1/28/2014-1/31/2014

My life is starting to slow down and get back to normal. I flew home Tuesday morning at 6am. So I am now back in Melbourne. I have not missed a workout since Monday which means at least 2 hours of ironman training every day this week. I have so done tons of laundry cleaning, studing and house work as well. My highlights were rock climbing Wednesday, catching up with Kat on Thursday evening, seeing Frozen Friday morning, and belated birthday dinner with friends Friday evening. Slightly productive, more just getting into a routine. 

Now I'm all caught up, hopefully I'll avoid falling behind again for a while. 

1/23/2014-1/27/2014

Santos Tour Down Under and Adelaide

After getting back to Melbourne, I repacked and had a quick turn around to South Australia for the weekend.  I got into Adelaide at 10am which gave me time to reassemble my bike and go to the bike expo before my host for the weekend(Damien) got done with work.  A cool new bike for anyone who is looking is this year’s Trek TT(Speed concept 7 and Speed concept 9) which minimizes wind resistance from both the front and the side. We went out for dinner at the Unley bike festival and then went to bed early to be ready for the ride in the morning.

Friday morning we started the Bupa challenge at 6:30. The Bupa challenge is 154km and follows one of the stages of the Tour Down Under. 

We rode in the morning the pros did it in the afternoon. I struggled a little bit. I think it was more from jet lag and less from lack of fitness but I could be wrong.  There was a guy along the route with a banner that said, "I love Madeleine's" so we stopped for a photo. (Forgive us for looking sloppy it was the top of a hill)

So I’m going to start training harder next week.  At the finish we ate lunch and played in the ocean.  A channel 9 news reporter saw us and took a video of us standing in the water. After seeing the awards for the day we rode another 50km to our accommodation for the night.  I really struggled. There was a surprise uphill and I was not having any of it. I think that it was mostly mental fatigue, slowly and surely we made it to McLaren. Dinner in McLaren was amazing. I don’t know if the food was really spectacular or if I was just that hungry but I really enjoyed it. We stayed at a cute bed and breakfast with amazing breakfast. I had cereal, yogurt, fruit salad, eggs, toast, and tomatoes. After breakfast we headed out on our bikes to do a winery tour. The bikes hurt a bit but it eased up after a few hours. We went to 3 wineries and bought 7 bottles of wine. After the wineries we went into the main part of the city to watch the Tour down under. We saw them twice once at a café and once on a long uphill of the last loop. 

Then we got tricky and met up with another friend who was in town for the race. We all had lunch at a delicious chocolate shop and then got him to take the wine and some of our supplies back to Adelaide for us.  The 40km ride back to Adelaide was nice. The pain from the morning had subsided and it was a beautiful trip down the rail trail.  We got back in time for dinner and went to an amazing Tai restaurant, so much good food.

Sunday we celebrated Australia day and were a bit lazier.  Breakfast, then the farmer’s market before going to see the end of the tour down under. The last stage was a 50 lap course so the riders passed by every few minutes. They zoomed around the track looking relaxed. We got stuck on the wrong side and just missed seeing the finish. To make up for our bad placement during the race we found the best place possible for the awards. Lying on the grass on an island in the middle of a pond we watched the presentation while eating strawberries. Then Cadel Evans 5m away from us in slow motion with no helmet on. It was incredible.

 After the end of all the Tour festivities we made our way down to the night market for Australia Day festivities. We watched the parade and then met up with our friends for dinner, fireworks, and to get out stuff back. We had a perfect spot directly across the river from where the fireworks were being launched. There was one the exploded just after it was launched, barely off the water.  Oops. But it did look cool.

Monday was another early morning we had a 9am appointment in port Adelaide to Kayak with Dolphins in Mangroves. The dolphins were beautiful but I of course liked the mangroves better. 

 

I think that I had replenished my energy after the bike ride because I was paddling relatively lightly while my partner relaxed in the back seat and we were beating everyone else by miles. 

Not that it was a race I was just enjoying being on the water.  We had lunch on the beach, played in the waves, and then biked back to the city. We spent the afternoon playing short course golf. I wasn’t as bad as I had remembered being. Vietnamese for dinner and then early to bed for my 6am flight back to Melbourne. 

1/3/2014-1/22/2014

So I was in the United States for 18 days and I was really bad about blogging, mostly because I was doing so much driving.

I started by going to Homestead hot springs with my sister Abbie and my friend Christie. It was a lovely relaxing weekend at the spa, for me at least.

Then I went to Morgantown, WV to enjoy the polar vortex.  I really wanted to go snow boarding for my birthday on the 7^th but it was so cold that I only managed about 3 hours before giving up.  I did have a fantastic ice cream cake from cold stone.  It was sweet cream with cookie dough and a fudge center, covered in chocolate.  It was nothing like I imagined but still delicious. 

On the 8^th I headed to Missouri to visit my mom and grandparents where they live about an hour outside St. Louis.  It was an extremely long drive but my plans weren’t organized enough to fly.  My sisters (Gillie and Rachel) were there until the 10^th along with Rachel’s boyfriend Seth. We had a nice couple days of  playing Plague and watching My Little Pony. It was great to see everyone.

On my way back from Missouri I stopped in Cincinnati to visit my friend Jessi. We talked and ate pizza while she finished making guitar straps to sell at a guitar show the next day.  I joined her at the guitar show in Columbus and helped her to sell straps. It was tons of fun. You can see her straps on Etsy and at http://www.nowherebear.com . The designs are premade but she does the rest of the sewing and leather-work herself.

I headed back to WV for a running date with Bethan who I hadn’t seen since high school.

Then I went to Washington/Baltimore for a visit to Chrisite, Sherri, and Erica.  I think Connor was even bigger than he was last time I visited Christie earlier this month. He grows so fast!

I stopped in State College to visit Heather on my way over to Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh I had brunch with Sean, got food poisoning, did some shopping & banking, curled up on Gillie’s sofa, and then met my friends after their run. It was Kevin’s birthday so there was cake and more friends than usual.  I briefly visited Monica before she had to go to bed. We made plans to meet up for lunch but I had a persisting stomach ache and slept through it.

With my visit almost over I had a few days back in WV to pack, ski and make cheesecake. I had a lovely lunch of cheesecake and soup with Gillie and her housemate Rachel for my last full day in the US. 

On Monday I had one last ski and 1 last burger at Burgatory before heading back to Australia.

The flight back was long and the flight attendant in my area was rude. We ran into trouble in Sydney after a wasted 5 hours of sitting on the plane and hoping to get things fixed, they transferred us to Qantas. Qantas is a very nice airline. ipad entertainment in every seat….. And 31 hours after take off I made in to Melbourne.

It was so great to see my friends and family. You’re all wonderful. Sorry for anyone I wasn’t able to catch up with. Hopefully I will be able to next time. Now that I’m back in Oz I’ll be better. 

1/2/2014

I was up at 5:30 and out the door by 6am: partially because I was excited to be going home, partially because I was uncertain about my transportation.  I took a bus to the train station, missed my stop and had to walk back to the train station.  I found that my train wasn’t running and took the replacement shuttle on the other side of the station….So much walking with heavy bags.

I got to the airport 4 hours before my flight which gave me time to find alternative arrangements…My flight was cancelled. Not the whole thing just the Newark to Pittsburgh portion.  I wasn’t keen on spending the night in NJ so I called and looked and developed plan B, C, and D.

My flight was about standard. We had in seat monitors again so I watched Gatsby, Epic, Enough Said, and I love you man…None of which I had seen before. I again booked well and had an empty seat next to me unfortunately the girl from the isle seat took it so I still had a person next to me.  It was fine, she was on birthright and was fun to talk to.

When I got into Newark the roads were starting to get bad and there were no hotels available in the area so I got a train to Washington DC.  I was able to stay the night with Christie and Doug because they are absolutely the best ever.

1/1/2014

At the empty bar last night I had asked for a breakfast recommendation for my last day in Tel Aviv.  I was told to go to café Sonya, that it’s an absolute gem.  I looked it up on trip advisor and walked the 4km there to find that I was in the warehouse district nowhere near the café.  Then I walked to a bus station to realize that the second location was incorrect too. I finally found in at about 12:30 by which time I was starving.  The recommendation was a good one. It is a small café with a garden patio. They gave me tea to start with then I got an amazing Israeli breakfast and Chi tea.  It was delicious. After that I did a bit of shopping and walking.  I went to visit Estella who had made me leave a bag of things at her place in so that I would have to visit.  I spent an hour showing her pictures, discussing my trip, and discussing her week. She asked for my honest un-bias opinion of whether Jordanians or Israelis were nicer and I told her that the Jordanians were much kinder.  She didn’t appreciate that. Knowing that it was my last night in Israel I went in search of Laffa. Yummy, yummy Laffa. Worth the mile I needed to walk to get it. 

12/31/2013

I was going to do the tour of the old city that I had missed yesterday but changed my mind and did the New City again.  I found it very difficult to travel around the old city as a single woman.  I should have pretended to be married but I think my general curiosity paired with the fact that I was a lone female is what gave me trouble. Anyway I was exhausted by the old city and went to the New City instead.  The New City is predominately Jewish. I went to Mt. Hertzl, the Knesset and then the Museum of Art. The museum of art was actually really good. I saw many of the originals that I had seen the replicas of yesterday.  They also had a fantastic Escher exhibit and some really good modern art.  It’s not MONA but it is a good art Museum.  I wish I had spent more time there. Much better than the museum in Tel Aviv.

At 4pm I got a bus back to Tel Aviv.  It was really busy so I had to wait for a few buses.  I got into my new place just before 7pm.  I met Nicholas my host.  He was lovely.  I recommend airB&B when you travel.  My 2 experiences since Estella have been just lovely.  After meeting Nicholas I showered quickly and met friend for drinks.  All of the bars were really crowed for New Years. We stayed out till 11:30pm before my friends left since they had to work in the morning.  I walked along the beach and decided to get a drink in a bar that was much less crowed than expected.  At about 12:05 I went out to the beach with a small group of random people and we had a count down.  It was very low key. Tel Aviv refuses to do fireworks claiming that New Years is a Christian holiday(though it totally isn’t) Counting from 10-1 was enough for me so I headed home and was asleep at around 1am. It was low key but fun.