A Note Of Thanks
I woke up this morning to find this message waiting for me. I’ll be honest – it made my morning. And now I am off to write my own letter.
So I found your senior pic you gave to me! while i was cleaning my car and I just wanted to drop in and say
1) you are a fantastic person!
2) I am so grateful for your friendship (even though we have not really talked in forever)
3) I feel like I owe you so much because you were one of the best friends ever at writing me on my mission and you will never really know how much I appreciated that and loved getting every single one
4) You are seriously so great! so dedicated! and just one of those people that is not afraid to go for it!
5) I look up to your determination and hard work at doing things, it always seems like you just got the whole world figured out, and what you want from life, and how your going to get it.
6) because of these great qualities you are one of those people that when I think about how to make my life and self better i think about you. and try and be just a little bit more like you!
7) today someone from Brazil wrote me a letter thanking me for my work and stuff down there and it made me feel so great that I wanted to pay it forward, and I hope this made you feel great too! because you are! the end!
Two Weeks In Kansas
I never thought I’d visit Kansas, much less visit Kansas two times in two weeks. …but I did. And this is what I experienced:
Alot of flat land. However, I must say that overall, I saw quite a bit more greenery during my two Kansas trips than expected.
The schools I visited in Kansas have beautiful architecture. Who knows why, but when I was younger, I always pitied kids who had to go to school on a campus with those ugly industrial looking buildings, rather than buildings like these, with the beautiful ornate design.
So, this was the hotel where I stayed during the 2nd Kansas trip. It was a super nice hotel that A. seemed too nice of a hotel to be right off of a college campus for the price and B. also doubled as a: tanning salon, had terrance bars, observation decks, and last but not least, a subterranean night club, AKA “The Cave”.
A view from one of the observation decks:
Traveling is wonderful, unless you’re talking about maintaining a workout routine. I’m not one of those hardcore people that MUST workout every day…but after sitting on a plane all day or not really moving much during my work day there…I feel antsy and know I won’t sleep well if I don’t get some sort of physical activity in. So, on my trip to Lawrence, I decided to walk to dinner rather than drive.
The walk between the hotel and the downtown area was quite pleasant. I walked through a neighborhood full of old houses with so much character. I presume this was now housing for college students. It reminded me very much of the neighborhoods around UO.
The downtown is very cute…quaint I might even say. Lots of old little stores and restaurants, lots to look at and observe.
I ended up eating at an Asian noodle shop, Zen Zero. It was DELISIH! My only complaint is the serving size. It was so ridiculously huge – probably could have been about 5 meals. It really makes me sad to waste food…I suppose this is why I usually try ordering off the kids menu…the perfect amount of food, overeating and/or wasting food doesn’t occur…win win.
Regardless of my portion qualms, the food was delicious. I ordered chicken pad thai. Yes, this might sound boring, but alas there is a strategy behind my food ordering. My theory is this: If I get something different each time I go to a new restaurant, it’s impossible to fairly compare restaurant cuisine. It’s necessary to compare apples to apples. SO, when I get thai food at a thai restaurant, I always get the chicken pad thai. Burger place? A plain burger without onions. Pizza? A plain cheese pizza.
And on that note, here is my chicken pad thai:
After dinner, I continued my walk back to the hotel. Like I said before, there were lots of neat little stores to check out along the way. Such as this t-shirt shop:
After the t-shirt shop, I stumbled across this Greek restaurant, The Mad Greek. Like any other normal Greek person, my eyes of course light up as thoughts of gyros, dolmathes, tiropita and baklava infiltrated my brain.
At first I was sad that I did not see this restaurant first. (first world problems?) Then I stopped being sad because I knew I would be in Lawrence for another night and could come back. OPA!
Continuing along with my food critic theory above, I ordered a traditional gyro. It was delish. Wish they had kid size gyros…but I think when you’re Greek, kid size portions of anything (even for kids) do not exist. In fact, I think asking for anything smaller than an unnecessarily excessive portion of any type of Greek food might be considered blasphemy.
The next morning I was happy to find The Juice Stop. After all the great food I had consumed in the previous two days, I was ready to detox and get back to my regular diet of primarily fruits & veggies. It’s not always the easiest to find these things during travel, so opportunities like The Juice Stop I snag immediately. (:
So there we go. Kansas experience, done & done.
And Then There Were 21,000
I really really really really really hate running. I’ve never liked running. I don’t get any pleasure out of running. It’s bad for knees. It’s bad for joints. It makes me get out of breath. I feel like I’m wasting time…I could be salsa dancing instead! Being sweaty grosses me out. It’s not something I can do past age 40, if I haven’t already blown out my knees before that point.
So, then why in god’s green earth did I run a 5 mile race a few weeks back?
Well, the idea popped into my head about a month before the race and went something like this: “Hmmm. I should do something that’s A. out of my comfort zone and B. something I don’t think I can do, just to prove myself wrong.”
As I was not able to go home for Thanksgiving ($600 plane ticket home? Sadly, not in the budget!), why not run 5 miles instead? And no, not a 5K. 5 miles. At this point, I don’t think I had run more than 5 miles combined in my 24 years of life. I knew this would be an interesting race.
So I trained almost every day for the next month. I did not enjoy the running but I did enjoy knowing I would be tackling a challenge. Meeting a goal.
Most runners set distance or time goals. My first goal was to finish. My second goal was to complete the race without getting a side stitch, “an intense, stabbing pain under the lower edge of the ribcage.” Side stitches are most likely caused by stretched ligaments between the diaphragm and liver. Makes sense, as the impact and jolting of internal organs from running is far more intense than from walking. One way to overcome side stitches is to establish a certain breathing pattern – there’s quite a strategy to it! (Strategy? One of my favorite things! Maybe running isn’t so bad…). To spare you the details, let’s just say I spent most of the race coordinating breathing with my strides. (This actually takes far more coordination that expected). The happy news is…I finished the 5 miles sans side stitch.
Playlists. Intended for runners to get pumped up, motivation, keep the adrenalin going, etc. I presume the type of music in runner playlists usually looks something like: Black Eyed Peas, OutKast, Queen, Rihanna.
My playlist? Not so traditional, but def. got me pumped up and adrenalin was flowing. I’d say my playlist theme was something along the lines of “Classical & 90′s pop”. A sampling:
Lalo, Symphony Espanole
Bach, Allegro Assai III
Ari Hest, Caught Up In Your Love
Warlock, Pavane Capriol Suite
Gavin DeGraw, Chariot
Bloch, Concert Grosso No. 1
Portugal The Man, The Dead Dog
Evita, High Flying Adored
Houston County, I Can’t Make It Rain
Skee-Low, I Wish
Shai 360, One Love
Salt N Pepa, Shoop
LFO, Summer Girls
Stuck In The Middle, Can’t Help Falling In Love With You
So there you go. And now some visuals from the event.
Pre-starting line. Took us more than 10 minutes to make it past the starting line once the race began!
Lots of people dress up for the TT:
I love this sea of people!
5 miles of barefoot running? Holy cow.
Wouldn’t be a true Austin event without a live band. Not sure if these kids were an official Turkey Trot act though…
Perhaps more recycling bins would be good next year!
Finishing! The clock says 1:22:55 but I finished more near the 1:10 mark. As there were 21,000 runners, I wasn’t able to pass the start line until a little more than 10 minutes into the race!
Once Upon An Adventure To Boerne, Texas
After just being in Reno for a week, anything involving fresh air and natural light sounded good in my book. Plus it was David’s birthday…what better way to celebrate but submerge ourselves into the earth?
There are a number of cavern tours around central Texas – I decided on Cascade Caverns. The other ones seemed a bit more commercialized, whereas this one seemed most down to earth (I am so punny).
On the way there, guess what we passed?
If you guessed “a Greek monastery!” welp, you are correct! I have absolutely no idea how there is a Greek monastery in the middle of nowhere Texas, but there is. And here’s proof:
η αγάπη ζει Ελλάδα!
After our quick Greek monastery detour, we arrived:
Watch out, he’ll getcha:
The tour was great and we really lucked out – the tour before us had about 10 people and the tour after had about 246 boyscouts. Our tour had David and me. FTW!
See that cement looking hole in the middle of the picture below? That is a hole leading down to another cave. They offer a tour in which you must SWIM out to that hole, then lower yourself down the hole to cave. Did I mention the water is freezing? (Obviously I am not the target audience for this escapade).
Y ya! One our later and we surfaced from the cave (the tour was awesome!). This was the first thing we saw when exiting the cave. I wonder how old this sign is? If I owned that sign, I might consider taking it on Antiques Roadshow.
Part 2 of the day involved eating a burger. Something you might or might not know about me is that I love hamburgers. Luckily, David also loves hamburgers. After much Texas hamburger research, I found the perfect place to go. It’s a little cafe, literally in the middle of nowhere, called Alamo Springs Cafe:
Here’s what I ordered:
Ha. Totes kidding. As much as I love burgers and as much as I love challenges, I just can’t be ok with eating my weight in / vomiting my weight in hamburgers. Gross? Perhaps. True? Absolutely.
So we settled with this bad boy:
I would not consider myself a foodie/food snob, but I’ve got to say, this burger was pretty out of this world. Out of all the burgers I’ve consumed, this one makes the top 5 list. In fact, I am getting hungry, right now at 4:14 am, for one of these burgers. They are that good.
Back to Austin we went – time for the grand finale – birthday cake! And by birthday cake, I mean peanut butter mint paradise bakery cookie ice cream cake.
Interlude: David’s favorite cookies in the entire world are from Paradise Bakery. Unfortunately, there are no PB locations in Texas. Fortunately, I was in Phoenix the day before. There is a PB in the Phoenix airport. I had exactly one hour between flights to make it through the terminal, find PB, get the cookies, go back through security, back through the terminal and to my gate. Let’s just say I amazing raced my way through Sky Harbor. Success ensued.
Back to the cake. Here is it! Sadly, I forgot to grab a picture before digging in. Thankfully, it was because the cake turned out so well, we couldn’t wait to dig in!
Reno
I travel quite a bit, but am never quite sure how to write about my experiences. Perhaps it’s because during my trips, I usually see only a handful of places – airports, hotels, long stretches of highway, and schools. It’s challenging for me to completely reflect upon a place I’ve only experienced a small part of.
By the same token, this is my blog and these are my experiences. There’s nothing that says I must experience something to it’s entirety before writing about it. Plus, the task of experiencing something to it’s entirety is quite subjective.
With that said, my Reno experience:
The first thing I saw when stepping off the airplane was a bunch of slot machines. What wonderful foreshadowing for the rest of my Reno trip.
Our hotel/casino: The Nugget. My first Nugget impressions? 1980s, smoke, smoke, smoke, flashing lights, sensory overload, smoke, smoke, smoke.
I must say, I saw far too many elderly people with blank stares parked in front of slot machines, chips in one hand, oxygen tanks in the other. It made me sad to think these people were gambling away money they probably should be spending on medication, decent food and really any activity that isn’t addicting and/or mindless.
However, back to the note of subjectivity – I am judging these people’s lifestyles by my standards/perspective rather than simply appreciating the fact that just maybe this is what makes them happy.
At the hotel/casino, we were on the non-smonking floor. And yes, I said smonking. I could not quite figure out what “smonking” was; however, as the floor was filled with cigarette smoke, I figured “smoNking” and “smoking” were not synonymous.
Here’s a view from the hotel. This was taken from the side with the pretty view.
This machine will NOT accept half dollars.
One evening, we had dinner at a restaurant just off casino grounds. As we were walking back through the casino, we came across a bit of evening entertainment. Please enjoy a snippit of the “Steppen Stonz”
Our last night in Reno was spent in a different hotel, as every last room at The Nug was supposedly booked. We took a cab from one casino/hotel to the other – THAT was an experience.
It seemed our cab driver was hot boxing the cab with his cigarette smoke. He told us he moved to Reno from Mass. to get away from the cold weather and because he is a gambler. He also told us the other cab companies in town were all a bunch of “arrogant bastards”. Perfect.
The cab fare was ~$12 and I gave him a $20. He did not hand change back. Here was our conversation:
Me: “Could I please get my change?”
Guy: “Oh, uh, I thought you said I could keep it.”
Me: “No, I didn’t. Unfortunately, I’m not authorized to give you a 65% tip for doing your job.”
Ok fine…so I left off the “for doing your job” part. But seriously. I presume he’s used to people not paying attention to him not returning change, or people giving 65% tip because what the hell…they’re on vacay! Unfortunately, I don’t have that monetary luxury. Or that desire to support him and his gambling addiction.
Our next hotel. Slightly less depressing…slightly less smokey…slightly more trashy…slightly more Christmassy.
So, the new casino was promoting the heck out of their Facebook & Twitter. Eventually, my curiosity got the best of me, so I hopped online to check it out. Upon reaching their Twitter page, I saw they were giving away a pair of Wynonna Judd tickets (she was performing that evening at the casino). After a quick search, I confirmed that no one had yet “entered” this contest. So of course I replied and BAM! Wynonna tickets were mine!
I’ve never been a Wynonna Judd type of girl, so we immediately pulled up as many Wynonna YouTube videos as possible, in an attempt to “learn” as many songs as possible. Shows are so much better when you know the words to the songs.
The show was in some sort of a multi-purpose hotel basement room. I think my favorite part of the show was the crowd. I’d say we were about 25 years younger than the average aged person there.
Many people in the crowd felt the necessity to heckle Wynonna. For the entire show. Wynonna ate this up at the heckling buffet. How did she react? Oh, you know, by heckling the crowd back. Between Wynonna’s heckling & liquid courage, I would say about 1/2 the concert involved various audience members screaming complete nonsense at Wynonna. I wouldn’t have asked for anything less.
Casino buffets. I don’t even know where to begin with this. I guess I could best sum it up with 2.5 words: glutton’s paradise. Here’s what I had for breakfast. Ravioli, pasta with red sauce, green beans, rice, eggs, potatoes, bacon, strawberries, watermelon, artichoke, tomatoes and some other meat thing.
Oh wait. I can’t forget my 2nd course of breakfast: ice cream and chocolate cake. So healthy.
Although I look happy in this picture, I really am sad by how horrible buffet restaurant mentality is. I walked by people who were so big they could barely walk, but still had plates jammed packed with bacon, pastries, ham, waffels, fries, rolls, pie with whipped cream and donuts.
I’m just as guilty as the next guy as I was there, therefore technically supporting buffets. …although I like to think I redeemed myself a little because I only ate what I was hungry for, rather than downing as much as was physically possible. Regardless, it made me sad. Womp womp.
By the last day, I had hit my max on sensory load, second hand smoke & breakfast buffets, so we decided to take a walk and get some fresh air:
Y ya. Finalmente, it was time to head home. All in all, the trip was good. I saw alot, I learned alot, but I must admit…I was pretty darn exhausted by the end of the week. Happy to have experienced Reno. Even more happy to be coming home to clean air, fruits & veggies.
Upon arrival to AUS, I took a shuttle to get back to my place. As the shuttle driver dragged my suitcase to the van, he said: “Do you speak any other languages?”. My first reaction was: Hmmm. What a dangerously specific 1st thing to say to someone.
I let him know I speak Spanish. One thing let to another and I ended up learning the following in the time span of about 10 minutes: He is from Cuba. He’s been in Austin for about 10 years. He was given a visa to come to Austin through some sort of visa lottery program. He really likes Austin. He does not know how to salsa dance. He knows how to speak Italian. He knows how to speak Italian because he used to work at a hotel in Cuba where there were alot of Italian guests. He speaks a little French. He likes Thai food. Especially Thai food from Thai Passion. Need more?
Upon arrival to my place, I expected the guy to hand me my suitcase y ya. Donezo. But no. This was not the case. In addition to handing me my suitcase, the guy proceeded to hand me the mix CD we had been listening to in the car…as well as a take out menu from a Thai restaurant. (what?)
I’d like to say I was perplexed by this complete and totally random bearing of gifts…however, based on the festivities of this past week in Reno, it actually seemed to be the perfect conclusion.