Hamori dropped me off at Hero's Square, which is supposed to be like the Place de la Concord in Paris - a celebration of Hungarian heros

I did some sightseeing on my own for a few hours, and then met up with the Hamori's for dinner that evening. Mrs. Hamori didn't speak English, but I could tell she was SUCH a sweet lady by the twinkle in her eye. We spoke through her husband, and it was such a nice, relaxing evening.

Me with Mr. and Mrs. Hamori after an amazing Hungarian dinner

Sunday morning, I started the day off early and went to one of the famous Hungarian baths. Turned out it was me and people my grandparents' age at that hour. :) But, still super relaxing. I have adult-onset ADD, and have a hard time sitting in one place at a time, so it was fun to jump from lap pool, to warm pool, to warmer pool, to steam room, and back again. I ended my experience with a massage, and felt oh-so good. :)

The bath house was within this lovely hotel. :)

After relaxing all morning, I wasn't really feeling up for a ton of sight-seeing, so I had a lengthy-lunch (complete with cold wild berry soup - yum!), and then just walked around. I saw a few churches, etc, but nothing too exciting. The view from the top of the hill I walked up, however, was amazing:

The Hungarian parliament building

I had to head back to the airport around 3, and found my way on public transit no problem. I think that's one of my favorite parts about new cities - trying to figure out how to get around without a car. I NEVER do this in the US, but maybe it could be a new challenge. :)

Next stop... Luxembourg this weekend with my friends Leslie and Eric. That makes 27... ;)

Thanksgiving Visitors

2009-12-08T18:31:00.004+01:00

Okay, okay... I'm a little behind on getting this updated! :) The Saturday and Sunday before Thanksgiving, I was lucky enough to get to welcome both my parents (on Saturday) and Sean (on Sunday) to Amsterdam. My parents' flight got in at 6am, so I boogied over to the airport to get them, and then proceeded to tell them that we MUST take a nap when we got home. Despite my dad thinking that he "wouldn't be able to sleep", both of them passed out for a few hours, along with myself! We had a really nice, normal day that day, as I didn't want to plan too much with them getting in so early and having some jet lag. They are such troopers! It's so fun to take my parents around - it's really cool getting to show them things that are normal to me that they are seeing for the first time. :) Best part of Saturday? It was the Ohio State-Michigan game, and I had recently downloaded ESPN America - and the GAME WAS ON!!! We got to watch the game (and some serious Wolverine butt-kicking!).

Dad and I sampling an "Oliebollen", literally "oil ball". Mmm... healthy! ;)

We also checked out a local brewery which is inside of a windmill! Fun! :)

Sean arrived on Sunday morning. His flight unfortunately had been delayed, and so, since we had planned on going to Germany that day, he willingly came with us directly from the airport on a two and a half hour drive to Cologne for the Christmas Market... he was a trooper too. Especially since the Christmas Market didn't start until MONDAY. Oops. :( We still had a fun time walking around, trying German food and beer, and seeing where the Market would be... the next day. Needless to say, I felt like a major idiot, but everyone was totally understanding (or so they say...). :)

Pitsticks (plus Sean) at our lunch spot in Cologne

Monday and Tuesday, Mom, Dad, and Sean toured a few of the towns in Holland while I went to work. It's always so hard for me to be at work when my loved ones are in town, but, 1. I'm running out of vacation time and 2. I've already been to most of these places anyways. Still, I would have much rather been with them than at work...

Tuesday, November 25th was my parents' anniversary, so we went out for Italian food to celebrate. As I think you know, because I've been b#$^$ing about it so much, Dutch customer service isn't exactly a highlight of living here. BUT... when I called to make a reservation, I told the host that it was their anniversary, and they brought us all limoncello and my parents a piece of cake FOR FREE. I couldn't believe it. It was a super nice evening. :)

Wednesday I took the morning off and went with Sean and my parents to the Flower Auction at Aalsmeer - it was fascinating. Most of the flowers that you see all over the world pass through this auction. Bidders bid on various plants/flowers as they go by, and then the flowers are immediately packaged and shipped, maybe to be found on your front door tomorrow (ha - if only we were that lucky, right?!?). ;) Watching the operations was like watching ants on an anthill, and I'm seriously surprised that I didnt' see any accidents with the crazy way things were going. It was definitely a unique experience. :)

The Wall Street of Flowers

The flowers getting packaged and shipped

Our Thanksgiving plans did not include the following: 1. Turkey 2. Pumpkin Pie 3. Football 4. Fat Pants. What they did include, however was this: 1. Belgian Beer from a Monastery 2. Belgian Waffles, straight off the grill 3. A delicious local Belgian dinner and 4. The Mannequin Pis. :)

Thursday morning, we drove first to the town of Westmalle, Belgium, to check out the monastery there that brews one of the 6 Trappist beers from Belgium (Trappist is an order of monks). You can't go into the monastery, but you can walk around the grounds and then drink the beer across the street. We then made our way to Brussels, where we just relaxed for a bit before our amazing Belgian dinner. The restaurant we went to was fantastic, and the whole thing was run by one man - he did all the seating, order taking, food bringing, and plate taking away. Not to mention made sure that our glasses were full at all times. Seriously?!? Belgian is another word for heaven. :) It was a really nice dinner, and I have to say, I didn't really miss the turkey.

The next day, we did some sightseeing between the raindrops. It was fun to see some new sights, but, to be honest, the weather was pretty crappy, so we chose to get home early and have a night of pizza and beer! :)

Sean and I with the Mannequin Pis in Brussels

Mom with her Belgian Waffle... beer, waffles, fries, and chocolate - CHECK! Trip complete! :)

My parents and I with the Royal Palace

Sadly, my parents had to leave on Saturday morning after a quick week. It's always nice to see them, and I love the relationship that we have. Sean and I had two more days together, and we tried to make it as normal as possible - going to movies, out to dinner, to the driving range, and just making dinner together...

I'll be home (HOME home) in Ohio from December 22nd through January 2nd. If you'll be around and want to get together, you know how to find me.

Happy Holidays!! :)

My New Hobby

2009-11-16T20:09:00.002+01:00

Alright, I know. I'm kind of all over the place. I get bored easily, and so I try lots and lots of different things. My latest obession? Bikram yoga. If you've ever heard of "hot yoga", this is it. Basically, you spend 90 minutes in a room that is 105 degrees Farenheit with 40% humidity, and then go through a series of 26 yoga poses twice each. Why am I doing this? Well, why AM I doing this? It might sound like torture, but it's actually amazing. With all of the running that I do, my muscles get SUPER tight. This is an amazingly great stretch, and having the heat there to warm the muscles first really helps... It's kind of like heating up a piece of metal before you can bend it - it just makes it a lot easier when things are hot. Being in the room this hot, you sweat. A lot. Supposedly, all of the toxins are leaving my body. Not sure about that, but I have more breakouts on my face than I have had since high school. According to the website, this is normal and will go away. Let's hope so. I'm trying to go three times a week. We'll see how long this new hobby sticks. :)

A city with no cars?!?

2009-11-09T19:28:00.002+01:00

Yes, that's right ladies and gentlemen... there is a city in this world that contains NO cars! I visited Venice this weekend with my lovely friend Claudia (who I met during RoPa run). I think for the first thirty minutes, I just looked around with my mouth open. Water, water, everywhere!! There are no cars or bikes in the city, because the streets are actually canals. It's one of the craziest things I've ever seen!! When we arrived, it was "acqua alta", which means "high water". The famous San Marco Square was flooded - but, not to worry - this happens pretty frequently, and the city is always prepared. There are risers all over the city that are put down when the flooding occurs, and there is enough room for a single file line going each way to walk along without getting wet. You can either do that, or buy rubber boots. Claudia and I opted for the riser route. It was amazing - the water went about mid-calf on our last day there, and went into the entrance of Saint Mark's Basilica - amazing that this kind of thing occurs!

Anyways... we arrive really early on Friday (and I do mean REALLY early - we had to get up at 4:30 am to catch our flight). When we arrived to Venice via bus, we then had to take an hour long "vaporetta" ride to our hotel. A Vaporetta is like a tram - a means of transportation to move masses of people. We found our hotel, which was in a great location right near San Marco Square. Then, we hit the town - we saw Saint Mark's Basilica, which was great! It was kind of funny to read about it though - most of the things inside are stolen from when Venice was the most powerful city in Europe! We then checked out the Doge's palace, which was kind of a preist-governor guy. Beautiful inside! :) We did a bit of shopping, and then did my favorite thing - you guessed it - EAT! :) The food in Venice is a bit different than the rest of Europe - less pasta and more things like polenta & risotto, less olive oil and more butter. I have to say - the food here wasn't my favorite - a lot more heavy and less savory. But, hey, I didn't turn any down! ;)

KP in San Marco Square - FLOODED! (it gets worse!)

Doge's Palace

These are the roads - no cars, no bikes, no trams - just boats!

Dinner our first night - a regional specialty - pasta with black ink sauce - it turned my mouth BLACK - it wasn't just the pasta that was black like I had had before - it was actually INK on the pasta - kinda gross, but if there is a regional specialty, I want to try it! ;)

We had a pretty relaxing evening, and woke up around 9 to hit the town again. We did a walk over the famous Rialto bridge and saw the Rialto market.

Rialto Bridge

Rialto Market

We visited a beautiful church, and then eventually made our way over to the island of Murano, where the famous Murano glass gets its name. We totally hit the travel wall at this point, and made our way back to our hotel for a nap! However, we got a second wind on the vaporetto, and decided that we wanted to take a gondola ride before dinner. :) There was a gondola stand just outside our hotel, and about 5 guys were very excited to take two young ladies for a ride. :) We paddled around for about an hour. No singing, no guitars, just a nice ride on the canals.

Our romantic gondola ride. ;)

Claudia with our gondolier

We had another nice dinner, complete with lots more wine, and then proceeded to get completely lost. A nice man from Murano not only told us where to go, but walked us there. He wasn't creepy at all, just very nice and friendly. We found that was pretty much the case in Venice - a nice break from the grind of Amsterdam. :)

We woke up Sunday to rain, rain, and more rain. The square was totally flooded - I couldn't believe it!! :)

A couple trying the boot route to getting through San Marco Square in Acqua Alta - holy smokes!

All in all, it was a nice weekend. I have to admit, Venice was not my favorite city in Italy. It was charming, but I'm big on efficiency, and having to get everywhere either by foot or by boat takes FOREVER! Maybe there is a lesson in this for me - that I need to slow myself down. Anyways, I'm glad I got to see it, but I'll consider that box checked. ;)

Pumpkin Mania!

2009-10-31T18:45:00.002+01:00

Okay, friends - let me just be honest. I love pumpkin. I love pumpkin in a BIG way. So, right around this time of year, I couldn't be happier. Well, I didn't THINK I could be any happier... until I got invited to participate in a pumpkin cook-off at work. I had been an honorary participant in the last cook-off, which had an eggplant theme. I just got to taste everything, but didn't get to actually make anything or judge. This time, I actually got to cook, which I love to do! :) I had a few ideas for recipes, but decided to do a pumpkin roll in the end. It was really fun to see what everyone did - we had 8 dishes in all, 4 main dishes and 4 desserts. Everything from pumpkin burgers to pumpkin curry to homemade pumpkin ice cream (complete with homemade cones - holy smokes!). It was good fun and good food! There were four judges, who judged the food based on originality, presentation, and taste. I ended up winning 3rd place, which felt like a big success after being up against such amazing dishes!! :) Can't wait for the next cook-off - ingredient TBD. :)

The spread

The judges - they were required to dress up :)

Dao with her pumpkin ice cream cone

Leslie won 1st prize, which was an apron that said "sexy woman" and has a picture of a hot lady dressed only in underwear... sometimes, I shake my head and smile, thinking "this would NEVER happen at work in the US." :)

Beantown

2009-10-27T19:45:00.004+01:00

Oh, the things we do for love! :) Sean and I have been trying to see each other about every 6 weeks to try to get through this last part of my time here in Europe. He's come here a few times, and I spent some time in Portland back in August. We are running into a vacation time problem, however, so we decided that rather than having either one of us take a whole week off again, we would just "meet in the middle" for a long weekend. The true middle between Amsterdam and Portland is somewhere in the middle of the ocean, so Boston was about the best we could do. It was a 5 hour flight for Sean and about 8 hours for me to get there. It seemed approriate to visit Boston v. New York City since it is also the city that we had talked about wanting to visit on our very first date two and a half years ago! :) It was both of our first times in the city, and we both absolutely LOVED it! :) It was kind of trippy for me - it's one of America's oldest cities, so it felt almost European, but it was full of Americans! Best of both worlds?!?

We both arrived at about the same time on Thursday afternoon. It was so great to see each other after weeks of "counting down"... we always count down the days, then the hours, until we get to see each other. Our method of counting is different though... I believe that you don't count the day that it is or the day that you are actually leaving, so I'm usually about two days less than Sean's count. :) He thinks I'm a BAD accountant! ;)

Rather than getting a hotel, we rented an apartment in a part of town that looked really cute - Beacon Hill. It was so nice to feel like we really lived there, and we checked out some shops and cute restaurants in our own 'hood.

Our first night, we ventured out on the underground system to the "North End", which is where all the Italians live. We ate at this cute restaurant called Dolce Vita, and the owner ended up being from Agrigento, one of the towns I visited in Sicily. He was SO excited to hear that I had been to his hometown, and kept kissing my hand and calling me "Bella." It was cute, and made me feel not so far away from all the great places I have been lately. The food was pretty good, but I'm becoming a bit of an Italian snob... I could tell that the bruscetta was about one day too old (usually, you use about 1 day old bread... this was older than that!) and the espresso wasn't quite right. I'm going to be in for a rude awakening in a few months! :) We spent that evening at an Irish pub, just enjoying each other's company and bad kareoke. :)

Friday we spent the day on the "Freedom Trail". It's a path that is marked with red bricks and goes all through Boston, passing by famous places like the old town hall where the Declaration of Independence was read and the cemetery where Paul Revere is buried. It was a nice little walk through my gradeschool history book. :)

Acorn street on Beacon Hill, where we stayed

The State House

Paul Revere's House on the Freedom Trail

Creepy headstones at an old graveyard

KP with the USS Constitution

View from the top of the Bunker Hill Memorial - 296 stairs! :)

Boston Commons - we loved the fall colors!

We had another nice dinner, and more nice conversation. The thing that I miss most is exactly this - having time to talk for hours... I miss this with Sean. I miss this with my friends. Everyone has tried to make an effort to keep in touch, and it has been great and has gotten me through, but I cannot wait to chat with a girlfriend for hours at a coffee shop or over a bottle of wine. These are the moments I treasure and miss.

Saturday we started the day with a trip to the JFK Memorial Library. Okay, silly me, I thought that since it was called a LIBRARY, it was a LIBRARY. Well, no, not quite. It's an amazing museum and memorial to JFK. I was once again super inspired and enlightened, and saw the "I have a dream" speech for the second weekend in a row. So glad we went. That part of history has always interested me, and it was great to learn more.

JFK Library
After that, we took the subway to Harvard, which is just outside of Boston in Cambridge. We had a nice time just walking around the beautiful campus.

Hah-vahd, dah-ling

Sean near the Business School at Harvard

Harvard by Night

For dinner that night, we went to the place where everybody knows your name, the bar that inspired Cheers. Well, they didn't know our names, but we still had a great time. :)

Yes, Sean, we HAVE to take a picture!

Sunday, my Aunt Carol & Uncle Brian drove into the city to have breakfast with us. It was really nice to get to see them, as it's been hard for me to get to see my mom's side since I moved to Portland. We had a nice visit, and then they drove us to the airport to pick up a rental car. We had done really well with planning up until Sunday... we weren't staying at a hotel, and our flights weren't leaving until that evening, so we hadn't really thought about what to do with our bags... we solved that problem by just renting a car and driving with them! We visited the beautiful town of Marblehead, and then made our way to Salem, home of the Salem Witch Trials. It's especially busy around this time of year with Halloween coming up! :) We visited the Witch History Museum and then just walked around.

Witch Memorial... 19 people were innocently hung/pressed during the Salem Witch Trials

Beautiful East Coast View

When we got back to our car to go to the airport, we had a mini-panic... there was a HUGE Harley parade blocking our car in. We took a deep breath and waited for it to be over... and waited... and waited. It finished up after about 15 minutes, and then we heaved a sigh of relief and made our way to the airport. Saying goodbye is always so hard. To be honest, the whole thing is really hard... saying hello. Saying goodbye. Trying to pretend things are normal when you only get to see each other once every 6 weeks. But, somehow, we manage.

Harley's, Harley's everywhere!

Looking forward to the next time... which isn't too far away! Sean will be here with my parents at the end of November! Can't wait to see all of the people I love most! :)

Oslo...

2009-10-19T19:11:00.005+02:00

This past weekend, I visited another town in what is becoming one of my favorite parts of Europe: Scandinavia. This time, I went to Oslo, the capital of Norway. It's so funny... I'm in love with Scandinavia and I'm in love with Italy, and the two places couldn't be any more different. For as dirty as Italy is (which really only adds to the charm), Scandinavia is pristine; for as artistically beautiful Italy is, Scandinavia is naturally beautiful (and made me super homesick for my naturally beautiful Portland), for as boisterously expressive Italians are, Scandinavians are quietly poingnant. And the list goes on... I think I'm bi-polar (oh yes, I see you out there, agreeing with me!). Anyways, bottom line, I LOVE SCANDINAVIA!! :)

The reason I picked Oslo was simple - I found a really cheap ticket on Norwegian Air! :) But, that was about the only thing that was cheap about the weekend! I was shocked to see how expensive things are there - the 20 minute trainride from the airport to downtown was the equivalent of 40 USD, while a bottle of water was about $5. Let's not even talk about beer (I did indulge in just one!). My hotel was called "Oslo Budget Hotel", and at $110/night for pretty non-luxourious settings (had to put my own sheets on my bed), it ended up being okay. But, who cares about all this - the thing that is important is that the experience was priceless! I went alone, but totally re-charged my battery and returned with a new passion for life (see my last post).

I arrived to my hotel after midnight, and pretty much just crashed into bed (okay, folks, it's no secret that I'm not much of a partier!). I woke up pretty early, and decided to hit the road after enjoying the Scandinavian breakfast at the hotel (which was probably my best meal of the day!). I bought a city pass, because it covered all of my public transit for 24 hours plus covered a lot of the things I wanted to see. My first stop was to the neighborhood of Bygdøynes, where they have all kinds of ship museums to celebrate Norway's Viking heritage. My first stop was the Maritime Museum, where they had 3 Viking ships that had been buried with important people hundreds of years ago. One of them was almost in perfect condition - so cool to see how these vessels were put together:

Viking Burial Ship

Next was a stop to the Kon-Tiki Museum, which houses the famous Kon-Tiki boat that was used in the 1950's to try to prove that people from South America very well could have made a raft and floated to Polynesia... the man who had this hypothesis had seen similar art/architecture in both places and wanted to prove this theory... and he did!

Kon-Tiki Boat - 101 days at sea!

My last boat stop was the Fram Museum - this one holds the boat that made it both to the furthest North and furthest South points on the globe, the Fram. Pretty interesting to read about these voyages as well.

The Fram

That evening, I went to the Nobel Peace Center, which had a great exhibit called "From King to Obama"... it was super inspiring.

Digital exhibit showing all of the Nobel Peace Prize winners

I took a nice long walk along the Alna River on my way to find a spot for dinner... there was beautiful scenery all along the way, including a few small waterfalls! My pictures didn't come out great, but just so you get an idea...

I made it to bed by 10:30pm after a less-than-interesting meal (well, it was interesting in that the menu was a mix of Japanese and Italian... but I'm not sure it was planned that way!), and rested up for my next big day and the part I had been looking forward to the most - the Vigeland Sculpture Garden!

I got up early again on Sunday and made my way out the Museum. Thrifty KP realized that her 24-hour city pass hadn't expired yet, so transportation was once again free (instead of the hefty $5/ride charge that it takes to ride the trams! OUCH!). Being at the sculpture garden made my whole trip worth it for me. Vigeland was an artist that the city of Oslo built a home for on the grounds of the park, and in return for the house, he dedicated his whole life to making the park beautiful. And, beautiful it was. I spent three hours walking around, and I took pictures of most of the many sculptures. The theme is "the circle of life", and I couldn't help but feeling the emotions that the sculptures emitted come from within me as well... You'll see what I mean - check this out:

Beautiful fall weather along one of the paths in Vigeland Park

Haven't we all had a day where doing just this is the only thing that can make it all better?

I can't wait to feel this amount of joy...

Or to be with a man who feels this amount of protection over our wee one...

The monolith - which took 14 years to carve!

I also stopped at the museum, which shows how the bronze sculptures were cast and contains the clay originals.

On my way back to visit the National Gallery, I passed the Grand Hotel, which is where the Nobel Peace Prize winner stays in December when he or she accepts the award:

And then I had a traditional Norwegian meal... nothing to write home about - meatballs, boiled potatoes, and mushy peas. Hearty, but boring.

My last stop before the airport was the city hall, where the Nobel Peace Prize is presented each December 10th. This will be Obama's view when he accepts the award:

It was a quick trip, but I've definitely added Norway to my list of "must come back again someday" countries. :)

Inspired...

2009-10-19T19:01:00.002+02:00

I've recently had two experiences that have totally inspired me, and I want to share them with you...

The first: it was simple. I read a book. It's called Three Cups of Tea, written by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin. I found this book when I was on my way back to Amsterdam after Christmas, and, as I can't pass up English books when I can get my hands on them, I snatched it up. I've been reading a ton, but hadn't picked this one up until October. I started reading when Em got here and couldn't put it down...

The book is about one man, Greg Mortenson, who has a goal of summiting K2, a mountain in Pakistan. He doesn't quite make it to his goal, and on his way down, he gets lost and stumbles upon a small Pakistani village that has never seen a foreigner before. When Greg sees the status of the community's school, he promises that he will return to build the community a school. The book is about his courageous efforts to bring schools (55 in total at the writing of the book) to the most remote parts of Pakistan, and, more specifically, the young girls that were denied an education otherwise. This book seriously inspired me. This was just one man, risking his own life for a cause he believes in. PLEASE READ THIS BOOK!

The second: Visiting the Nobel Peace Prize Museum in Oslo (where the award is presented). Inside of the museum, there was a special exhibit called "From King to Obama", that compares and contrasts the world that existed when King received the prize in 1964 to now (Obama was announced to have received the award earlier this month - he will come to Norway to accept the award on December 10th). Seeing how far the US has come was inspiring, but what was even more inspiring was seeing how the world is looking to US - the people of the United States - to set the stage for the next generation. It's a big honor - and a big responsibility.

I was so inspired at the museum that I bought a book about all of the people that have won the Nobel Peace Prize from the very first one in 1901 to present... just flipping through it, there is everything from the man who started the Red Cross to a woman who re-forested her community in Africa. It helps one to realize... that it only takes ONE to make a difference.

Pit-wolfs in Amsterdam... and Italy!

2009-10-16T17:25:00.008+02:00

haha - so, I keep forgetting that my sister is married, and that her new last name is Wolf! Her nickname is Pit-wolf, which I think is kind of catchy (okay, and scary at the same time!) :)
Em was here from Saturday, 3 October, until this past Monday. It was nice to have family here again... that has honestly been the hardest part about being here. I'm used to being far from home, but "hop on a plane for a weekend to see Mom & Dad" far, not "really expensive ticket plus 8 hour flight plus 6 hour time difference" far. So, spending time with family is really nice. :)

The day after Em got in, she was a very courageous girl - I had borrowed a bike for her, and she and I biked all around the city! I think it's great to see the city like a local, but Em had other thoughts... anyways, we made it home safely and with only a few minor scares. :)

Em with the bikes... brave girl! :)

While I worked on Monday, and Tuesday, Em explored Amsterdam on her own, doing the mandatory tourist things like the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House. When I got home, it was kind of nice to do "normal" things together, like baking cookies! :) I miss doing that stuff!

One batch of cookies into my mini oven-microwave thingy!

On Wednesday, I was officially on vacation, and Em and I flew to Pisa, then took the train to Florence. We stayed there for one night, and went to some of the museums that neither one of us had had a chance to see on former trips to Florence. We didn't over-do the sight-seeing, and really just had a nice time. We also spent WAY too much time and money at the market, but it is just so hard to resist... :) We began our journey to the Cinque Terre in the afternoon on Thursday - train from Florence to La Spezia (about 2 hours), then another train from La Spezia to Corniglia, the cute little town of 240 that we stayed in while we were there! :)

Pit-wolfs on the Ponte Vecchio

Yes, here comes the food! We had a nice pizza (and wine!) lunch at an amazing restaurant in Florence - One of my faves! :)

We got our exercise that day by climbing to the top of the Duomo

The Cinque Terre region created pesto, so we were both really anxious to get to try the real deal... the first night, we went to a restaurant which basically only served a few things - for an appetizer, you choose land or sea, and for pasta, you pick pesto pretty much! It was fun to interact with the guy running the shop - he definitely had an idea about how food was to be eaten, and didn't let us stray from the "proper" way! I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head when I ordered red wine with seafood - he refused to serve it, because WHITE wine goes with seafood! What do I know?? (well, actually, I know that white wine gives me a headache, but que sera, sera, I got the white anyways!)

Pesto with a special kind of pasta from the region that is made so pesto sticks better

After loading up on pasta, we called it a night - we had a long day of hiking ahead of us! Basically, the Cinque Terre is a group of 5 small towns (Cinque Terre means "5 Lands" in Italian), that you can hike to on a trail that runs between. Em and I stayed in the middle town, Corniglia, and hiked one direction one day and the other direction the next. It was a good plan. :) The hike on the first day was pretty strenuous - we felt like we had climbed a few mountains. At the end of the hike, we were estimating how long we had hiked. My guess was about 12 miles - and I really thought so! When we looked it up, it turned out we had hiked less than 5 - it was just THAT HARD. Oh boy! It was amazingly beautiful though, and I loved every minute of it. :)

Our first view of the town right after ours, Vernazza, after about 2 hours of hiking. This was my favorite town - the colors were amazing, and it was great to be on the water! :)

After lunch in Vernazza, we hiked to the next town, Monterosso... on the way there, we started hearing thunder, so we hiked a little faster! Luckily, we just had a few raindrops, nothing serious, so that was nice. When we finally got to the town, it started raining a little, so we just passed the time with gelato (hey, there is no bad time for gelato!). :)

Monterosso

This is pretty much what the hiking was like - a real butt-kicker!

The Cinque Terre's main cash crop is wine grapes, and each town has their own kind of white wine. At one place in Monterosso, there was a place where you could do a sampling of wine from each town, so we did! :)

The Before picture... I am not posting the after! ;)

This is the town of Corniglia, where we stayed, and this was the nice view from our room. We had kind of a crappy room in Florence, so this was so refreshing. We loved the town - the people were so nice and friendly - we really felt like part of the fold there. No one spoke English, but we got by with bits and pieces of Italian and Spanish. :)

Corniglia: Population, 240 (plus 2 Pit-wolfs!)

The next day (after being fueled by a nice dinner at one of the other restaurants in Corniglia - there are 3), we hiked the other direction. These hikes were much less strenuous, which was good, because we were both sore from the day before! :)

Manarola

There is a cute trail between the two last cities, Manarola and Riomaggiore, called the Via del Amore, or Street of Love... it's named that because in the old days, men and women from the two towns would marry between villages, and they would meet here. It was cute! :)

Via del Amore

Riomaggiore

We took a neat walk in Riomaggiore to see the grapes - it was beautiful up there!

Wine grapes

We are DONE! We took the train back after walking back to Manarola for lunch! :)

I think I've mentioned that something is ALWAYS on strike in Italy... and this time it was the trains (again!) on Saturday and Sunday. We were really nervous that we weren't going to be able to get back to Pisa, so we decided to change the plan and take the train to Pisa before the strike started on Saturday evening. We were sad to leave beautiful Corniglia, but happy that we wouldn't be stuck! :)

We really lucked out with a hotel - this was our view:

Yep, that's the leaning tower of Pisa - how freaking cool! I couldn't stop looking at it!

Em with our crostini at dinner - our last dinner in Italy - sigh...

We spent Sunday in Pisa, and of course had to get the obligatory picture holding the Leaning Tower up... however, I don't think the elderly woman we asked to take our picture got that concept! Oh well, I think this is kind of funny:

Pisa is honestly not my favorite Italian city, but parts of it are quite beautiful, and we had a great day:

Our flight got delayed a few hours on the way back due to weather (and, oh, is it just LOVELY in Amsterdam now), so we didn't get back until about 10pm. Em's flight out the next morning was at 8am, so we didn't get much sleep!

It was really great to have Em here, and I'm glad she got to see where I live. Looking forward to more family time very soon - Mom & Dad come in November for Thanksgiving, Dutch-style! :)

She's here...

2009-10-04T12:19:00.002+02:00

Yippy!! My younger sister, Emily, arrived from Ohio yesterday! She got in around noon, and was such a trooper!! We had a nice lunch at home (I've been on a soup-making mission the past week or so... minestrone, pea soup, etc... yum!), and then ventured out into the city. I sometimes forget how foreign big cities can be, so I had to keep reminding myself to warn Em to look out for the micsellaneous bikes, trams, people, etc to look out for! We only had a few near misses! :) We walked around the city for a while, and then I introduced Em to a Dutch delicacy - bitterballen! :) These are little fried meat-gravyish balls. She liked them, and liked the Dutch beer we had as well, but we headed home shortly after that because jet lag was starting to kick in. We made a yummy pumpkin risotto for dinner (pumpkin is one of my FAVORITE things in the whole world!), and then settled in to watch my downloaded episode of Grey's. She did amazing - was up until 11pm, and then slept all the way through the night. She's training for a half marathon, so we got up this morning and went for an 11 mile run! It pretty much kicked my butt, but we had a fun time chatting and enjoying the beautiful weather. Heading out today for a canal cruise, Dutch pancakes, and whatever else comes our way! So nice to have a visitor from home!! :)

There is an exhibit at Museumplein with painted elephants... we liked this one because it was in Delft-style

Em with the bitterballen...

More to come...

Team Event, Euro-style!

2009-10-04T12:08:00.002+02:00

Work's been pretty stressful since the re-org, so now that we have kind of gotten into our new flying formation, my manager suggested that we have a team event after work to reward everyone for their hard work. We decided to go bowling, and then out for dinner at a Japanese steakhouse. My colleagues are a fun mix of different cultures, which always leads to an entertaining time, whether it be singing "I'm Too Sexy" at work, to doing the moonwalk at a bowling alley. It was fun to see a European bowling alley (only about 8 lanes instead of the monster 30-laners we have in the US). We had a nice time, and I didn't embarrass myself TOO much! :)

Jacques showing off his skills... he was all talk though - ended up in 2nd to last place!

Here is the team... one of the most diverse teams I have ever worked on. From L to R: Methoney (Jamaica), Steven (Netherlands), KP (US of A!), Jacques (France), Femi (Nigeria), Guenther (Germany), and Claudia (Mexico)

We had a fun time at the steakhouse as well... always a fun time watching the skills of the chef - this one didn't disappoint - we saw amazing feats of firey steak and were challenged to catching flying fried eggs in our mouths (I made a fool out of myself at this point...). :)

Firey steaks!

We all had to wear kimonos - I promise that we were at a steakhouse and not some strange bathhouse... although that probably wouldn't be out of the question here! :)

Milan

2009-09-22T21:05:00.006+02:00

I realized a few months ago that my time in Amsterdam is growing short, and that I still had a lot of cities on my list of places to go. I started searching immediately for cheap tickets and booked trips to a few of the places that were left - Milan, Oslo, and Venice so far. This past weekend was Milan. What I had hoped to turn out to be a pretty cheap trip really started adding up... the day before I was supposed to fly out, I got an e-mail from the hotel I had booked telling me that they were closed! The problem was that I had already pre-paid the hotel two months ago when I booked it. :( I booked another hotel, but not sure if I'm going to have to eat the money or not... I had already paid my credit card bill for that month, so I'm not sure how the credit card company will handle it. Oh well!

I got in late on Friday night, and, I'm proud to say, did not get lost finding the hotel on the journey to my hotel... actually, I didn't get lost the WHOLE weekend! Wahoo!! Since it was late, I just wanted to get a good night's rest, so I went to bed in my tiny little room. I've travelled enough to know that I need to bring a few necessities, earplugs being one of them. Thank goodness I brought them this time - my room was right on the street, and SOOOO noisy. They were a lifesaver! :)

I woke up pretty early to the sound of hammering... lovely! Decided to get on with the day, so I laced up my running shoes and saw the city my favorite way - via a long run! I meant to only run for about an hour, but ended up being out for two... I always take my camera with me, so it wasn't exactly a hard core run because I kept stopping to check stuff out and take pictures. It was a super great way to start the day! :)

Here are some of the sights on my run:

Sforza Castle - one of the few buildings that isn't new - the city was largely bombed during WWII, so not a lot is left... loved the reflection on this one...

Self-photo of yours truly with the moat in the background

After all this exertion, I went back to the hotel and figured out the day... Milan isn't famous for being a great cultural city, but it IS known for its shopping and opera. I wanted to get tickets to the opera, so I went to the ticket center to buy some. Story of Italy, I tell you, something is ALWAYS broken or closed. I got to the ticket center at 11:45, and they opened at 12... well, they WOULD have opened if their computers were working... I waited around until 12:30, and they finally got the computers to work. I was so happy to finally get to my turn... until I found out that the tickets were 187 euros each! No thank you... I was pretty bummed that I had wasted so much time for nothing, but, oh well. I started my shopping extravaganza next... which began with - the Galleria.

This is the shopping mall right off of the main town square... the original Prada store is in this building. It's gorgeous inside!

KP with her purchases... I got a sore elbow from having such heavy bags! :)

After dropping off all of my purchases at the hotel, I decided to venture out to see the National Monument Cemetery... I love sculpture, and this cemetery was supposed to have some nice ones. I have to say, Italians do death dramatically... all kinds of super sad sculptures and huge monuments in memory of loved ones. It was nice to be in such a quiet place in a busy city - I enjoyed it, if one can say such a thing about a cemetery!

Sad Sculpture

This one was called "Last Kiss"... heart wrenching...

I loved the light on this one... it was a split second in time, and when I came back, the shadow was completely different.

After the cemetery, I walked around some more high-end shopping (seriously - 5000 euro Versace dresses?!?), bought nothing, and then had a lovely dinner at a place called Paper Moon. It was absolutely amazing. A lot of people tell me that they wouldn't want to travel alone because of having to eat alone... to be honest, it doesn't bother me at all... I really enjoy savoring every single bite of these amazing meals. No pictures this time, folks... the setting was intimate, and you already get enough strange stares when you are by yourself, let alone taking pictures of your food. But, I assure you, it was amazing! :)

Sunday began very early for me, as I had tickets to see da Vinci's "The Last Supper" at 8:15am. I got the tickets 2 months in advance, and this was the ONLY time that I could get in. Since the da Vinci Code came out, it's been super popular. Basically, 25 people get in at a time, and you get 15 minutes to view the painting. It was amazing for me... my parents have had the painting in our dining room for my whole life, so, to see it in person, I was blown away. First of all, it's WAY bigger than I thought. Second, it's painted on a wall, al fresco, not on a canvas. Third, it's in a monastery, and the monks had a need for a door at some point, so they CUT OUT the bottom of the painting to make room for the door! It was amazing! I am so glad I got to see it. :)

After that, I went back to Sforza Castle, and got to see Michaelangelo's last sculpture of "La Pieta". It's not commonly viewed, so I had the unique experience of being all alone with the security guard in the room with the statue. It was beautiful. Evidently, M. didn't like the original position of Christ, so he moved him back... he didn't have time to remove the arm that he had already carved, so it is kind of dangling there in the front. Awe-inspiring!

Michaelangelo's "La Pieta"

Mother and son

After this, I went to the famous Duomo to check it out... it is the 4th biggest church in Europe, and quite impressive in its marble Gothic features. It supposedly houses one of the nails from the cross... wonder how many churches claim that?? :)

Exterior of the Duomo

Interior - mass was being said...

When I got outside, they were having a Ferrari festival! :)

After the Duomo, I really was getting bummed that I hadn't seen the opera house, so I paid the admission to the museum just so I could see the inside of the opera house... surprisingly, it looked almost identical to the opera house in Vienna that I visited last year. I was happy to get to see it, even though I didn't actually get to see an opera.

Inside of la Scala Opera House

My camera died after this (poor planning on my part), but I finished up the day with a visit to a museum about the history of Italy (learned about Napolean's rule there - that guy was everywhere!), and a climb to the top of the Duomo, which was amazing.

I was feeling super sick after this, so I went to the airport on the early side to relax. I think it was a combination of too much good food, shopping, and sunshine. Nothing to compain about, really! :)

Looking forward to a visit from my sister next weekend! We're headed back to Italy (in case you were wondering, I have established that Italy is pretty much my favorite country in the world aside from the good ol' US of A!) :)

Still laughing, but... WHAT A WEEK!!!

2009-09-13T10:49:00.003+02:00

Oh my goodness... let's just say that it's a good thing that I have a pretty good sense of humor. This week has been trying at best...

I got in from Portland at 7am on Tuesday after the nearly 10 hour flight. I had really good company on the flight - a really nice girl from Switzerland that lives in Portland now. It was nice to talk with her about her perspective as a European living in the US v. my perspective as an American living in Europe. Living abroad has certainly opened both of our eyes - for better and for worse. The flight went by quickly, and I got in to the airport only to discover that the taxi that I had arranged had come on MONDAY morning instead of Tuesday. No big deal, I just went outside and got a ride with one of the many taxi's that were waiting outside. Had a great time chatting with the driver - he was an immigrant to Holland from Tunisia, which I didn't really know anything about before meeting this guy. A nice welcome home.

As I had been out of the office for two weeks (even though I was working in Portland), I thought it was pretty important that I give my team a little face time, so I quickly showered, found my car (kind of a miracle to remember where I parked it after being gone for two weeks), and boogied on down to Hilversum. I think this was actually a great idea - when I don't have to go into work the day I get in, I usually give in to the jet lag and crash on the couch at some point. There is no sleeping at work, so this was a great way to get over the jet lag. I'm so blessed to have good friends on both sides of the ocean - I was greated with lots of hugs and Dutch kisses. It was so nice to have such a warm welcome, because it was so hard to leave all my loved ones on the other side. I started feeling better nearly immediately.

So, after the small taxi issue, my next issue of the week was that while I was gone, my whole team moved into the brand new "Paula Radcliffe" building. (which is really cool BTW... I'll take some pictures soon!). I had packed before I left, but somehow, only one of the two crates I had packed made it to my desk. I was kind of freaking out, because the crate that was missing contained one of my most prized possessions - my magnet collection from all of my world travels over the past 10 years! I was super bummed to think that this would go missing... and no one really could help me. :( Finally, after two days of getting no answers, I just started going around the building looking through every box I could find... and, guess what?? I FOUND IT! That totally made my day. It's the small things in life that really matter, and my magnets, though they are kind of silly, make me so happy! I love to look at them and reflect on all the amazing places I've been fortunate enough to see. :)

On Wednesday night, I FINALLY got to see Coldplay after booking tickets all the way back in February! I drove down with some friends, which ended up being bottleneck #3 of the week... what was supposed to be a one hour drive took over three hours! We were so sad... we thought we were going to miss the concert! We were so funny... we kept telling each other "Postive thoughts, positive thoughts", and, believe it or not, every time we made up something crazy about Chris Martin waiting back stage for us or Gwenyth Paltrow (his wife) holding our drinks at the entrance, traffic started moving. We made it to the park just in time for the concert to start! The park held NINETY THOUSAND people! And, it was standing room only... which makes it mighty difficult to see in the country with the world's tallest average people! But, the music was fantastic, and they had great screens, so it sort of felt like we were actually seeing them. :) It was truly a great concert. Now, the problem with a large area filled with 90,000 people is getting 90,000 people OUT of a very large area. Which leads to the next bottleneck of the week... the four hours that it took us to get out and get on the road back to Amsterdam. Oh yes... good times. The first problem was getting 90,000 people out through ONE exit (thank goodness for fire code in the US - this is what would happen if there was no fire code, which I'm pretty sure is the case here). Then, getting 90,000 people over a small pedestrian bridge going over the river nearby (I seriously thought about swimming!). Then, transporting 90,000 people by BUS back to the parking areas. Then, getting 90,000 people out of the parking garages. The situation just got more and more humorous to me, as there was really nothing I could do... or maybe it was just the extreme lack of sleep and jet lag. ;) I finally made it to bed by 3:30am. I guess that's one way to get over jet lag! :)

Birthday girl Nagwha & Claudia with some yummy fritjes! :)

The sea of tall Dutchies in front... um, so you see anyone on stage? Yep, me neither! ;)

Well, at least I could see the screen! :)

Okay, so Thursday, no issues. I was super excited on Friday, because I had scheduled the delivery of my new car. Okay, it's not really mine (in Europe, many employers provide cars for their employees), but it's mine for now. I have sort of a strange predicament here - I don't know how to drive a stick shift, which is about 95% of the cars here... so there were very limited cars for me to choose from... actually, there was only ONE left at the lease place. Luckily for me, it was a BMW one series. Yeah, I'm not complaining! :) It got dropped off at 3:30, and I was SO SO SO excited to drive it home. I drove immediately to the parking permit office, since I park on the street and needed to register this new car so I wouldn't get tickets. Got there at 4:45, and it closes at 4:30. Oh boy. :( I hung out at home for a while, and then went to pick up my friend Christa so we could go to Ikea for a few things. On the highway, the "check engine" light comes on, and the car stars shaking. I thought a wheel was falling off or something. We got to Ikea, and I called the BMW help desk. They sent out a tow truck... turns out the engine wasn't firing on all cylinders. Oh, what luck! I was able to get an automatic rental car, which I then had to go to the parking services place to register on Saturday morning. Oh, what fun! :)

Getting the new car towed at Ikea... bye bye, new car!

Saturday, I had made plans to go and meet Karyn for "Monumenten Dag", when all the older buildings in Holland that are usually closed get opened up to the public. My bike was making pretty strange sounds as I was riding it, and it was SUPER hard to pedal. I was covered in sweat by the time I met her. So, after seeing a few sights, we went to a bike rental place to see if I could get a quick tune up. When I got to the store, the guy kind of laughed at me. He said, "You've been riding THIS????", and basically said it was not repairable. So, he showed me a few bikes, promised me that the one he sold me was a very high quality bike, and off we went... I couldn't believe how much easier it was to pedal the new bike! I felt like a new woman!

Bye-bye, old bike! :)

Yeah, I felt like a new woman until the PEDAL FELL OFF!!! Seriously, we weren't more than 3 blocks away when the pedal just fell off of the bike! I took it back, and the guy felt really bad. Thirty minutes later (this was not an easy repair!), we were back in business. Not sure what the universe is trying to tell me with all of these transportation issues... need to have a think on that one.

KP with the new bike and the new bike's pedal...

Despite all of the craziness of the week, I'm still smiling and still enjoying my time here. I guess you have to see the humor in life - otherwise, you'll go crazy. :)

Home Sweet Home... sort of...

2009-09-10T18:19:00.004+02:00

I just got back this week after two and a half weeks in what remains to be one of my favorite cities in the world, Portland, Oregon. It was fantastic to see friends and enjoy my old hometown. I was in town for a tri-fecta of weekends - first, the marriage of my friend Kristin to her husband Rich, then, my 7th (wow, am I really that crazy) annual running of Hood to Coast, and finally, Labor Day weekend.

I think most of my friends know that I am generally not one to sit around... and so trips to Portland put a whole new spin on the word "busy". I actually put together an excel spreadsheet of all of the people I was going to see, where, and when, to keep it all straight. Don't get me wrong - I loved every minute of it! :) I flew in on a Friday, and, despite the 9 hour jet lag, sucked it up to play in a couples golf tournament with Sean. I was SO nervous, because I am not very good yet, but we ended up getting paired with a super nice couple and got 4th place! Jet lag, smet lag! ;)

The victorious couple! :)

Saturday, I got to do one of my favorite things - run with my girlfriends! Our group has changed a bit over the years with various maternity leaves and injuries, but these girls have remained some of my favorite people in Portland. Michelle was actually the first one that I met... way back in 2003 when we were both training for our first marathon. I still remember seeing her and thinking "wow, that girl looks like she could be cool." Up until that point, I hadn't really made any good friends. I then met Raelee & Leslie, who, despite not running with us anymore for various reasons, still remain some of my closest friends. Cristina joined the group after the first marathon, and has been a part of us ever since. These girls just brighten up my day, and their kids add a whole new dimension to our time together! I am proud to say that I pushed Johonna in the Bob for about 3.5 miles and did NOT steer her into the river! :)

KP & Johonna - she loved running with us too - who wouldn't?!? :)

CB with Mateo - one hot mama! :)

That evening, Sean and I went to Kristin & Rich's wedding. It was a really intimate affair, and a beautiful celebration of their love. I was honored to get to attend. I especially enjoyed the taco truck! :)

Sean & KP at the reception

KJ & Rich (her friend made this cute apron for her) :)

I got to spend a few hours with my friend Leslie, her son Samuel, and the Granger family on Sunday. We went to the zoo, but I honestly think the kids liked playing in the sand more than they liked looking at the animals! :)

Samuel & Isla in the sand

The first week was a flurry of working, dinners with great friends, and trying to take care of all the errands I needed to run in the US (buying Pepto & Nyquil, for example! Oh, and peanut butter!)

That weekend was... HOOD TO COAST!! :) I was asked to be on the footwear design team this year, which was a super fun team! A lot of free spirits and creativity for sure. The time went by quickly for me... to be honest, after the 48 hour RoPa run, I think anything would seem short! :)

Leo starting out down Mt. Hood in his nice pink spandex!

I think every Porta Potty in Portland is rented out for this event! Thank goodness!

KP and Umbereen getting ready for KP's second leg on Highway 30

Van #1 at the beach! Waiting for Van #2 to finish!

Sunday after H2C, Sean and I had made plans to go to a golf tournament, but I had a minor freakout about all the other things that I wanted to be doing... every time I go to Portland, I get an itch to head out to Hood River... it is one of my very favorite places. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures (they are on Sean's iPhone), but we had such a great day picking fruit, watching kite surfers, and hanging out at Full Sail Brewing. A perfect day!

The next week was more friends and more work... I feel so blessed to have so many wonderful friends and colleagues in my life. My smile sure didn't fade after the last blog update.

On Friday, Sean and I both took the day off and drove down to Sunriver, Oregon. We did this last year also for Labor Day weekend. It's just a magical place - beautiful nature, cool people, and lots of time to relax.

Our first night there, we took a bike ride along the Deschutes River

Who's who? ;)

Our home for the weekend

Saturday morning, we took a canoe trip - so fun!!

I loved the reflections...

Before we knew it, it was Monday and time for me to head back. It was so bizarre to come back this time... living in Europe seems like such a dream when I am back in Portland. Don't get me wrong - it's been an amazingly awesome dream, but Portland just feels so normal to me. It's hard to believe, but I've already been here for one year and a half. Time to begin the countdown to blast off...

Thanks to all my friends back in P-town for making me feel so welcome and loved. I miss you all so much and am thankful to have you in my life!! xx

Under-developed muscles?

2009-08-28T00:15:00.002+02:00

Okay, folks. You know me. You know that I like to smile. A LOT. I'm in Portland, Oregon right now, and I had the strangest feeling starting yesterday - I am SORE from smiling so much. Yes, that's right. The girl that never stops smiling has somehow starting smiling even MORE.

Here are some things that have been making me smile:
* Getting picked up at the airport by my boyfriend
* Winning 4th place at a couples' golf tournament on day #1 in Portland
* Doing a long run on the waterfront with my amazing friends + one cute daughter in the Bob
* Attending the wedding of my dear friend, Kristin (of Amsterdam fame)
* Not sleeping alone
* Having good food in the cafeteria at work
* Driving in a country where I can read the road signs
* Being surrounded by all of my work mentors - what an amazing support group I have!
* Grocery stores where you can get anything you want... including - PEANUT BUTTER!!!
* Going to work at our beautiful World Headquarters (yes, that's right, going to work makes me smile... I'm sick in the head!)
* Making dinner with my honey
* Spending time with old friends
* Watching my friends' children get bigger before my very eyes
* Hugs

So... not quite sure how my muscles got so atrophied in Amsterdam... I'm sure I smile plenty there. But, I think what I am trying to say is that I am really, REALLY happy here. :)

Hood to Coast is tomorrow... maybe my smiling muscles will get a rest when I'm doing leg #2 at 11:30pm. :)

Copenhagen!

2009-08-12T18:16:00.010+02:00

So, I'm a little slow on updating my blog... but that's only because I've been having so much fun this week! :)

Anyways, last Friday, my friend Leslie and I ventured out to yet another new country - Denmark! We visited the country's largest city, Copenhagen, and had a fantastic time!! This trip was super relaxing, and we spent a lot of time just enjoying the atmosphere - soaking in the friendliness of the people there, the amazingly good food, and the fantastic-ly fun shopping!

The harbor at Nyhvyn - famous for its colorful buildings

Leslie proved to be a great travel buddy - she always does research on two things before she goes to a new city - chocolate and beer. I am asking myself why I haven't been on a trip with her earlier! These are my favorite things to try also (okay, add gelato to the list and I'm a really happy girl!). We ate well the entire trip, trying lots of new and yummy things!

Part of the Danish food culture is the smorresbrood, which is an open-faced sandwich. This place had an amazing "condiments bar", where you put all the toppings you want onto your sandwich creation - fun!

Copenhagen was a great city to just walk around in. We spent a lot of our first day just ducking in and out of the cool shops, munching on yummy food, and seeing the sights as we passed them. It was super hot, so at one point, we found a nice fountain to cool down in:

KP chillin' at the fountain outside Amielborg Palace

Hans Christian Anderson, the famous children's author, is from Copenhagen, and so the statue of the Little Mermaid is one of the city's most famous sights (not 100% sure why - it's just a mermaid, for Pete's sake). Anyways, I of course had to see it! :) That is, me, and about 1000 other tourists! ;)

This picture is for my mom, who wanted to make sure I saw the Little Mermaid - here's the proof I went, MOM! :) Note the huge cruise ship in the background - this was literally bigger than the apartment buildings nearby! How do these things float?!?

Saturday evening, we were lucky enough to meet up with two lovely Nike ladies, Cassie & George (you may remember her "Hen Night" before she moved to Portland), who were in Copenhagen for a market research trip. We met them at a local brewpub and had a grand time. One of the coolest things I have ever seen - freshly hopped beer! Basically, the IPA beer and hops are put into a French press. You let this sit for about 15 minutes, and then press the hops to the bottom. Voila! Freshly hopped beer. Yum! Can't believe they haven't brought this to Portland AKA Beer Capital of the USA yet!

Check this out - cool!

Nike ladies livin' it up:

Leslie, KP, George, & Cuter-than-cute Cassie! Look out Copenhagen! :)

We had a rather late night, but made it up to go for a run on Sunday morning. Leslie had been to Copenhagen back in June with her husband, and when they were there, they met a lovely couple named Matilde & Anders. We met up with them for a Danish-style brunch with an amazing view of the city. It was fun to meet some of the "locals" and get to know what they think about the city they live in.

Matilde, Les, & Anders on the rooftop of our amazing brunch site

Next up: a little sight-seeing. We took a tour of Rosenbourg Palace, which was beautiful, but small, and then we took a stroll through the Design Museum, which was amazingly cool (and this coming from an accountant... maybe there is hope for me!)

Rosenbourg Palace - it was a beautiful day, and everyone was out having a picnic

Cardboard chair at the design museum - best not to drink in this chair - it might disintegrate!

That evening, we had a nice dinner at a converted pharmacy from the 1800's. Our waitress was amazingly funny, and we had a great time just chatting and enjoying our meal. That's one of the things that I will miss most when I go home... I always feel so rushed to finish my dinner. We were at the restaurant for probably 3 hours, and felt no pressure to leave. Very nice.

After that, we went to the craziness that is Tivoli Gardens. It's a combination of gardens and a huge amusement park, complete with rides and a laser light show. Les and I decided that we are both WAY too old to go on these rides (I seriously got knots in my stomach just thinking about it). But, it was fun to watch! :)

Cool shot of the swing ride - they sent people WAY up into the air (that's the white line - the people), and then proceeded to swing them round and round until they were dizzy! :)

The laser light show on the water - kind of trippy, but cool also

Monday was our last day in the city, and we decided to rent bikes. Les is amazing at reading maps and navigating cities. Here she is planning our route:

So... one story about the bikes. In Holland, my bike has two hand brakes - one on the left to stop the front wheel, and one on the right to stop the back one. The bikes we rented in Copenhagen had only one hand brake - on the left. They also had back-pedal brakes. At one point, we stopped kind of short, and I forgot what kind of brakes I had, and quickly grabbed both handlebars. When you only stop one wheel, here's what happens: you go over the handlebars as gracefully as possible, scrape your knee, ribs, elbow, and shoulder, and then get up as quickly as possible to tell anyone that saw you that "you're okay, you're really okay". Not that I know what that feels like or anything... but, if you wanted to see a picture of what your ribs might look like AFTER such a fall, here's something I found:

OUCH!!

Crisis averted, Les and I rode our bicycles all over the city. We checked out the alternative neighborhood, Christiania, which is kind of like a big crazy hippy commune. I had strange flashbacks to a childhood near Yellow Springs. ;)

Christiania - don't breathe in too deeply, you might suddenly feel... light...

Reflections in the lake near Christiania...

For lunch that day, we went to the Royal Cafe to try a new phenomenon - smooshies. Remember how I said that open-faced sandwiches are called Smorresbroods? Well, this is that, but prepared like sushi... hence, the smooshie. They were delicious!!

Fun little bites of goodness! :)

All too quickly, it was time to head home. Another great time in another great city. :)

Another Medical Mystery

2009-08-12T18:03:00.004+02:00

"What is this thing?", you may be wondering. Is it a fancy measuring cup? Is it a tool to change the oil in a car? Is it for Dutch pannekoeken stroop? No, no and no. What is it? It is the container that I had to submit my "sample" in for a bladder infection test last Friday. Yes, that's right. No sterile container. Not even a lid. I get to the doctor's office, and the girl at the front desk simply hands me this container, tells me to go into the bathroom, and then tells me that she'll be waiting for me when I came out. Much to my dismay, she was not where she said she would be, so I wandered around the doctor's office with my "sample", trying very hard not to trip (those of you that know me well know that this can be a challenge at times!). Anyways, miracle of miracles, my test was positive (this is not the miracle), and I was able to get antibiotics that day (this is the miracle - Dutch doctors very much believe that the body needs to "heal itself", so getting antibiotics is pretty much unheard of). Anyways, I know that you all love my stories of the medical mysteries of this Dutch wonderland, so there you have it. :) Oh, and I'm all better now. Whew!

Being Spontaneous!

2009-07-27T20:27:00.004+02:00

So, like I said, Sean and I spent last week together... actually, I just took him to the airport (boo hoo). We had a great time re-connecting and building on what we've been working on over the past few months. Every time we see each other is great, and it always feels better and better.

We shared an amazing dinner at Blauwe aan de Wal (where I went KJ's last weekend in town) to celebrate my birthday one week late. We had an amazing dinner and a nice "date night".

Happy after a yummy dinner!

We decided on Friday night that we wanted to have a little adventure. Because Belgium is pretty close, we made that our destination. No bookings, no plans, no nothing. This is NOT travelling KP-style, which made it all the more fun (at times...)

First stop... Antwerp. We had a nice lunch in a cafe, and enjoyed just walking around.

Love on the main square

Our end destination for the day was Bruges, which I hadn't been to yet, but had heard was a cool town. It definitely did not disappoint. We enjoyed seeing the city, but were totally exhausted after a night of not much sleep. We needed a nap, big time (okay, I especially needed a nap. Happy KP quickly becomes Grumpy KP with a lack of sleep!). We went from one hotel to another, and everything was fully booked! :( (this is where the planning junkie in me was starting to this this spontaneity thing was a bunch of crap!). We finally were able to find a place, and after an hour nap, I was SO much better!

We spent that evening drinking beer and just walking around the beautiful city. It was totally relaxing...

Happy again on Markt Square

Beautiful Reflections on the canal

Minnewater Park

My sweet boy...

Oh boy... I had help drinking all of this beer, I promise! ;)

We didn't get up until 10 the next morning, which was so nice! We made our lazy way out the door, and walked back to the market square to get the view of the city. That's usually the first thing I like to do when I get to a city to get the lay of the land. It was beautiful to see all the tiled roofs & canals...

View from the top of the bell tower

Chocolate at one of the many chocolate shops in Belgium - so amazingly yummy!

We took a tour of the "Half Moon" brewery, which was fun. The best part - we got to sample the beer at the end! :)

The Half Moon Blonde Ale

After this, we drove to yet another cute Belgian town, Gent, where we stopped for lunch. We then made our way home and enjoyed our last evening together. It's always so hard to say goodbye, but the good news is that I'll be in Portland in less than a month! :)

Agrigento & Piazza Armerina

2009-07-27T20:18:00.003+02:00

On Thursday morning, Fabio, Karyn, Sam, Tess, and I got up at the crack of dawn to begin the 3 hour drive to Agrigento, which we all really wanted to see. The best Greek ruins outside of Greece, including arguably the best-preserved Greek temple ANYWHERE are all located in this city. I really enjoyed seeing the ruins and imagining what this majestic place once looked like.

Temple of Concord, the best preserved temple. This at one point was made into a Christian church, which is why it is so well-preserved... amazing - it's 5th century B.C.!

Temple of Hera

Temple of Castor & Pollux - this one still even had some of the original marble on top - wow!

Karyn was in heaven here - she loves Greek ruins!

The group - hotter than hell, and ready for gelato! Karyn, Fabio, Sam, & Tess

We stopped at this beautiful beach on our way to the Piazza Armerina. We had a wonderful lunch overlooking the water, and then walked onto the white rock cliff. I thought that it would be hot, but it was surprisingly cool and felt like chalk (left my feet all white too!) So relaxing!

All of us on the rock!

Our last stop of the day was the Piazza Armerina, which is a huge complex that was built in the 3rd & 4th century A.D. The mosaics were amazing, and were mostly preserved when the house got flooded & covered in mud in the 12th century. Much of it was closed for renovations, but again, it was fun to imagine what this must have been like in its glory day.

The "Bikini Girls", one of the most famous mosaics in this building.

On Friday, I celebrated my 29th birthday with a day on the beach. Karyn & I shared the wonderful dinner that I wrote about on my "food" entry. :) Saturday, Fabio and I got up early to take Sam to the airport so he could fly to visit his family in Venice, and then he & I spent the day eating our way through Catania. Our flight got in at 2am on Sunday... I couldn't wait to get to the airport, because SEAN was there to pick me up at the airport! I was sad to end my vacation, but couldn't wait to spend some time with Sean. It was amazing to see him, even though we were both exhausted. We spent Sunday together, but then Sean went to London to visit the city from Monday to Wednesday. I was the one that suggested he go, since I am quickly running out of vacation time (imagine that!), and he's been to Amsterdam, oh, about 5 times now! I was happy he got to see another city, but SO ready to have him back on Wednesday night!

Between this amazing vacation and my visitor waiting at the gate, KP was a very, very happy girl!! :)

Mt. Etna

2009-07-27T20:15:00.002+02:00

Fabio, Alex, and I decided that we really wanted to tour Mt. Etna, the famous volcano on Sicily. It is currently erupting, although not at a "scary" level. The last big eruptions were in 2002, and the tour that we took brought us right up to the craters that were left from these eruptions.

Alex & Fabio at the crater

Lava, lava everywhere!

Our trusty bus... okay, it was our second bus - the first one broke down!

Alex loving life as usual!

K Pitty braving the lava! :)

Siracusa & Noto

2009-07-27T20:09:00.006+02:00

We got up on the early side to head South to Siracusa, or Syracuse. ;) It's another town with some great ruins... these are part Roman, and part Greek.

The Roman Theater - this one was used less for plays, and more for gladiators v. animals! :)

The Orrecchio di Dioniso, which had amazing acoustics! According to legend, Dioniso used to keep prisoners in here to hear all of their secrets

KP at the entrance to the "ear"

The Duomo in Siracusa... built to incorporate pieces of the Temple of Athena that was once on this site - beautiful!

Karyn, Fabio, & I drove to Noto to see the Baroque town, while the rest of the group went to the beach... the town was pretty unimpressive, but the gelato was amazing! :)

Taormina

2009-07-27T19:41:00.003+02:00

After our few days in Palermo, we drove back near Catania to Taormina, where we had rented a house for the week. The house was decent, but definitely had its quirks... the bathrooms didn't really have a shower per se... the bathroom WAS the shower and the shower was the bathroom. Taking a shower meant getting the whole room wet... very strange. Only two out of the four bedrooms were air conditioned, which led to nights of either being too hot or too cold. Our electrical system was easily over-loaded, which led to much running up and down the stairs to reset the circuit breaker. The best part of all? The HUGE terrace. We spent many hours out there soaking up the sun (and the wine...). It was such a relazing location... I truly, truly disconnected from work during my time away. It was an amazing feeling!

We're now up to Sunday... we spent the day in Taormina, where there is an amazing Greek Theater. Because this island has been conquered by so many different people over the years, there are amazing ruins from many different times. The theater is actually well-preserved, and Fabio went to a concert in it later in the week.

Another "through" picture - view of the city through the theater

The Greek Theater

View of Taormina from the Theater

Love this shot of the beach!

Greek Theater Ruins

After viewing the ruins, we went to the beach called Isolabella... another rocky beach, but, again, it was so relaxing!

Palermo & Monreale

2009-07-23T18:17:00.003+02:00

Okay, now that Sean is gone (sniff), I have some time to update my blog. I want to write everything before I forget!

So, we arrived in Sicily late in the evening of Wednesday, July 8th. We spent one night in Catania (on the east coast of the island), and then the next morning, picked up our rental cars and drove to Palermo (kind of the northwest part of the island). I was so happy that Alex was driving Karyn and I around - this driving was scarier than some places I've been in Asia. Even if I knew how to drive a manual (I don't), I'm pretty sure I would never even try to drive in Italy! In some places, there were no traffic lights. You just GO when you can, and you must have confidence. If I were driving, I think we would STILL be stuck at a left turn. ;)

Palermo was a pretty cool town. We spent three days in the area. The first day, we got in pretty lunch and spent most of the hours that things were open (everything closes between 12 and 3) having a two hour lunch. We decided after that day that we better do things differently afterwards or we'd never see anything! After lunch, the girls went back to the hotel to swim, and Karyn, Alex, Fabio, Sam, and I explored the city. The sites were marginal compared to other places I've been in Italy, but the city still had a charm all its own.

Chiesa San Cataldo

After seeing a few beautiful churches (filled with mosaics, which I love!), Karyn and I walked back to the hotel. On the way, we stopped through the beautiful Botanical Garden. It had some amazing trees that I have never seen before! They were called Banyan trees, and they grow sideways AND up and down... they kind of send shoots out of their branches. It's really cool! :)

Banyan tree with lots of shoots coming out

Karyn in the beautiful garden

The next morning, we got up on the early side and drove to the small town of Monreale. There isn't much there besides an absolutely amazing church full of beautiful mosaics. It was cool to see all the familiar Bible stories laid out in mosaic-form. There were over 2000 mosaics inside!

The mosaic over the alter

Mosaics along the aisle

Karyn & Fabio in the cloisers at Monreale

I love trying to take pictures "through" something... this is the cloister from a different angle

After Monreale, we were ready to quit the sight-seeing for the day and hit the beach! We stopped by this quaint little beach... really a local place. It wasn't a sand beach, but I was still happy to soak up the sun, read my book, and take a dip in the clear water. Ahhh....

Our beach haven...

Our last day in Palermo, Alex, Karyn & I went to the Capuchini Catacombs for a sight unlike anything else I've ever seen! The catacombs house hundreds of bodies from the 1500's onwards. Some of the bodies were presevered using something special which cause the bodies to still look almost lifelike. It was kind of cool, but kind of creepy at the same time. After about 30 minutes, we were ready to get out of there! When we returned back to our car, we found this:

MISSING HUBCAPS! Only in a town run by the Mafia... yikes!

"Shifty"

2009-07-23T16:07:00.002+02:00

Thanks to my cousin Beth for sending this to me. It brought tears to my eyes.

After visiting Normandy last year, I had a whole new respect for our veterans. Here is a moving story about one of the men who braved D-Day, Shifty:

Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. If you've seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them. I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn't know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the right gate, and noticed the "Screaming Eagle", the symbol of the 101st Airborne, on his hat. Making conversation, I asked him if he'd been in the 101st Airborne or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the 101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served, and how many jumps he made. Quietly and humbly, he said "Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so, and was in until sometime in 1945 . . . " at which point my heart skipped. At that point, again, very humbly, he said "I made the 5 training jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know where Normandy is?" At this point my heart stopped. I told him yes, I know exactly where Normandy is and I know what D-Day was. At that point he said "I also made a second jump into Holland, into Arnhem ." I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . . and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of D-Day. I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France , and he said "Yes. And it's real sad because these days so few of the guys are left, and those that are, lots of them can't make the trip." My heart was in my throat and I didn't know what to say. I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in Coach, while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have it, that I'd take his in coach. He said "No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy." His eyes were filling up as he said it. And mine are brimming up now as I write this. Shifty died on June 17, 2009 after fighting cancer. There was no parade. No big event in Staples Center . No wall to wall back to back 24x7 news coverage. No weeping fans on television. And that's not right!! Let's give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet way. Please forward this email to everyone you know. Especially to the veterans.

Rest in peace, Shifty.

"A nation without heroes is nothing." Roberto Clemente

The FOOD!!!

2009-07-21T21:03:00.005+02:00

Okay, so if you know me, you know that I LOVE to eat (thankfully, I also love to run, otherwise, I'd have a wee problem on my hands!). I went on a pretty serious diet for the three and a half weeks before vacation so I could eat whatever I wanted and not come home any fatter than I already was! :) Final tally - pre-vacation weight loss - 7 pounds. Vacation weight gain - 3.5 pounds. When you see what I ate, you'll be wondering how this is possible! :) I tried to take pictures of anything unusual that I ate... hopefully this is as fun for you as it was for me. Otherwise, more to come...

Pizza our first night in Catania... we got in really late, but were starving. I ate this around midnight, and it was mighty tasty! This was probably my favorite pizza the whole trip (despite half of it being burnt!) It was called Pizza alla Norma, and was made with eggplant and ricotta cheese. Eggplant is really common in Sicily, and I ate it at least once a day! :)

The morning after our pizza, we made the two hour drive to Palermo. We ate at this restaurant, which is famous for its fried yumminess, on our first night there. It didn't disappoint (I even loved my fried spleen sandwich... yep, that's right!)

We rented a house for the 7 of us in a town called Letoianni (which we fondly called "Little Johnny"), and cooked dinner there three times. Okay, I lied. ALEX cooked us all dinner, and we happily ate every last bit on our plates. This evening, we started with a caprese salad (mozzerella, tomatoes, pepper, olive oil, and basil), and finished up with figs covered in melted gorgonzola cheese. Sound strange? Maybe a little... was it delicious? You betcha! :)

Pure yumminess - the figs + gorgonzola & caprese salads... we couldn't eat any more after this, even though Alex had planned for Pasta Carbonata!

Something that is really popular in Sicily (because it is SO darn HOT - over 90 degrees F every day!) is the granita... it's shaved ice with mainly lemon or almond syrup... my favorite was the almond one. So refreshing on a hot day!

So, I have a little rule that I try not to break when I go to Italy - AT LEAST one gelato a day. This day, this happened to be my second, and i don't have a problem with that. This is supposedly (from two guidebooks) the best gelato in the WORLD, so how could I NOT try it? :) This one was interesting - it was rose flavored. Tasted kind of like eating a flower, but it was so deliciously creamy and smooth... mmmm....

Since Sicily is surrounded by water, there is tons of fresh seafood... I decided that I had to try a seafood pizza, just because I thought it sounded kind of crazy. And, let's just say, pizza and shellfish DO NOT go together. :(

Our cheapest meal of the trip... Alex, Fabio, and I all ate for 10 euros - TOTAL at this Italian mama's kitchen. These were sweet dough filled with all kinds of yummies. I had... eggplant! :)

Another fun Sicilian food tradition - brioche con gelato. It's an ice cream hamburger. And, yes, I ate one!

Our evening tradition on our wonderful terrace - Spritzes! :) Alex loved to entertain and serve us these yummy Italian aperativos! :)

This was most likely the best meal I've ever had in my entire life! Karyn and I went out on our last night to celebrate my birthday! The location was amazing - we ate on the terrace of a restaurant that overlooked the sea and the Taormina beaches. This was a "cannoli" stuffed with swordfish... my main dish was also amazing!

Happy Birthday to me... the chocolate cake was my pick, of course! :)

Swordfish is one of the most common fish that is caught in Sicily... this was the first one I had ever seen, at a fish market in Catania... it really does have a sword! :)

My lunch on our last day... I had to try it, because it was Triglia fish, like my mother's maiden surname.

Sean's here this week, so the diet is off, but I'm back to it after he goes back to Portland! :)

A fantastic trip!

2009-07-21T18:59:00.002+02:00

I spent July 8th through July 19th on the beautiful island of Sicily off the coast of Southern Italy. It was all-in-all a great trip, filled with beautiful sights, amazingly good food (yes... the South Beach diet was out the window!), and great friends, both new and old. I'll break this into a few posts... starting with my favorite subject - yes, that's right - FOOD! :)

On the Left - Sam, Fabio, Karyn, Alex
On the Right - Tess, Sharon, KP

A Very Happy 4th of July!!

2009-07-05T09:36:00.010+02:00

I had so much fun last year having a 4th of July party that I decided that I would host the 2nd Annual 4th of July party this year. The one thing I didn't like last year was that it was inside (I don't really have a "yard", and my deck is tiny!). This year, I decided to try for an outdoor BBQ. After a 20 minute call with about 6 people, I finally found out that I was unable to have the party in the park that I wanted to have it. I decided to have it in the Amsterdamse Bos, which is a really big park that I run at a lot. The biggest difficulty was that the parking area was about a 15 minute walk from where we wanted to have the picnic - we had a TON of stuff to bring in! So, we had to drop all the stuff off as close as we could, then carry it the rest of the way. What a workout!

Okay, I lied. The biggest difficulty was finding ice cubes. I think that people don't use ice cubes here - seriously. I went to two different places, and neither had ice! Now, considering I had about 75 beers that were NOT cold, I was mildly freaking out. I called a few places, and finally found a place that was open. Leslie and Erik were there by that point (and thank god for them - they were a lifesaver!), and so we drove to the place and picked up 6 bags of ice - for 18 euros. Holy smokes! Leslie couldn't hold back - she asked the guy what the heck kind of ice cubes they were for 3 euros a bag. Well, evidently, they were German distilled springwater. Well, thank GOD we had high quality ice cubes for this posh party! ;) I'm just glad we found some!

We got to the park a little later than I was hoping to (ice cube debacle, plus a not so nice encounter where KP's short fuse temper caused her to get into a fight... uh-oh), so the beginning was a little stressful with trying to get everything set up. But, we finally got everything set, and the disposible grills were lit. Ah, yes, the disposible grill. Possibly the best invention ever. Do these things exist in the US? I never had seen one... it's basicially a little tin pan with briquettes inside, some kindling, and some starter blocks. You light it, let the charcoal get hot, grill, then throw the whole thing out. It was genius for this day, because I had so much other stuff to bring home. Can't wait to do it again! :)

Last year, I had everyone bring beer from their own country - this year, I had everyone bring a side dish or dessert. Luckily, I have a bunch of great cooks for friends. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Saturday was not just Independence Day for America, but Independence Day for me as well - from my diet. ;) Never in my life has a beer tasted SO GOOD! :) (and the strawberry shortcake, rice krispie treats, potato salad, etc.)

I realized at the last minute that I had left all of my "play stuff" like frisbees, footballs, etc, back in storage in the US, so I tried to think of some other things to do. Childhood games came to mind, and, yes, all of my friends, willingly, and competitively accepted challenges to the egg race and the 3-legged race. It was SO much fun! :)

There is a Dutch word that doesn't really exist in English - "gezellig" (gutteral gha-zell-igh) It means "cozy", but with people. This day was definitely gezellig, and no one really seemed to want to leave. We stayed until the sun went down (which in N. Europe is close to 11pm right now). What a wonderful 4th of July! The only thing missing was the fireworks, but we had a red, white, and blue sunset, so I'll call it complete! :)

The cake that I made, that my mom always used to make - complete with funfetti frosting (yes, I finally found it, Al - good hiding place!)

Alex getting the disposible BBQ's going

haha - "American food" from the international store

Karyn (one of the three Americans there) & Alex

Erik (one of the other three Americans) & Leslie - without them, there is no way I could have come out of the day sane! They were great!!! :)

Get ready for the international egg race - Greg (France), Kevin (Scotland), Fabio (Italy), Alex (Italy), Claudia (Belgium) - what a mix! Oh, and Claudia won! :)

KP goes for the egg race - I lost!

Nice action shot of the "winner of winners" egg race - everyone wanted to keep doing it! :)

3-legged race with Steven & Anthony in the lead (notice KP with Belinda WAY in the back - I couldn't stop laughing long enough to run!)

A gezellig night

It's Amsterdam! Lots of people just rode their bikes here! Not an option for me with all the stuff!

Good times, good friends! So thankful I met lovely Claudia at RoPa run! She's becoming a very nice friend!

Hope everyone back at home had a fun and safe 4th of July!! All my best!! :)

A Sad Goodbye

2009-06-30T20:43:00.002+02:00

This weekend was one long goodbye. Time is up for my dear friend and favorite travel buddy, Kristin Jones. I couldn't be more happy for her though - she's moving back to Portland to live with her fiance, whom she will marry in August. It was still super hard to say goodbye though! Good travel friends are hard to come by!

Friday night, Kristin, Karyn, Gulsun, and I went out to dinner at an amazing restaurant (and I don't say that about many in Amsterdam). The service was absolutely the best I think I have EVER had - US, Europe, Asia... anywhere! The waiter described in perfect English the taste sensations that we would have in our mouths - I could taste the food before we even ordered. We didn't have to beg for a refill of water, and were even given a bottle of water for free (a sheer miracle in a somewhat, ehem, tightwad country). The food was amazing. I'm on a vacation diet right now (South Beach, if you are curious), so I'm really limiting my carbs. Despite this, I was still able to come up with a 3 course meal that was absolutely delicious!

The second course - leg of lamb with polenta and artichoke-esque vegetables

One kind of interesting thing about the restaurant was the location - it is RIGHT in the middle of the redlight district - kind of a calm pocket surrounded by absolute chaos. As we left and wandered back into a sea of tourists trying to catch a glimpse of the girls, I took this picture so you can get an idea of what it looks like:

Pictures of a prostitute in her window are forbidden, but each red light you see has a scantily clad woman dancing in a window underneath it... kind of hard to get used to!

I went home feeling very content. I got up the next morning for my long run, which for part of I had company - my friend Dana and her son Issac. :) This was the first run we have been on since she moved here, and it was nice to have the company.

I finally made an appointment to get my hair cut, which was long over due - the last time I had it done was February! :) I felt like a new woman. I was starting to get pretty sad about KJ leaving before my haircut, so we made arrangements to meet for a drink afterwards. What was supposed to be a quick drink turned into 3 hours of laughing & remembering all of our fun experiences. I also got to be a part of KJ's last plate of bitterballen... that strange Dutch delicacy:

mmm... fried mystery meat!

Sunday morning, it was a tearful goodbye at the airport as I dropped of KJ, her cat, Moose, and 4 suitcases at the airport. I'm going to miss her so much, but the fact that we will eventually end up in the same city is reassuring. Instead of weekend trips to Istanbul or Scotland, now we'll take a quick trip up to Seattle or down to San Fran... not bad! :)

I was feeling pretty down on Sunday, and I think that my friend Leslie could hear it in my voice when we were talking on the phone. She came over to meet me for lunch, and then we had a nice bike ride to find a good location for my 4th of July picnic this weekend. Hanging out with her totally cheered me up. I am a very lucky girl! :)

A lot of exciting things are coming up: 4th of July picnic this weekend, a trip to Sicily with my colleagues next week, my last birthday that begins with a 2, and a visit from Sean! My, how this summer is flying by!

I think I have my trip to Portland confirmed - I'll be there August 21st through September 6th or 7th. I'm running Hood to Coast again (I think this makes my 7th year!), and working from our World Headquarters. Can't wait to see everyone in beautiful PDX! Order me up some good weather! :)

Another Weekend in Holland...

2009-06-22T20:19:00.003+02:00

With all the change that is going on at work, I've been making a conscious effort to relax... Fortunately, I was able to keep my job, but it's become much bigger, so I'm finding less and less time to just chill out. Friday night, I turned down a few invitations that sounded fun, and instead, treated myself to a massage. It was fantastic! :)

Saturday, I had a great long run along the beautiful Amstel River, then met Winnie for lunch at the Bijenkorf, a nice department store with a cafe on the very top floor of the building. Winnie went back to the US on Sunday, so it was nice to get to see her one last time before she left. :) When I was walking back to the tram (or so I thought), I took a wrong turn, and ended up in the Red Light District! (I also did this on my first weekend here, but, man, I thought my sense of direction had improved since then!). I stumbled upon the Old Church, which was great, because I had been wanting to go to the photo exhibition that was there, World Press 2009. It's an amazing photo show of all of the best news photography of the past year. I really, really enjoyed it!

The organ within the church

It was fun to see the modern photography within the walls of this ancient building - a nice contrast

After the photo show, I drove to Rotterdam to hang out with my friend from work, Gulsun. I saw this as I pulled up:

This is a tradition in Holland... when the student gets passing grades at the end of the school year, they hang their bags out the window to celebrate.

Gulsun and I had a great time hanging out, and then I spent the night there. We got up on the early side to go to a bikram yoga class. Now, if you have never been to one before, let me describe - it's yoga in a really, really hot room, probably 100 degrees. You sweat out all the "toxins" in your body during the course of a one and 1/2 hour class. I kind of enjoyed it, and kind of couldn't wait for it to be over... not sure if I will do it again or not! :)

Had some nice time to relax and work on my scrapbooks on Sunday, and then met an out-of-town guest for dinner. Ended the weekend feeling rested and caught up... only to start work again today and feel totally overwhelmed again. :( I think it will be better within a few weeks, but for now, I barely have a minute to think, let alone chat by the water cooler. :(

A weekend full of fun and friends!

2009-06-15T06:19:00.004+02:00

Something happened this weekend that hasn't happened for a while... I was actually in Amsterdam! This was the first weekend in a month that I was actually sleeping in my own bed, so I was pretty excited to have the weekend to spend with the great friends that I've made here.

Friday night was a girls night out and a low-key celebration for the engagement of my dear friend Kristin. We wanted to celebrate before she moves (sniff!) back to Portland at the end of this month. We had a lot of good laughs and a lot of (ridiculously priced) gin & tonics before the end of the night. I'm going to miss that girl!

Ladies Night out - Leslie, Winnie, Ditte, KP, KJ - look out!

Saturday, it was a beautiful day in Amsterdam, and, guess what? I spent nearly the entire day inside! :( With being out of town so many times in the past month, I needed to get some things sorted out - including all of my winter/summer clothes. I'm happy to say that four trash bags of clothes and three trash bags of shoes to the donation bin later, my closet is happily converted from winter to summer (although I'm concerned that summer hasn't really made much of an appearance yet...). That night, I celebrated the birthday of my friend Dao and called it a somewhat early night (early is midnight here... still getting used to that). :)

Sunday was the best day by far. Kristin and Winnie (who is on her "design immersion" drip from Portland) drove with me to Hoge Veluwe, which is a huge nature preserve and art museum about an hour away from Amsterdam. At the entrance, you can borrow a free white bicycle and pedal all over the beautiful park.

Some of the 1700 free bikes at the park

Of course, it was pouring down rain when we got there, but KJ came prepared with three rain jackets (I think that she learned that I'm a bad raingear girl when we went to Scotland).

KJ models her lovely rain cape - not sure what happened to ther other leg!

We pedalled to the art museum, filled our bellies with some yummy food, and then, the sun came out. We spent a few hours touring the beautiful sculpture museum (which, if you read this on a regular basis, you know is my favorite form of art!).

KJ and I at the entrance to the museum

Rodin's "Squatting Woman"

A sculpture called Marta Pan - it floated on the water - gorgeous!

This one looked like a stairway to heaven, but was closed to visitors because of "an accident"... hmmm...

This was the way the sculpture garden was set up... totally out in nature... part of it was pine trees, and it just smelled SO GOOD!

Next, we realized that we only had 20 minutes left before the art museum closed. We were totally bummed! We quickly browsed through the great collection of Van Gogh's, Picasso's, and Renoir's... definitely a place I need to come back to! Because there had been a mass exodus near closing time, we got outside and there were only 4 bikes left. Two worked, one was a kid's bike, and one had a flat tire. Winnie and KJ took the good ones, and I was left with three options: 1. Be totally uncomfortable and try not to bang my knees on the handlebars of the kid's bike, 2. ride with a flat tire and hope not to bend the frame of the tire, or 3. ride Dutch-style on the back of one of the girls' bikes. I chose option #3. I'm getting pretty comfortable with this, and it was a fun way to see the park.

It was a fantastic weekends filled with great friends!! :)

Barcelona

2009-06-11T20:57:00.005+02:00

So... where to begin? While I was in Portland, Sean and I saw each other, and, a few weeks later, we decided that, while we've had some hard times, we want to try to make it work. He came to visit last week, and we spent a few days in Amsterdam, then took a trip to Barcelona to see this great European city together. We had a really nice time together, and it's great to have him back in my life.

So, without further ado, I present to you... Barcelona!! :)

To start, why did we pick this city? Well, when we finally figured out a time for Sean to come, I started looking for flights to all the big cities that are still on my list... Transavia had round trip tickets to Barcelona for 80 euros, so that was a winner! I love discount air carriers! :)

The trip from the airport to our hotel (which was actually an apartment) was a little over an hour... and, even though I speak Spanish, everything was in Catalan, so I was having a hard time figuring out if we were going the right way! We eventually found our apartment, which was in an absolutely PERFECT location! My manager owns an apartment in the same building, so his recommendation was spot on. It was nearly 10pm at that point, but, in Barcelona (and Spain in general), that is about the time that dinner begins. So, Sean and I headed out and found a tapas place. One word: yum!! :)

Our first found of tapas and first pitcher of sangria!

We hit the hay pretty shortly thereafter, and started the next day with a guided walking tour of the gothic part of the town. While our tour guide was super nice and perky, what she had to say was not so interesting... and we were pretty glad when it was over!

Next on our list... a stroll down La Ramblas, which is the main drag of Barcelona. It's amazing - you can buy pretty much anything you want... food, paintings, birds! :) There are also tons of strett performers just waiting to snap into action as soon as a euro or two is placed in their buckets.

View of La Ramblas

During our stroll, we stopped in at a market, and really enjoyed checking out all the fresh fish, fruit, and meat... these are always fun places to observe people and pick up on a local slice of life. We had a big lunch at the market (this is the biggest meal of the day, since dinner is eaten so late). Although... I always try to order things that I've never had before, and the cold melon soup, I have to say, just didn't do it for me. ICK!

Fresh Seafood!

We next just walked along the harbor and beach, which only recently became nice - before the Olympics in 1992, this was basically an industrial wasteland. They did a great job making this space useful.

Silly Kids...

After a short nap (I'm getting more and more laid back on these trips... it is, after all, a mini-vacation!), we went to the Picasso Musuem, which was really well-done. It was amazing to see the progression of his art from childhood (which looked "normal" to me) to adulthood (as he got more and more into his own interpretive style - this is the art that I "don't get"). We had an amazing dinner that evening at a restaurant that my manager booked for us... I spoke Spanish the whole time (think I was feeling confident after all the Sangria we had been drinking that day), so that felt good. :)

The next day, we got up and headed out to La Sagrada Familia, which is Gaudi's masterpiece. It's been under construction since about 1870, and there is pretty much no end in sight. The church is free to the public one day a year, and, guess what? This was the day! It wasn't too packed, thankfully, but there were no tours being offered, which I was kind of bummed about. The church was beautiful, and it was really cool to check out all of the symbolic pieces that make up the building.

The original exterior, portraying the birth of Christ, that was finished during Gaudi's lifetime

The ceiling of the church - beautifully done

This was kind of our "Gaudi Day"... our next stop was one of the houses that Gaudi designed in the town, Casa Mila. His style is "modernist", and some people describe his work as "a cake left out in the rain". It was fun and whimsical to look at for me... I feel like I learn so many new things every time I travel. :)

The exterior of the house

Some of the interesting chimneys on the rooftop - 30 in all

Our lunch that day was somewhat interesting... we went to a restaurant recommended by Rick Steves, but all of the menu was in Catalan... Sean and I just picked a few things and crossed our fingers. I lucked out with a chicken leg (still on the bone), but Sean got basically a whole grilled fish - skeleton still included. We shared everything, including the dissection. :)

We walked around that neighborhood a bit more, and stopped into Mango, which is one of the accounts that I work on... I was so excited to see some of the shoes that I worked on:

SP09 Mango - Nike Scandal Mid

Next stop... the park that Gaudi designed, Park Guell. Sean and I just enjoyed some time in the sun, walking around this beautiful park. The benches were all done in mosaic, which is something that I've always loved.

Park Guell sitting on the famous benches

We had to hurry back home, because we had tickets to see the symphony at the Palau Musica de Catalan that evening... I wanted to go just because the interior was so beautiful... it certainly didn't disappoint:

Amazingly beautiful stained glass skylight

Sunday was our last full day in Barcelona... we'd had a pretty relaxing time so far, but this was by far our most relaxing day. We spent the morning walking through parks, and eventually made our way to the beach, where I found a great patch of sand... um, yeah, right behind 5 Spanish girls with their tops off. I am not sure who was more uncomfortable - Sean or me! :) I'm still a topless sunbathing virgin - I just can't do it!

Barcelona Beach

Feeling really relaxed and content

Last stop... the magic fountains... these fountains were at the top of a big hill, and, on certain days, have music and light shows in the evening. This was one of my absolute favorite things. One of the songs was even from the Disney movie "Sleeping Beauty", which was my favorite as a child and made me really happy! :) A very relaxing end to a really great trip.

The beautiful fountains

The next day, we had an early flight, and made our way back to Amsterdam. We decided to be tourists in Amsterdam, and rode bikes through the city and out to a cute little town called Ouderkerk. We had such a fun time just chatting and enjoying ourselves. I think that was my favorite part of the whole trip.

A windmill we passed during our bike trip

All in all, it was a nice visit, and I'm excited about the future. Thanks to friends and family both near and far for all of the support. I love and miss you!

Two Days, Three Countries... on Foot!

2009-06-01T19:33:00.006+02:00

This past weekend was the event that I've been training for since February - the RoPa Run, a relay race that is 530K from Paris, France to Rotterdam, Netherlands. It was a great weekend consisting of many miles run, many calories consumed, and many new friends made. Nike sponsored two teams, Courage and Lowlands Express. Being a sports company, let's just say there was a little friendly competition involved. ;)

Here's how it went:

We all met at the Nike campus at 7:30am, packed up the vans we'd be living out of for the next two days with clothes, and packed up the campers we'd be eating out of for the next two days with food. I was amazed at how this works, because it was so different than the other relays that I have run. Each team actually had a CAMPER with a catering staff to make hot meals for us during our breaks. Each team also had two masseurs that rode in the campers to massage our poor muscles... it was fantastic! :)

The start of the race - go Lowlands Express!

We got to Paris (which wasn't exactly Paris... the Eiffel Tower was no where in sight - I'm pretty sure we were somewhere on the backside of Charles de Gaulle Airport... but I guess it is technically Paris), and our team started the race at 5:00 pm. This is the cadence of how things worked: Van #1 (which I was in), sends out their bikers and Runner #1. Biker #1 rides in front of the runner and reads a map, while Biker #2 stays behind the runner for protection. Runner #1 runs about 2K (or more or less depending on how the runner is feeling, the weather, bathroom necessity, etc...hehe). When Runner #1 is done, he/she tags Runner #2 and jumps back into the van. This process gets repeated for Runners #3 & 4, and keeps on going until the checkpoint with Van #2, which was usually between 3 or 4 hours. Once we got done with our first set of legs, a hot meal was waiting for us, along with a massage, and about 1 or 2 hours of sleep. My highlight of the first leg was a part of the race where the van couldn't access the runners. So, what we had to do was have 3 runners go out, and two would ride bikes while the other would run. We did this for about an hour. It went through the French countryside, which was just beautiful with lots of wheat fields and old French farms made of the traditional greyish brown brick. It felt so relaxing... the running came easy.

Beautiful church in the French countryside

Running through the French Countryside

After our break, it was about 1:00 am and time to start again... most people would think running at this hour is awful, but it was again just so peaceful. The stars were so vivid in the sky, and it was fun to pick out constellations with the bikers to pass the time. This leg again went by very quickly, and we got to rest again.

To be honest, I was getting pretty mentally exhausted, so I don't really remember the 3rd leg, except that it was hot! I did get a pretty nice tan last weekend... :)

The 4th leg again went through the night, and it was so fun... we were running through towns in Belgium, and each town had a huge party to celebrate the RoPa teams. It was great! :) The only problem was that people were getting really drunk and wandering through the narrow streets, so it was kind of dangerous for our driver. This was the leg where our team finally passed Courage, which was kind of fun. We had to keep trying to maintain our lead, because we had runners of all abilities in both vans. We ended up neck and neck at the end, and ended up saying "screw it"... all of the runners got out of both vans and we all ran into the checkpoint together as one big team. It was a powerful moment...

A bit of entertainment in a small Belgian town - everyone was Dutch for the day!

After we all ran in, I had the best 5 minutes of the whole race... a shower! Oh, did I forget to mention that we didn't have a shower in all of this run? Oh yes, we were all smelling oh-so-sweet by this point. It was great to feel clean, and then get another hour or two of sleep.

The 5th leg was a challenge... the whole leg had no van access, so we got two bikes from our Van #2, and then had 5 runners in the course the whole time - 4 biking, and one running. We alternated as much as we needed to, which was often by this point. We ran through the Dutch town this time, and it was amazing - they were up at 5am to cheer us on. I have to say, a tear came to my eye more than once (I know, I know... sappy dork, but, proud of it!). I've just never experienced such great community support in any race. One town even had dressed up as characters from the Wizard of Oz, and made us a yellow brick road to run over - it was so fun! :) It felt so good to get to the last checkpoint and hand over to Van #2 so they could bring us home to Rotterdam!

We finished all together in Rotterdam. I have no idea how many hours it took, and I really don't even care to be honest... for me, it wasn't about the time... it was about the physical and mental ability to do something like this. We had a great team, and that was made it possible and pleasant. I will definitely do this event again! :)

Crossing the finish line with the whole team - caterers, runners, drivers - everyone who made this event a success. It was such an emotional moment for all of us.

Nike Lowlands Express Van #1:

L-R: KP, Belinda (biker, S. Africa), Roman (biker, Kazakhstan), Arnold (driver, Netherlands), Lan-Lan (runner, Netherlands), Karen (runner, England), Claudia (coach - Belgium), Anthony (runner, Netherlands), Eduardo (runner, Italy)

Thank you, Nike!

PS - I woke up this morning after running the equivalent of a marathon and a half with NO PAIN in my legs. There is something to be said for having masseurs in your group... wow!

Haggis, Neeps, and Tatties - oh my!

2009-05-26T18:38:00.005+02:00

Wondering what that means? Yep - so was I, as I stared perplexedly at the menu at The Witchery, an amazingly good restaurant in Scotland this past weekend. We had Thursday and Friday off for Dutch holidays, so Kristin and I ventured off to beautiful Scotland for the 4-day weekend. :) We flew into Edinburgh on Wednesday night, spent Thursday there, and then on Friday took the ferry over to the Isle of Arran. This was my favorite trip yet... I think it had something to do with getting off the beaten path. I live in a very busy city, and most of the time when I travel, I go to really busy cities. This trip was way more relaxing - the Isle of Arran was small and relaxing. I had pegged myself as a city girl, but I guess as they say, "you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl." :) (Oh - and, if you were wondering, haggis is a Scottish dish that is made up of sheep's intestines, which is actually quite tasty, neeps are turnips that are pureed, and tatties are potatoes - yikes! And that is in English!)

Edinburgh was a cute city. Kristin and I decided to stay in a youth hostel to save on money a bit, and, after checking in, immediately decided that we are too old for youth hostels. The fact that we forgot to bring towels should have clued us in... oh boy! We got in pretty late, so that night, we had our first sampler of whisky (Kristin is quite the afficionado) and haggis (and, yes, as I mentioned above, it was delicious!). After dinner, we went to a cute bar called Sandy Bell's and listened to some live Scottish music... this is one of my favorite things to do in any city, so it was a treat. The kindness of the Scottish people was apparent as soon as we got there, and it lasted for our entire trip. :)

Thursday morning, we first ventured off to Edinburgh Castle, which is high on a hill and has been built and re-built many times (common story in Europe). We took a guided tour of the castle, which included a few chapels, a moving memorial to those lost in WWI & WWII (1/3 of the male population died in WWI - staggering!), the royal jewels, and the prisons.

KP & KJ with the guard at the Castle - poor guy must HATE his job!

St. Margaret's Chapel at the Castle - the oldest building on the site

After the castle, we stopped into a factory to see how the traditional Scottish tartans are made... that was cool! Each of the original families of Scotland has their own pattern... wish I was Scottish! :) There was also a good exhibit of how kilts have been worn over the years - this was especially interesting to me as I have been reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, which takes place in Scotland. The characters just came to life in my mind when I saw this. :)

Fabric ready to be made into kilts...

We also took a "ghost tour" of the vaults that were built under one of the bridges. It gave me the eebie-jeebies, but I'm still not sure I believe in ghosts. KJ's camera did stop working during the tour, but I'm not quite sure if it really was broken or if it was just user error. ;)

After our tour, we had to pick up our rental car... which is usually not a big deal. Except it was a manual... and you drive on the other side of the road. Yep, which pretty much ruled me out from doing ANY driving. I'm lame... what can I say? ;) I was a good navigator though, KJ told me so! :)

The next morning, we got up with the sun, as we had a 2 hour drive to get to the ferry that was leaving at 9 for the Isle of Arran. KJ drove like a superstar, and we made it there with plenty of time to spare.

Entering the ferry... and feeling like we were getting swallowed by a whale!

After about an hour ferry ride, KJ, Elmo (our little car), and I made it to the beautiful island. I was instantly relieved. The week prior had been extremely stressful, as the layoff announcements at Nike were finally announced. I am lucky to have a job, but did lose a few friends. It's not easy to stay or to leave. :( So, this was a great break to get my mind off of things.

Here are some words to describe the island: tranquil. green. peaceful. breathtaking. full of free-range sheep. mysterious. mountainous. welcoming. I could go on... I think you can tell how I felt about this place.

After checking in to our cute little hotel (which actually had forgotten to write down our reservation!), we took a tour around the island. We stopped at the local brewery, which uses the strain of hops from Mount Hood! (small world!) Next stop: the Isle of Arran Distillery, which makes the best whiskey in Scotland. I'm not really a huge fan of whiskey, but the location was amazing!

Isle of Arran Distillery

As we were leaving, some of the free-range sheep invaded the front yard! Unbelievable! :)

We continued North up the island, and our next stop was to the ruins of the Lochranza Castle. It was magestic:

Next, we did our first hike, which was just a short 1.5 mile out and back through 6 stone circles. These were used as burial sites during the Bronze age.

The biggest of the 6 stone circles

And, alright, loyal readers, you know I can't go on a trip without taking pictures of my food. :) Here is a collage:

Top: Our whiskey the first night and haggis
Bottom: Fish 'n' chips and mushy peas, meat pie with chips and steamed carrots (um, I didn't eat the carrots!)

After all of our adventures, we stopped for dinner at a cute seafood restaurant. You know how cute we think it is when we hear British people talking? Well, I think that Americans on the Isle of Arran are just as rare, so when we ordered our food, the waiter kind of giggled at us... we were not sure what was going on, and when we asked, he said, "it's your American accents". hehe. Cute.

We got a good night's rest (as we had pretty much every night, with the exception of the day we had to catch the ferry), and the next morning, had a hearty Scottish breakfast (eggs, sausage, bacon, potato scone, tomatoes, and mushrooms), and then hit the road for the hardest hike on the island: Goatfell Mountain - 2800 feet of climbing fun! The only problem was that it was raining and windy!!! Okay, now, I had brought water RESISTANT clothes, but they were no match for this weather. I was soaked before we even got to the trailhead. But, not wanting to be a whiny baby, I sucked it up and hiked for 4 hours. We didn't quite make it to the very top, but it was so foggy that we really didn't miss much in terms of view... just lost a little pride when we turned around. It was a real butt-kicker.

The trail on the way up Goatfell Mountain

KJ and I about 1/4 of the way up - already totally soaked, but still smiling! :)

We spent the afternoon at a Scottish pub (no, I am NOT an alcoholic!), talking with the locals, who again were entralled with the fact that we were Americans (it's kind of nice for people to think that it's cool to have Americans around - usually I feel like people think we are idiots.) We had our last dinner at a cute little pub, and I had my most pleasant customer service experience yet. I collect pub glasses, and there was one at this pub that said "Isle of Arran Brewery". I really wanted it, so I asked the guy at the bar if I could buy one. He just smiled at me and said, "Aw, just stick it in your purse when I'm not looking. It's no problem." Wow!

The next day, we had to catch the ferry back to the bigger island, and then we drove to some amazingly beautiful abbeys along the coast of Britain and Scotland. These were abbeys built for the monks around 1100, and they were destroyed by fighting between the Brits and the Scots around 1500. The shells remain, and, though they are not what they once were, they were beautiful. We stopped at only 2, but there are several more. I would love to come back and have more time to spend.

Melrose Abbey

Dryburgh Abbey

We got back late on Sunday night. I didn't want to leave. Scotland will definitely be a place I go again! :)

Taking the bad with the good...

2009-05-17T21:18:00.002+02:00

Okay... I know that I complain about Dutch customer service... a lot. But, I think I have a valid reason - it's really, really BAD!!! A prime example occured on Friday evening. Thursday, I had gone to our local "Target-esque" store, Blokker, to buy some yoga and pilates DVD's that were on sale. I get home, pop one in, and, though it is in Dutch, I'm enjoying it... until about 5 minutes into it, the screen went all scrambly and my DVD player totally froze up. I tried this 3 times, and, frustrated, tried the other one. Same thing happened. Well, I thought, I'm taking these suckers back! So, Friday, I left work early so I could get to Blokker before 6 (oh yes, everything closes at 6 here - VERY convenient for those of us that actually have to work!). I got there, and explained my story to the guy at the video desk. He decides that he needs to try the DVD's before he will take them back... and, they work. I'm pretty frustrated, because they definitely did not work on my DVD player. He told me he would have to talk with his manager about what to do. He comes back, and I know the news is bad. He tells me that because of all the piracy that happens with DVD's, he can't take them back. I was furious! These are the things that just drive me crazy. In the US, this would have been an easy return, no questions asked. I definitely am not a DVD pirate! Oh boy! So, I left in a huff, swearing in my mind that I would get the heck out of this country as soon as I could. Don't worry, I haven't booked any plane tickets yet, because...

Saturday, I woke up with a better attitude. I went for a nice long run, enjoying some beautiful sunshine. I had a few things I wanted to do, but mostly wanted to relax, as the past few weeks have been pretty stressful at work with the impending layoffs. So, first stop was the pharmacy. I had a prescription that needed to be filled, and was prepared for yet another sticky situation. But... guess what? The girl was actually helpful. And not only helpful, but friendly. And, guess what else? So, our taxes may be astronomical here (52%), but that does buy you something... my prescription for 6 months worth of this medication was only 25 euros - without any insurance. In the US, even with insurance, the same amount would have been at least 80 dollars. So, okay, I was feeling a little more re-assured with Dutch society at this point. Leaving the store with a smile on my face, I made my way to a cute little garden shop down the street. And, guess what? Another helpful and very friendly girl was there to help me. And, I spoke to her entirely in Dutch. That totally made me feel good, because it means I'm acually learning something and getting more confident with my Dutch speaking. So, I bought a bunch of flowers, and then went home and planted them on my terrace. Planting flowers makes me happy. :)

And here is the finished product:

A few dinner with friends and a trip to the movies to see Angels and Demons rounded out the weekend. All in all, it has been great.

Kind of the calm before the storm... tomorrow we are supposed to find out more about the re-structuring at Nike. So far, all we know is that 240 jobs at the European Headquarters where I am working will be eliminated (out of about 2000). So, please keep my friends and I in your thoughts. Regardless of what happens, this is going to be an emotional week.

All the best to you and yours! xx

Forgot... or blocked out???

2009-05-16T16:58:00.004+02:00

Oh my gosh... I can't believe I could leave this part out of the Paris post from last weekend... I reached a major milestone in my driving... going around the "Charles de Gaulle Etoille" - which is the huge roundabout that circles the Arc d'Triomphe in Paris. Karyn was pretty insistent that it had to be done once in one's lifetime... I was pretty sure that I could live without doing it, but gave in to peer pressure. :) I have to say, it was one of the scariest things I've ever done, but I did it. Here is the proof:

Oh boy... heart attack on-coming!!

KP is slightly freaking out at this point... and has not even entered the roundabout yet!

A picture that I took during my first trip to Paris in July '05... this is the traffic in the roundabout from the top of the Arc d'Triomphe... you'd be scared too, now wouldn't you??? :)

I'm spoiled... I know! :)

2009-05-11T22:13:00.002+02:00

Yes, I know... I'm a very lucky, very spoiled girl. And I intend to take full advantage of it! :) This past weekend, I drove to Paris with my Francophile friend Karyn. She's been to Paris around 15 times, and so her knowledge of the city is much more complete than mine. We left work at around 3:30pm on Friday, thinking that after the 5 hour drive, we'd be to Paris in time for a casually late dinner. That's what you get when you plan... traffic was TERRIBLE!!! It took us nearly 7 hours to get there, so we checked in and had just a quick dinner in our cute neighborhood (St. Germain). I crashed early - I was exhausted from the drive! I got up at around 9 and went for my long run in the city (Karyn's kind of a night owl, so I'm not even sure she heard me leave!). I ended up getting completely lost and ending up in a part of Paris that I didn't even know existed! I learned a trick a long time ago though - just run along a bus route, and then you always have maps to figure out where you are. So... I was not where I WANTED to be, but I wasn't totally clueless as to where I was. It was just a detour - about a 5 MILE detour, but it all worked out. It's so inspiring to run in this city - how can you not be excited to run past the Notre Dame or the Louvre?!? :) I got back to the hotel and woke Karyn up, and then we began our shopping excursion. Since we have both seen most of the touristy things, we kind of skipped most of that this trip... and focused on fashion! :) I didn't get too out of control, but it was fun to see how some of the most fashionable people in the world shop. :)

Sunday, we got up around 9 again, and we parted ways for a few hours. I really wanted to tour the Invalides, which is where Napoleon is buried, and Karyn went to an art museum that she hadn't seen yet. The tomb is pretty fascinating - evidently it's like 5 tombs in one (2 tin layers, something else, something else, something else, and then the marble on the outside that you can see). There is also a WWII museum on site there, which was fascinating. It was cool to read more about all the sights that I saw with my parents last summer in Normandy.

Invalides

Napoleon's Tomb

After that stop, I met Karyn at the Musee d'Orsay, which I had NEVER been to, despite many of my friends telling me that it is the best museum in the world. It was pretty darn fantastic. I enjoyed the sculpture especially - more of my favorites - Rodin & Camille Claudette. Before we knew it, it was time to head home. A nice weekend in my favorite city with a great friend. :)

Karyn & I in the Orsay Museum - it used to be a train station - can't you tell?? :)

Better shot of the museum

My very favorite sculpture - "Maturity" by Camille Claudette

Until next time, Paris! :)

Essentials

2009-05-05T19:02:00.003+02:00

Did you ever think about how lucky you are to be slathering your Jif Creamy peanut butter on a slice of bread? Or how about rejoiced at using "normal" stick deoderant rather than some strange aerosol version? Taken joy at that yummy swallow of pink goodness when you have an upset tummy? Well, these are all of the things that I am missing while I'm here... they are simply products that you just can't find here. So, when I go home, I load up! There are other things that I usually buy (popcorn, Rice-A-Roni, cake mix), that I am pretty stocked up on, but I would say that this American goodness was about 10 pounds! So happy to have it here though!! :)

PS - this 5 pounds of peanut butter will last me about 2 months... I know, I have a problem!