Join the Moovement

Imagine my surprise this morning when I boarded the Northern line this
morning and saw a man wearing a cow costume. A few moments later, I
heard mooing further down the car and realized there were several
people wearing cow costumes. Some people smiled, some laughed, while
others could not be bothered. Some people even made eye contact with
fellow Tube riders (!!!).
When they hopped off a few stops later, they had managed to brighten
up a few people's days.

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoFjYLO-J3Y&feature=youtube_gdata

Prague Castle

Prague

So our weekend in Prague has come to a close. For the late May Bank
holiday, we decided to visit Prague, the capital of the Czech
Republic. Interesting fact, most of the geography we learned in junior
high became outdated by the time we graduated high school. Prior to
1992, Czech was combined with Slovakia and was known as
Czechoslovakia. Now it is its own country again and has another twenty
years of capitalism after its separation. Sitting on the Vvalta
River, Prague is a beautiful city and its easy to understand why it
has long been the capital.
We left London early Friday morning, checking into our apartment
before noon. We ate a late lunch, took a nap and then caught up with
our good friend from college, Kate. She was in Prague for work and
hung out with us this weekend, flying back to the US the same day we
returned to London. With plenty of sun in the evening we visited Old
Towne Square and saw the astronomical clock.
The next day we started bright and early with a trip to Prague
Castle. The castle is a complex of buildings, centered around St
Vitus Cathedral. The boys enjoyed the castle grounds where they were
free to roam in the pedestrian only area. At the end of the day we
even took a horse drawn carriage around Old Towne.
For our second day, we rode on the furnicular railway, went through
the mirror maze, ate lunch on an island in the river and visited the
Spanelska synagogue. The best part of the day was the synagogue where
they had a Jewish Museum and we learned about the history of Prague's
Jewish population. It reminded me how horrible the Holocaust was and
makes me wonder how people can hate others of different faiths.
While we there, we kept ourselves fueled up with Czech cuisine like
goulash, dumplings and of course beer. We shopped a little, hunting
for Czech made marionettes, beer steins and garnets. Overall we had a
brilliant time and will have fond memories of Prague.

How time flies

Wheww, when I finally got the chance to relax after the marathon, I
was able to reflect on how quickly the last year has passed, how
things have become usual and how other things just aren't. I feel
pretty confident with my job, enjoying the work and the people.
Weekends are time to hang out with the family and picnic at one of the
many local parks. I have not driven a car in four months and we have
our weekly grocery order delivered to the house. Jacob calls his
diapers "nappies" and Christian's household chore is to empty the
rubbish bins. Other things that still strike me as "different" are the
grocery stores ( we order ours just so I don't have to confront the
oddity"), being surrounded by lots of people who speak different
languages, and the light switches outside the bathroom, not inside.
Even with the differences, we are enjoying our time here. Cheers!

London Marathon

So I did it. I finished the London Marathon yesterday with a time of 4 hours, 30 minutes and two seconds. A personal best for me, I finished this marathon around eleven minutes faster than I finished the Walt Disney World Marathon in 2004. This PB is safe as I have no plans to ever do it again.

I started training for the marathon at the end of January. Bryan signed up to raise money for the YMCA but came to the realization that the nagging ache in his leg was a stress fracture and wasn't going to go away. I had been running a few times a week, four miles at a time, not really training for any races. He had already managed to raise half of his commitment and I did not want to disappoint those who had donated. So we contacted the YMCA and off I went.

Bryan put together a training plan for me building from a measly six miles all the way to a twenty mile run. In addition to a weekly Saturday morning long run, I fit in runs during my lunch time, before work, and even ran to work once a week. My running routes took me through Hyde Park, St James Park, Green Park, past Big Ben and Westminster, all the way to the Millenium Bridge. Even with our busy travel schedule, I still managed to run when we visited Venice (imagine running across all those bridges) and Barcelona.

After finishing my twenty mile run two weeks before, marathon morning dawned overcast and cool. I caught the tube to Charing Cross where I then caught a train to Greenwich. Along with a few thousand other runners, I walked up the hill in Greenwich Park and waited for an hour before getting into our corrals. Even with such a crowd, I was amazed at how patient and respectful everyone was. When we finally moved to the corrals, I was in the first corral based upon Bryan's predicted finish time of three hours (way too fast for me!).

When the race started, I got across the start line in less than a minute and took off fast. My first mile was a nine minute mile followed by another 9:30. I managed to keep the pace up and figured if I felt okay to keep on going. My pace gradually got slower after mile eight but I had banked so much time, my spirits didn't dampen. The entire route was packed both with runners and spectators. I think my second most favorite part was crossing Tower Bridge which was packed with people and is an amazing bridge. My favorite part was kissing my boys at mile 23.5. Okay, so that and crossing the finish line! Lon-DONE!

Barcelona Cathedral

Veneto