It's Showtime

Hello from the beginning of the two-week inspection we have been training all spring, summer, and fall for. It officially began on Thursday, resulting in a 15-hour day, and an extra training session today (Saturday). We will probably be called in on Sunday too, but don't know what time yet. As frustrating as things have already become, all I have to say is... TWO MORE WEEKS!!! Then we are DONE. So that's what I'm thinking about. :-)
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What have I been doing since I last wrote? Mostly work, but there have been a few fun exceptions. The first weekend in October, Martin and I went back to Nottingham to see one of our favorite bands, Mayday Parade. We drove up there on Saturday afternoon, walked around the city and had dinner before the show, which was awesome. I have a video from one song where the crowd starts jumping and lights start flashing and it looks like an earthquake hit the building... will have to figure out how to cut the video into a smaller file to upload!

We spent Sunday morning and afternoon shopping and exploring one of Nottingham's unique attractions... caves! There is a network of caves under the city that were used for tanning animal skins in medieval times, as well as bomb shelters in WWII. Guess what my favorite part of the tour was? We got to wear hard hats!!! :-D Here is a picture (I think I might have been a little more excited about the hats than Martin was):

The next week, I went out on a school night(!) to see Lifehouse, my favorite band ever, in London. I met my friend Megan at the show, and we had a great time. We were pretty close to the stage, and Megan got Jason Wade's guitar pick when he threw it into the crowd! Here is a picture of us posing with the pick while waiting at a Tube station after the show:

I am planning to create a Concerts photo album on Facebook and upload all of the pics from Mayday Parade and Lifehouse, plus the next show on my list... Goo Goo Dolls in Norwich on Nov 15th! So excited. :-) I will post that link when the album is ready.

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The fact that I cannot wait for the next two weeks to be over goes without saying, but even more so because of all of the exciting things planned in November. The first weekend in Nov is a trip I cannot talk about yet because it is a surprise for my travel buddy, but I can promise you it is going to be an awesome weekend and there will be lots of pictures. It's hard to keep the secret because I am so excited!

The second weekend in Nov is a 4-day thanks to Veteran's Day and a Lakenheath day off on Friday the 12th. Sooo... I am going to Tenerife, in the Canary Islands!!! If you are unfamiliar with Tenerife, here is a quote from Wikitravel: "Tenerife is probably one of the last European paradise isles. It offers lush forests, exotic fauna and flora, deserts, mountains, volcanos, incredibly beautiful coastlines and spectacular beaches." Sounds like the perfect place to unwind after months of stress, doesn't it? SO EXCITED!!!

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And last but not least, the second 4-day weekend in November, courtesy of Thanksgiving, will be spent in... Rome! I feel like I should be pinching myself, but if this is a dream, I'm not sure I want to wake up. It absolutely blows my mind sometimes to think how blessed I am to be living here and having all of these experiences. God is so good... because I have definitely not done anything in my life to deserve any of this. Grace is a beautiful thing.
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Good List:

1. Countdown... 13 days! (Til the final ENDEX, of course)

2. Taylor Swift Fridays. I have established a policy of always listening to Taylor Swift CDs in the car on Fridays, and even the first notes put me in a better mood despite the craziness.

3. Pumpkin carving. Martin and I will be carving jack-o-lanterns this afternoon, and I can't wait to light them up outside my house! (Will have to post a pic later)

4. Arbor Mist Strawberry White Zinfandel.

5. Glee. I am 100% addicted. Only the season finale left to watch from Season 1, then on to downloading/catching up with Season 2!

6. Two legal and working (for the most part) cars.

7. Plants vs Zombies. It is a computer game, and it is amazing... and completely addicting. O:-)

8. People who make me laugh when I am stressed.

9. Soup in a sourdough bread bowl. Panera gets credit for the original, but reproductions turn out pretty well!

10. Sweatpants and slippers when it is rainy and cold outside.

Refreshed

I guess it was fairly obvious I was not in the best mood while writing that last post, which I will attribute to being completely exhausted. I am much more positive today, due to an excellent and relaxing weekend as well as working swing shifts this week... yay sleeping in on weekdays! :-) Also, the Mini finally passed inspection and the Cabrio goes in to get fixed today, so it will then pass as well. I finally posted pictures of Lisa's visit to England here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=546920&id=701905001&l=707f0d4650 (What? They're only, um, a month and a half late...)

I also posted pictures from Labor Day weekend in Spain, so I have the appropriate illustrations for my recap of the trip! We flew out early Saturday morning from Stansted, and spent a good portion of the plane ride laughing over a Spanish phrase book I bought to learn some basics. (If you are ever in a situation where you need to say "I had an accident" or "Can I smell it?" in Spanish, give me a call!) Alicante is on the southeast coast of Spain, and as we flew down the eastern coastline, my nose became increasingly glued to the window. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous... mountain ranges running right along picture-perfect beaches. It sort of reminded me of California.

We landed in Alicante just before noon and took a bus from the airport to our hotel. The hotel was the tallest in the city, so it was pretty easy to find. We had a suite on the 23rd floor, and when we walked in and saw the view, my jaw literally almost hit the floor. Here are views from both sides of our corner balcony:

So yeah, pretty sure we had the best view in the entire city! That afternoon we hiked to the castle, explored it and enjoyed the incredible views from the top, and walked through various parts of the city. By evening, we were exhausted and found an open-air restaurant on the marina to eat and relax in just as the sun was setting. Here is the view from our table:

We also enjoyed a local drink specialty... sangria! I had only had it twice before, but this was by far the best. After enjoying a pitcher (or two?), we took a walk on the beach and headed back to the hotel for the night. The next day, we logged some quality beach time, explored more of the boardwalk and town, then ventured down to a farther pier for dinner as the sun set and lights came on. I love this picture of the castle all lit up:

Monday morning, we had time for a little more sightseeing and an early lunch before heading to the airport to catch our flight back. What a perfect weekend... I literally felt like I was in a vacation commercial the entire trip. It was very hard to leave Alicante's 80-degrees and clear skies to return to Stansted in 50-degree pouring rain, but thinking about the weekend kept a smile on my face... well, at least until the base exercise began the next day. Here is the link to the rest of the pictures from the trip: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=547326&id=701905001&l=bad1538ab6

I'll skip more complaining about the two exercise weeks (you're welcome), and wrap up with my birthday this past weekend. After almost no sleep last week, I was super-excited to spend my 26th b-day sleeping til noon and being a college football couch potato all day. And I am not being sarcastic by any means. However, the day ended up even better than I expected when Martin surprised me by giving up a concert in London he had a ticket for and coming over with steaks for the grill and the first season of Glee on DVD! So, it wasn't a beach weekend in Alicante... but sleep + Glee + football + friend + perfect steak = AWESOME 26th birthday. :-)

I have a lot of other things rambling around in my head, but I think I'll stop here for now since I need to be heading for work soon. (How I love saying that at noon...)

Good List:

1. Sleep (How could this not be my #1 this week?)

2. Happy 1st Anniversary to my wonderful cousin Amy and her husband Jon! So happy I could be there for the wedding last year! :)

3. Funfetti cake/cookies.

4. Penn State beat Kent State! Yay for a 2-1 record now...

5. Living in a place where I can take a weekend trip to Spain on a whim. I've been here a year and it still blows my mind how blessed I am. :)

6. Glee on DVD.

7. Parents... and the fact I have two I can respect, talk to, and trust.

8. Fantasy football. It makes watching the NFL so much more interesting.

9. Facebook.

10. Fall colors in the trees on my drive to work.

Tired

I am tired of base exercises. I think we are lucky no one has fallen asleep while driving and died yet. Yeah, this week was that bad. But one more exercise down, only one to go until the inspection in November. Is it November yet?

I hate wishing away time like that, and I guess it is just because I am at the end of one of the longest, most stressful, most frustrating, and most sleep-deprived weeks ever. I still love my real job. But this week was ridiculous. And you know what? I don't think I'm going to talk about it anymore. Because it is over. :-)

I am ridiculously behind on posting pictures... still have not posted Lisa in England, and the Labor Day Weekend in Spain pics have not even made it off my camera. Maybe I'll catch up this weekend? So far my plans include sleeping, college football, sleeping, NFL, sleeping, maybe eating at some point... and did I mention sleeping? Yes, it is going to be glorious. :-) So maybe I'll find some time to squeeze in some picture-posting.

Spain was AMAZING. Alicante is absolutely gorgeous. I am not joking when I say I felt like I was in a vacation commercial all weekend. I'll wait til I have pictures to talk about it more... but believe me, it is worth the wait!

Last Saturday I hosted a college football party at my house for Penn State/Alabama. A lot of people came and the food was great, so I think everyone had a good time... despite my team losing. I guess it could have been worse... 24-3 against the #1 team in the country is a lot better than 50-0 or something equally embarrassing. We play Kent State this weekend, who I'm pretty sure is not even a D-1 team, so it should be a good recovery for us, haha.

That's about it for now, I'll try to write a longer post with pictures later this weekend when I have had more sleep. It should be slightly more coherent as well! ;-)

Fall

I feel like beginning with a comment like "Good grief, where did August go?", but it is starting to seem like I say something like that every time I write... so I'll try to refrain. Yes, it does feel like the summer flew by, and though it is officially not fall until September 21st, fall has arrived in England. Our weather has been cooler and cloudier for the last couple weeks, sunrises are getting later, and sunsets are getting earlier. It sounds like I am complaining, but I'm really not... just making observations. Driving to work the other day, I noticed orange tints in the leaves of trees lining the road, which was absolutely beautiful with the sun glinting through.

Another positive aspect of fall... FOOTBALL!!! :-D I am so super-excited for the college football season, and it starts this Saturday! I have been watching NFL preseason for the last couple weeks, even though I don't really care about the NFL, just because it is football (and there are some PSU alumni to watch). Penn State's opening game this Saturday is against Youngstown State, who is not even a Division I team. This is a good thing, because I will be in Spain and unable to watch the game, so I am happy to be fairly confident we'll start out with a W. The next week, Sep 11th, is the big test... we're playing #1 Alabama! I'm excited but also nervous about this, especially since I just invited about 20 people over to my house for a tailgate party that day to watch it. It will be a good time, I'm sure... it would just be so much more awesome if we could pull out a win!

This weekend was pretty low-key, which was nice after taking a trip to London during the week with a friend who had family visiting. We ate at the original Hard Rock Cafe and visited the Beatles studio on Abbey Road... even got a picture crossing the street at the famous crosswalk! (I don't have the pic now, or I'd post it). One thing I accomplished today was finally posting Paris pictures... here is the link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=482483&id=701905001&l=8c2e92ada8 I have more from Lisa's and my adventures in England, but will post those another day... figured one album was a good step forward. :)

This should be a pretty busy work week, since my boss is TDY so I'll be running things at the office. There is some training to take care of tomorrow, plus we are getting a new squadron commander on Thursday, so there will be plenty of events surrounding the changeover. On top of that, I have some car issues to deal with (with both cars, unfortunately). On the bright side, it is looking more like I will get to go to Spain for Labor Day weekend (has been in question due to a possible TDY for my travel buddy). Should know for sure by tomorrow, so I can't wait to make final plans! For now, it is bed time for me...

Good List:
1. My college roommate Jamie had her first baby!!! :-D SOOO happy for Jamie, Ben, and baby Alexis!
2. Catching up with geographically separated friends.
3. Homemade lasagna. Not mine, unfortunately, but I got to enjoy it :)
4. Forgiveness. Getting it and giving it.
5. Concert tickets. I will get to see three awesome bands in the next three months, including my two favorite bands of all time!
6. 6 days until College Football begins!!!
7. Yahtzee. Why is rolling 5 dice over and over again so much fun? ;-)
8. Slippers and sweatpants on a cool evening.
9. Living in England. Pretty sure I take this for granted entirely too often.
10. Sleeping in.

I'm still here!

Yes, friends, I am in fact alive. And I have not completely abandoned this blog... only for the last almost-month. Oops. I have good excuses, I promise! First, Lisa visited at the end of July into the beginning of August. We had a blast with lots of travels and adventures including Paris, London, Warwick Castle, Hunstanton Beach, and Cambridge, among other things. I have exactly 472 pictures from the two weeks of her visit and therefore have not even begun the task of sorting through them for a sampling to post online. But when I do... you'll be the first to know. :-)

The weekend after Lisa left, I went to Nottingham for my half marathon. Bad news first: I did not hit my goal of running it under 2 hours. This was really frustrating because the weekend prior, I had done a 10-mile training run in 1:31... on track for sub-2 with minutes to spare. The day of the race was hot and humid, and the start wasn't until 10:30am. To make a long story short, I couldn't keep my goal pace past mile 5, and ended up finishing 10 minutes slower than my current PR. So I was kind of grumpy after the race, but then we spent the rest of the day having fun in Nottingham, which was an awesome way to end the weekend! Lots to see and do, plus great restaurants and shopping... I will definitely be going to Nottingham again. :)

Then my life was taken over by work. We are finishing up a two-week-long exercise on base, plus the weather flight is going through a really important inspection this week. This translates to work days so long I stop counting the hours, exponential stress levels, working through the weekend, and running around in chem gear at all hours of the day and night. Sigh. ENDEX is by far my favorite word in the Air Force. (If you aren't Air Force, just trust me on this one...) The exercise officially ended yesterday evening, but I am working a night shift tonight to cover for someone doing a weather equipment display at an air show tomorrow. This means I should probably be getting some sleep first, so I'll leave you with...

Good List:
1. ENDEX!!! (I guess it's fairly intuitive, but just in case... this means end of an exercise) :D
2. Hooters Hot Boneless Buffalo Wings. Yes, Nottingham has a Hooters, and yes, that was our post-race reward dinner... and I was mega-impressed! I had only been to Hooters once before in the States, and this one was wayyy better, both the food and the atmosphere. I will admit I was surprised... most American restaurant duplicates in England are not very good, but this one was awesome!)
3. Shopping with Lisa. :)
4. New SSgt-selects. I can't believe how many I know on this list, so excited for all of them!
5. Diet Dr Pepper.
6. People who make me smile even when I am stressed and exhausted.
7. Driving the Mini again! (Well, almost... needs a few things fixed before it is entirely legal)
8. Making travel plans.
9. Digital cameras. I don't know how I ever lived without them, and I definitely couldn't have during all my traveling in the last year.
10. Old mix CDs in the car. Music brings back memories (good and otherwise) like nothing else.

Rainbows

England gets a bad rap for being cloudy and rainy. Yes, winters are fairly gloomy with standard cloud cover, fog, and only 8 hours or so of daylight. But summers? England summers are just bursting with beauty. It still rains off and on, but the rain makes possible the bright green fields and tapestries of flowers growing both in the wild and in perfectly tended gardens. The rain showers also bring rainbows, with incredible regularity. I have seen more rainbows in the last 2 or 3 months than I have in the last 2 or 3 years. Unfortunately, I see most of them while driving, so I don't get pictures... but a part of me is okay with that. It makes seeing one that much more special. I was lucky enough to arrive here during the summer (5 days until my one-year anniversary... can't believe it!), and I think that is one reason I instantly fell in love with this place.

It is Saturday after an extremely long two weeks. I was basically doing three jobs during this time... escorting and planning activities for another group of AFROTC cadets, filling a staff briefing position in the exercise on base, plus my real job in the weather station. It was a lot of long hours, but I'd say everything went about as well as could be expected.

Last weekend, a couple friends and I went to the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford. It was just over a 3-hour drive, and traffic getting into the event was awful, but it was definitely worth the trip. We got to see aircraft and demo teams from so many different countries, plus plenty of USAF assets. One of our Lakenheath pilot friends flew an F-15 in formation, and the F-22 demo was unbelievable. On the way back, we stopped in Oxford and had a really awesome dinner, though it was too late for sightseeing. Here is the photo album from the trip: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=465034&id=701905001&l=4d6cfd314f

Lisa arrives tomorrow!!! EXCITED!!! :-D It will be so much fun to have her here and go fun places and hang out with friends. Also, we passed "cancellation Friday" without a phone call, so I am hoping this means all systems are go for our Paris trip next weekend! We haven't decided exactly what we are going to do while she is here and when (except for Paris), but some of the ideas we've talked about are Warwick or Leeds Castle, definitely London for a day, Bury St. Edmunds, Cadbury World (chocolate factory), and Cambridge. Can't wait!

Training continues for the Newark Half Marathon (2 weeks away, yikes...). Last week's long run was not as good as I had hoped, so we will see what happens when I head out for another this evening. I just made hotel reservations in Nottingham today, so that makes it more exciting. We decided to stay in Nottingham for the weekend for sightseeing purposes, and just drive to Newark (about 30 min away) on race morning. I hope we get cooler weather for it... last week I ran in 80+ temps and it was not fun.

Good List:
1. Planning trips. Excited for so many options with Lisa, and the topic of a beach weekend (Spain?) over Labor Day has been brought up with friends!
2. My OCF Bible study. As tired as I am on some Friday evenings, I never regret the time with these wonderful people and hearing God speak through them. :)
3. Making progress on a goal.
4. Watching friends inhale my Reese's peanut butter cup cookies.
5. Running.
6. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches.
7. Job satisfaction. A couple of the AFROTC kids thanked me so genuinely for a couple of the things I did for them... made the long hours worth it.
8. New friends.
9. Taylor Swift. Go ahead and make fun of me, but that girl has the right song for every one of my moods.
10. Last but not least... Rainbows! :)

Events

A new friend asked me last week if I wanted to visit Brighton Beach with her this past weekend... the answer was of course a "yes", but I was on weather standby and therefore could not go outside of 1 hour from the base (Brighton Beach is south of London, about 2.5 hours away). My first thought was "how about next weekend?" But then I remembered we would be in the middle of an exercise on base and effectively on call again. The weekend after that, I am on weather standby again, and then Lisa arrives on Sunday. The last weekend in July, Lisa and I are going to Paris for her 21st birthday. The first weekend in August is the half marathon in Nottingham. Eek! How did my next month get planned already?

Yes, the last two of those weekends are fun things vs. un-fun things, but for some reason having weekends planned out (whether I like the plans or not) just makes it seem like they will come and go faster than if I didn't have plans yet. Does that make any sense at all? I don't know... maybe I'm just being grumpy about being tied to the base for 3 weekends in a row. I really shouldn't complain, the AF is the reason I get to live here in the first place.

Have I talked about the August half marathon yet? Possibly not, since I was so bad about blogging in June. I had originally decided that the Berlin rollerblade marathon on Sep 26 would be my fall event to train for after I recovered from the May marathon. But after Martin didn't get the time he wanted in his Memorial Day half marathon, he decided to pick an August half and train hard for it (since he hadn't trained at all for the May race), and try to break 1:30. (For those of you trying to do the math in your head, that is a 6:52 mile pace for 13.1 miles... craziness.) Well, I have been saying since my first half marathon over 2 years ago that I wanted to break 2:00 (a much more reasonable 9:09 pace), and the idea of reaching a goal like that proved to be too hard to resist... I signed up for the August half.

The race is in Newark, a smaller town just outside of Nottingham (yes, of Robin Hood fame). I'm looking forward to exploring another part of England I haven't visited yet... races are such great excuses to travel! The training is actually going pretty well so far. I haven't done long enough distances yet to gauge whether I can go fast enough for long enough to hit my goal, but my pace has been getting steadily faster on shorter 3-4 mile runs. It's exciting to think about having a great race and getting a time I want, after the disappointment in Edinburgh. And just in case you were wondering, I am definitely still going to Berlin for the rollerblade marathon in Sep. :)

Another fall event that I failed to mention in June (when I bought tickets) is... Lifehouse is coming to London in October!!!!!!!!!!!! (Deserving of more exclamation points, but I think you get the point.) I found out through a post from the band's Facebook account, and I literally half-screamed/half-squealed when I saw it. You can ask my dad, who was sitting across the room from me when it happened... I think I scared him. Besides the fact that Lifehouse is my favorite band EVER, that I've seen them in concert 5 times and met them twice, and that I have a major celebrity-crush on Jason Wade (lead singer)... I haven't been to a concert in forever!!! I'm not even going to try and figure out what the last one was because it will depress me, but I definitely have not been to one since coming to England. So excited!

I need to get to some house cleaning (more specifically, Mini-title-finding...), so I'll leave you with a Good List:

Good List
1. Cooler temperatures. It has been in the low 80s, which constitutes a heat wave for England... and with no AC, not so much fun to sleep in... tonight it is in the 60s and I have my windows open :)
2. Lazy Sunday afternoons reading a book in the sun in my backyard.
3. New blog posts from one of my favorite bloggers. :)
4. Pictures. Facebook and otherwise, they keep me updated on the lives of both old and new friends.
5. Fast customer service. Thank you SanDisk!
6. Naps.
7. Plans falling into place at the last minute. In the case of my next round of AFROTC cadets visiting this week, I really hope this continues...
8. Challenges.
9. Laughing so hard you can't breathe. :)
10. Buffalo Chicken sandwiches. Thank you Charley's!

July?

Can someone please tell me where the first six months of 2010 went??? I'm serious. Just yesterday it was January... They say time flies when you're having fun, so I guess that is proving to be true. I cannot believe that on July 29th (23 days from now), I will have been here at Lakenheath for a whole year. I think I am becoming more thankful every day for my assignment extension. If I had to think about being halfway through my time here already, I would be going crazy right now. When I actually look back at everything I've done in the last 11ish months, I know it is a lot, but I just feel like there is SO much more I want to do here!

Since I was a bad blogger and wrote all of two times in June, I will attempt to update you on what has been keeping me so busy. My parents came to visit during the first half of June, so we were in and out of town doing all kinds of fun things. The day they arrived, I met them in London and we stayed for the weekend and hit most of the sights in the city. We rode the London Eye (giant Ferris wheel), saw the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, and went on a boat tour of the Thames River, among other things. Here is a picture of Mom and me with the London Eye in the background:

I had to work a couple days during the week, but we made day trips to Bury St Edmunds and Ely, plus Mom and I went to tea with the women from my Bible study at a cute little tea room in Mildenhall. The next weekend, our Paris trip was unfortunately cancelled, but we made the best of it by traveling to my favorite place in England (yep, Dover!) to see Dover Castle, hike the White Cliffs, visit the Canterbury Cathedral, and eat at my favorite restaurant in Canterbury. On Sunday, my Cambridge friends Kathryn and Mark were nice enough to meet us in Cambridge for a tour of the University grounds and buildings, then my parents and I went punting on the Cam River. Here is a picture of Mom and Dad enjoying the ride in the punt:

They also got to meet a few of my friends, watch a couple softball games, ride in my Mini, and visit the house they lived in while stationed here almost 30 years ago. On the days I had to work, I was very spoiled by the things they found to keep themselves busy: Dad washed both of my cars, fixed and hung two big picture frames, and Mom vaccuumed my house from top to bottom, among other things. Don't I have great parents? :) I am very excited for my sister to come visit at the end of this month, too. She will be here for her 21st birthday weekend, and we are planning a trip to Paris to celebrate! Here is the link to the photo album from my parents' visit: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=450020&id=701905001&l=4cb67bd732

The second half of June was mostly consumed with hosting 21 Air Force ROTC cadets at Lakenheath, a project I somehow found myself as one of the main coordinators for. It was a crazy busy week and a half of very long and stressful days, but for the most part I think it went well. Being around these mostly 19-year-old college freshmen made me feel somewhat old, but mostly in a good way. I think I have changed a lot (for the better, I hope) since I was that age, and it was funny to remember being in their shoes.

The summer PCS (military-speak for "moving") season is in full swing, and unfortunately this meant my good friend Alex left Lakenheath for Boston at the end of June. I will miss her a lot, but I am sure we will see each other again... she is already trying to convince me to qualify for the Boston Marathon as an excuse to visit her! :) The night before she flew out from London, a few of us took the train into the city with her and enjoyed a last night out on the town before crashing in her super-awesome hotel right across from Big Ben. Here is a pic of Alex and me on the Westminster Bridge:

The most recent fun summer event was the 4th of July celebration at RAF Feltwell, a huge carnival-like party sponsored by both Lakenheath and Mildenhall. There was a 5K run on the morning of the 4th, which Martin and I ran despite having sore and exhausted legs from a tough workout at PT on Friday. It was not a very well-attended race, which resulted in another 2nd place female finish for me... amusing considering I wasn't even sure my legs could make it 3.1 miles that day! That night, we went back and rode some awesome rides, played games (even won a stuffed animal or two), and of course watched the fireworks display after it got slightly dark at 10pm. Pictures from this and other fun summer outings are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=451942&id=701905001&l=ba768a2e1f

I'm going to close with an idea 100% stolen from my cousin Amy, the famous "Good List". These are things that have made me happy, reminded me to be thankful, or stuck out as being just plain GOOD recently:

Good List

1. England. I am reminded daily (whether I realize it or not) how blessed I am to live here and have the experiences I am having.

2. Songs that you can't help turning up and singing really loud in the car. :)

3. Reconnections.

4. Forgiveness.

5. The joy that only comes from driving with the convertible top down. B-)

6. New friends.

7. Fireworks. One of those things that reminds you of so many good times spent watching them with family and friends over the years.

8. Green tea.

9. Sleeping in. (!!!)

10. The OG softball team. We lost in the playoffs tonight, so our season is over, but it was a great 2 months spending 2 evenings a week with fun people.

Life... and Time

Arg... so much to catch up on, but there is a post I have been trying to type up for almost a month now, and I think it is finally going to happen tonight. However, it may not be what you are expecting... I want to take a break from the "travel diary" aspect of this blog to write about some things that have been bouncing around in my head recently. (So I guess that is my disclaimer, serious blog ahead vs. fun travel stuff...)

A lot of things have happened recently to highlight (for me, at least), the fragility of life... in the sense that it is so easily gone. I found out via Facebook the other day that a guy I dated briefly in high school had died... 3 years ago. Obviously, we had not kept in touch, but it is still unsettling to think that someone you shared time with as a young person not so long ago is no longer alive. On the same Facebook page, someone had listed 5 other members of that high school class (he was a year older than me) who had also died. I knew 4 of them... and had only heard about one of the deaths. Again, I was not close to any of them, but it is so weird to think about how I knew these people as high school kids. I mean, high school is that time when everyone is just so focused on the future and excited about plans for life... and none of those plans include dying before your 10-year high school reunion. Whether we admit it or not, it just forces the question... why them? Or even closer to home... why not me?

A friend of mine just lost his 23-year-old brother in a car accident... only two years after his mother's death. I have a 20-year-old sister and a mother who I both love very much... why have I been so blessed to have them still alive and very much a part of my life, while my friend has had to deal with the unimaginable pain of losing not just one, but both? Another friend and his family received news that their 4-year-old son might have lymphoma. He is currently undergoing tests to make a final diagnosis, but what must be going through the minds of those parents? The fear of not knowing whether your small child is going to face the horrors of cancer treatments with no cure, or he could just be anemic? The human body is such a strange thing... we all (at least sometimes) go through life feeling invincible... when in reality the human body is susceptible to so many things. I mean, all the body is is a mass of soft tissue and relatively breakable bones... what are our chances against speeding cars, falls, diseases, weapons, etc? Any of those things can extinguish life in a moment.

Another event brought to my attention by Facebook was the one-year anniversary of the death of a female Air Force intel Lieutenant from a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. I did not know this girl, but we had several mutual friends, who were all devastated by the news of her death a year ago. I could try to explain why this event hits so close to home for me, but first, I think you should read something I read a year ago, posted just after she died: http://www.vamortgagecenter.com/blog/2009/05/21/god-speed-1lt-roslyn-l-schulte/

Wow. I can't read that without crying, and I didn't even know Roslyn. But you know what? I feel like I could have. Maybe if I had known her, we would have been friends. Or even more, when I read that story, her name could represent so many of my friends. Having been in the Air Force for almost 4 years now, the majority of people I know have deployed, and we all will at some point. The fighter squadron I got to know at Red Flag is currently deployed. In an ABC news video from the deployed area, I saw the guys I sat around a table laughing with at PF Changs in Vegas now flying combat missions over Afghanistan. When people deploy from here, you never really think that they might not come back. I bet everyone expected Roslyn to come back too.

So what do you do, knowing that your life and the lives of those you love are so fragile? Do you live in fear, wondering every minute whether you will see another sunrise, whether everyone you know will survive driving to and from work, whether the goodbye you say to a friend will be the last one? How would your brain even function if you did that? What kind of life would that be?

And here's another thing to bounce around... I've been thinking a lot lately about time. There are so many Bible passages that speak of everything coming in God's time, not ours. I'll admit these are sometimes a frustrating, if not painful, read when there is something in life I want NOW, not later. But why is it so hard to trust when it has proven to be true so many times in my life? I've used this example before, but I literally felt like God had slammed the door on my dreams when I was assigned to Louisiana instead of Germany. 4 years later, I'm living in England and have never been happier in my life. God knew ALL along about the joy I would find here... why was it so hard for me to believe something like this could be in store? And why now, when I see something in front of me that I want so badly, do I still find it so hard to wait until God makes the time right for me to have it?

I guess it just seems like there are two different aspects of life to think about. Yes, I want things to happen in my life according to God's time. But with life being so obviously not guaranteed from one day to the next, I feel like time might just run out, that I'll miss out on something. How can these two aspects ever be reconciled?

So here's what I think. As much as I hate to use a cliche, I really believe the truth behind the saying "Life is what happens while you're making other plans." Driving home from a softball game the other night while the sun was setting, I watched the sky turn the most amazing shades of pink, red, and orange above the bright green fields dotted with fluffy white sheep. My brain had been running a million miles an hour being frustrated about a situation, but it grinded to a halt to take in the beauty of the scence. It reminded me of how lucky I am to be here, and I started thinking about all of the unbelievable experiences I have had, all of the amazing people I have gotten to know. Yes, there are things I want to happen in the future. But I can't let that overshadow the beauty of things that are happening NOW. These are the times I will look back on as some of the best in my life. I can't live them being afraid of what will or will not happen in the future.

This post was not intended to be depressing. The point is actually the opposite, that life is too beautiful to be depressing. Little things like spending a night laughing with friends, walking around town in the warm sunshine, eating a perfectly grilled steak... these are the things that bring a smile to your face without even trying. My cousin Amy writes a blog, and I absolutely love her "Good Lists"... lists of good things in her life that particular day/week, ranging from serious/sentimental (like her husband) to minute/laughable (like coffee). They always make me smile and wish I wrote more "Good Lists", whether actually in writing or just in my mind.

So as I wrap this up, my mood is thankful. It is through the joy that God has brought me in my life that I can trust Him with my future, at the same time that I say a prayer for the families dealing with the pain of things I cannot comprehend. Life is beautiful and something to be treasured... I want to realize that instead of letting it just pass me by.

Edinburgh Marathon

So, this will have to be a marathon post to catch up since the last time I wrote... sorry! I really have tried to get this blog written a couple times last week, but it just never got finished... so here's my attempt to summarize. :)

Well, I survived the Edinburgh Marathon. Didn't make my goal time, but overall I would have to say it was a good race. We took the train to Edinburgh on Saturday and arrived in the early afternoon, then walked around the race expo and the gardens in the town centre (it was a beautiful sunny day) before checking into our hotel. The pre-race dinner choice was the Hard Rock Cafe, where I carb-ed up on Twisted Mac and Cheese. :)

Race morning dawned cloudy, gray, and cool. The forecast was for clearing, however, so I put on sunscreen just in case. Martin walked with me to my starting area and took a couple pics before the race started. Don't I look excited?

My goal pace was a 10-min mile, and I started out comfortably running a 9:30. The sun came out around mile 4, and it started getting hot. Yes, it was only 70 degrees or so, but when you train in 55ish-degree weather, that is a big difference! Also, there was little to no shade on the course, so no escape from the heat. (Glad I decided to put on that sunscreen!) I managed to keep my pace under 10-min until mile 11, when the heat started getting to me. I probably should have started drinking more water earlier, but since I hadn't trained with it much, I thought I'd be good. I was wearing my Garmin GPS watch (one of the most amazing products I have ever bought in my life), and I knew I was in trouble when it seemed to take forever to get from 11.2 to 11.5 miles.

Almost without meaning to, I dropped to a walk, then immediately started freaking out. I can't start walking at mile 11! There are 15 more miles to go! I was supposed to run the entire thing! I know for a fact I can run 20 in a row, I just did it 2 weeks ago! I don't think I have ever had a real panic attack, but this was a pretty good mental breakdown. Luckily, somehow, I managed to tell my brain to STOP, calm down, and you will make this okay. The race is not over, nor is my chance to finish it well. After a minute or so of this forced calming, I started running again and mercifully came upon a water station quickly, where I drank a good amount of water and felt a lot more hydrated. I kept running until after the half-marathon point, where I excitedly noted a PR (personal record) of 2:07! My best time for a half-marathon previously had been 2:10, so the 2:07 was a great confidence booster.

It would make a great story at this point to tell you I didn't walk for the rest of the race and smashed my goal time, but the truth is, I really faded after the halfway point. The heat got to me physically and mentally, and I had to settle for alternating running and walking to finish the race. I had just passed the 25-mile point and was planning to start another walk break when I looked ahead along the side of the course and saw Martin with my camera. Now, I'll be honest, as much as I appreciated my travel buddy on this trip, my first thought was "NOOOOO!" Haha. Because the small bit of pride and competitiveness I had left would not let me take a walk break in front of a friend with a camera. :-P

Sooo... I ran the last mile to the finish, though it was not a very fun mile. Here is a picture of me close to the finish, and believe me, the smile was much more about being almost done than being caught on camera. ;-)

I finished in 4:58:07, which I'll admit was disappointing after a goal of 4:30. But on the bright side, it was 10 minutes faster than my Big Sur Marathon time of 5:08, and I managed to come in sub-5 hours, which is a small victory. When someone asks you your marathon time, it's nice to start with a 4 instead of a 5. :) I posted a bunch more pictures and one video from the race and the trip on Facebook, so check them out here if you'd like to see more: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=433864&id=701905001&l=fcc8c9f7b2

After spending a couple days in Edinburgh after the marathon, I came back to a short but busy work week before Memorial Day weekend. Now, some of you dedicated readers (if there are any of you, haha) might remember that I was supposed to run the Dover Half Marathon back in February, but it got postponed due to the course being too icy. Well, it was postponed until May 31st, exactly 8 days after my marathon. Understandably (I hope), I decided not to run it, but Martin, who had also planned to run in February, decided to run the rescheduled race this past weekend. I was excited to go along as his travel buddy because a) he was such an awesome race buddy in Edinburgh for me and I wanted to return the favor, and b) I love Dover!!!

We drove down on Sunday and explored a couple new areas as well as visiting some old favorites. The race was on Monday morning at a park north of Dover. Unfortunately for the runners, the weather was not great - cold, wet (luckily not raining), and windy. A tiny part of me wished I was running (being around so many runners getting ready for a race just has that effect), but most of me was very happy to just be Martin's "race crew" this time. :) He ran a good race, didn't quite meet his goal but given that the course was ridiculously hilly (removed any reservations I had about not running, haha) and that he hadn't really trained for the event, still posted a very impressive time. We stopped in Canterbury for a post-race lunch at the amazing restaurant we found there in February, and it did not disappoint the second time around! :)

So now I am halfway through another short work week, with only two days until my parents arrive in London...YAY!!! I am very much looking forward to their visit, we have so many fun things planned. I will be driving down to meet them in London for the weekend, then they will come back here for the week. We will probably do a couple day trips to Bury St Edmunds and Dover, with a couple days of work (for me) mixed in, plus an OG softball game or two, haha. The next weekend, we are going to Paris on a base-sponsored trip, which I am really excited about. I have wanted to visit Paris ever since taking high school French, and the frantic rush through the Paris train and metro system on our adventure back from Italy did NOT count!

This also means I have almost no time left to clean the house before they arrive (oops)... so I might have to consider this post finished. 0:-) Thanks for the congrats and comments already on my marathon pics, and I hope you all had an excellent Memorial Day weekend!

Marathon in 2 days!

Yikes! The Edinburgh Marathon is this Sunday... 2 days away! I am definitely getting nervous, but also excited. I don't remember if I mentioned this before, but the OG Commander's wife, the OG Deputy Commander's wife, and the OSS (my squadron) commander's wife are ALL running this marathon too. So, pretty much my whole chain of command will be there when I run... no pressure, right? Haha. Actually, the wives (and their husbands) are all pretty cool, and have been really nice and friendly to me every time the marathon has come up in conversation. Just based on build, I expected them all to be faster than me, but actually the two I have talked to most are expecting to run about the same time I am, so we may even run part of the race together. It'll be fun to know a few people in the crowd of 40,000, plus Martin is coming as my travel buddy, so I'm definitely looking forward to the weekend.

We are leaving tomorrow morning, and I still need to pack (this should not surprise anyone). I think packing is the most stressful part of getting ready for a marathon... I am super-paranoid about forgetting something! I think I haven't gotten too nervous about the whole thing yet because I've been too busy this week to really think about it, and maybe that's not a bad thing. As long as I get packed up and get to Edinburgh tomorrow in enough time to settle in and figure out where I need to go on Sunday morning, I won't be too stressed by race time.

Everyone who has been to Edinburgh says it is a beautiful area, so I hope my legs will function enough on Monday to permit a little sightseeing. And maybe a visit to a spa? Haha, we will see... I really must get to packing since we have an early train, so I think that is all I have to say for now. Will try to post on Sunday night to let you know I survived! :)

Yay Weekends

You know how sometimes you just really need a weekend? This was a long, stressful, and frustrating week on so many levels... and as much as I love my job and the people I interact with on a daily basis, by this Friday I was mentally fried. I kind of wanted to avoid everyone and just sleep until Monday. But then the weekend arrived, and I was blessed to spend time with so many great friends who all remind me why I'm so happy here. :)

I am not going to go into detail on the low points of last week, because the details aren't really important... everyone deals with tough stuff every day, right? That's just life. I get accused of being "too happy" on a fairly regular basis, but it's not because my life is perfect or that I always get what I want. Really, is anyone's life like that? Doubt it. Life really hurts sometimes, and I don't think it is presumptuous to assume you all can agree with me. But at the same time, I have come to realize that even when life hurts, if I just take one minute to look around me, I'll find so many overwhelming reasons that life is, above all, beautiful. And the joy that comes from that is a light that can't be put out.

On one sad note, the Col and his family who have been leading OCF for the last 4 years are moving to Alaska this summer. Col W left yesterday, and his family will follow next month after one of the high schoolers graduates. The whole family has been such an amazing presence in the Lakenheath community, not just in OCF, and they will all be sorely missed. I can't put into words how much they have meant to me and the OCF family as leaders, mentors, and friends. It is so sad to see them go, but I know they will be just as much of a blessing to the Elmendorf community as they have been to us. I was honored to attend Col W's fini flight and farewell luncheon at the end of the week, both great events to honor a great man.

So, what happened this weekend that reminded me of how beautiful life is? To begin, we had a squadron hail and farewell on Friday afternoon after work. I got to catch up with some people I either hadn't seen in a while or don't see very often, ate some great food, and laughed watching a couple friends repeatedly sneak into the food line to grab more of my chocolate chip cookies. Sometimes it's the little things, you know? :) OCF that night was bittersweet... sad to say goodbye to Col W, but happy to know that the group will still be a family and looking forward to welcoming new members as others depart.

Saturday morning was a 5K/10K race on base, and though I tried to convince the weather flight to run with me, no one took the bait. Martin came (so nice to have at least one friend who actually enjoys running!), and there was a family I knew from the Mildenhall weather flight, but overall attendance was pretty low. The upside of this was... I took 2nd place in the women's 10K! Haha. I think I would have been 5th in the 5K (counted 4 girls ahead of me on the turnaround), but only one of them continued on for the 10K, so I won a T-shirt and $5 gift card for the BX. Sweet! Martin took 2nd in the men's 5K (and not just because attendance was low, he is actually super-fast, haha), then ran with me for the second half of my 10K. The weather was great and it was a fun event to get out and run with other people... the 2nd place finish was just icing on the cake. :)

I don't think I have mentioned this before, but I have decided (*cough* have been pressured into by Jose *cough*) to play softball on the OG intramural team this summer. For those who didn't know, I played on my church team in high school, and had fun but was never very good. I've always thought it would be fun to play intramurals, but have been too afraid of dragging the team down or embarrasing myself. The potential for those things is still there, but for some reason I have decided to give it a try this season. The first game is Tuesday, and unfortunately the only practice was held on Friday evening during OCF, so I couldn't go. I was terrified that the first time I would touch a glove or bat in 8 years (yikes, has it really been 8 years since I graduated high school?) would be on Tuesday in front of everyone (including our OG commander/soon-to-be wing commander), so I convinced Martin to run through a few softball drills with me after the race on Saturday. We went out to the field and I was relieved to find that I could hit the ball on a somewhat regular basis, as well as being fairly successful at throwing and catching. I will probably be one of the weaker players on the team, but it is really nice to know I will not be a complete disaster, so chalk that up as a positive note for the weekend!

Saturday night was a farewell dinner for CeCe, one of the weather flight forecasters. It will be sad to see her go (we shared many fun memories at Red Flag in Vegas), but it's always fun to have one last night out with the flight members before someone departs. And as a bonus, this dinner was at my favorite restaurant in Bury St Edmunds! Those sweet potato fries alone can make up for a bad week... ;-) Sunday (today) was pretty low-key, which was nice after a full Saturday. I got to sleep in, which is a major boost on the happiness meter. People say sleep is overrated, but I have to disagree. I really like to sleep. It makes me a happier, less stressed, more productive, and less negatively-emotional individual. Yay sleep!

All of those things may not sound too exciting, but I think the point I am trying to make is that it's everything together that makes me love my life right now. I love all the people that God has given me the opportunity to share life with, and I love the hope and promise of good things to come even when current situations feel hopeless. With all the joy that brings, how can I not be joyful?

Marathon Countdown

The Edinburgh Marathon is two weeks from yesterday (13 days away), and I am starting to get excited! It helped a lot to get my last long run, a 20-miler, out of the way this past Thursday. My training had been slightly derailed by all the craziness of April, and I had a couple bad runs trying to get back into it, so I was a little stressed that I wasn't going to be ready in time. I went out on Thursday with a goal of making it to at least 17 miles, since my previous long run had been 14. It was a great day to run - the weather was perfect (just a little windy), and my new mp3 player had arrived in the mail (thanks Mom!) the day before, so I was thrilled to have my music back, and I knew the daylight would hold out until at least 9pm.

I left my house at 5:30pm, and by the time I got to the point I could have turned around to finish at 17 miles, I decided everything was still feeling good enough to go 20... so I went for it, knowing I would feel a lot more confident going into the marathon if I hit the big 2-0. And I did it! It was a bit slower than I had hoped, but that's not a huge concern for me at this point. My legs completely gave out afterwards... I literally had to take a bath that night because they couldn't stand up long enough to take a shower! As I was sitting there contemplating whether my legs had ever hurt that much before, it occurred to me that this was the first time in my life I had ever RUN 20 miles. The longest I ran before Big Sur last year was 17, and in the marathon it was so mountainous I had to walk on some of the uphills as early as the halfway point. So the 20-miler was a milestone for me! :)

Saturday was a fun day, Jose hosted a Cinco de Mayo party at his house and I learned how to make real Mexican tamales! It was fun to hang out with people from the weather flight again, and there was a lot of great food. This coming weekend should be a good one too - On Saturday morning, there is a 5K and 10K race on base, which I am hoping to convince a number of people to run with me. Then Saturday night is CeCe's going-away dinner... sad that she is leaving, but looking forward to a night out with friends at one of my favorite restaurants in Bury St Edmunds. That's about all for now, otherwise just enjoying the beautiful scenery of spring in England and making fun plans for summer!

Relaxing, finally

Okay, so I didn't write the day after the last one as I had intended... sue me. Haha, just kidding. :) But I will finish talking about the excitement of Carrie's visit! I think I left off with us getting back to my house at 4a.m. Saturday after our crazy travel adventure, so I'll pick up there. We had planned on spending Saturday with Carrie's cousins Mark and Kathryn in Cambridge, and still wanted to do that, but sent them a message to say we would probably not make it down there until the afternoon. I think we made it around 2p.m., and we were blessed with an absolutely gorgeous day!

I had been hoping they would offer to take us punting (the British version of a gondola), and was thrilled when we arrived and were told that was the plan! When you go punting, you can either hire a professional punter (I am assuming that is what they are called, haha), or one person in your group can do the punting. Mark has become an expert punter while living in Cambridge, so he did all the work while Carrie and Kathryn and I sat back and enjoyed the ride, the sun, fruity drinks, and the beautiful sights along the river. Here is a picture of Carrie and me in the punt:

After a wonderful afternoon of punting, we went to a pub to get Carrie her first official British pint. Then Martin met us for dinner at a really cool pub called the Eagle, which used to be an RAF bar and has messages written on the walls and ceilings from WWII aircrews. We stayed at Mark and Kathryn's apartment that night and made Carrie's mom's famous buttermilk pancakes for breakfast the next morning... amazing! Sunday was also gorgeous weather, so we walked around the Cambridge campus and got Mark and Kathryn's awesome tour of all the beautiful buildings. Later that day, I took Carrie to Bury St Edmunds to see Abbey Gardens with all the flowers in bloom.

Carrie's flight back to Florida was supposed to be on Sunday, but thanks to the volcanic ash closing UK airspace, she was delayed until Friday. I had to go back to work on Monday, but when Mark and Kathryn offered to take Carrie and me to London on Wednesday, I immediately put in a leave request for the day off! It was another beautiful day in London, and we hit most of the famous sights: Tower of London, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace... it was so exciting to finally explore the city! I definitely feel more prepared to take my future visitors there for a day. Here is a picture of Carrie and me at the Tower Bridge:

It was so fun to have Carrie here for an extra week, it was like being roommates again! We went out to eat a couple times with friends, went bowling, and spent a couple evenings eating dinner on the couch and watching chick flicks. It was sad to say goodbye on Friday morning, but she had a lot of things to get back to in FL, so I am happy her flight went as scheduled and she made it back across the Atlantic. Here is the photo album with all of our fun times in England: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=419891&id=701905001&l=5fce919509

I was on weather standby the weekend after Carrie left, and ended up working Saturday so one of our squadrons could make up flying time lost to the volcano. This weekend has been wonderful so far... I had a great time at OCF last night catching up with friends I hadn't seen in a month or longer. Honestly, as much as I love traveling and as many amazing adventures as I had in the last 4 weeks, I am really happy to be sitting still for a weekend! Today I slept in, sat in my backyard in the sunshine and read a book, went running, showered, made dinner... and that's about it. It was glorious. Haha. Tomorrow I need to be more productive and do some cleaning, but I definitely enjoyed being lazy today.

My next trip will be the weekend of May 23rd for the Edinburgh Marathon in Scotland. My training was derailed slightly by all the craziness, but I am pretty much back on track and am starting to get excited about the race! Also of note, the ballot for the 2011 London Marathon opens this coming Tuesday, and I am hoping to get my name in before it fills up. This marathon is so big and popular, you actually have to compete in a lottery to be chosen to enter the race, and you have to put your name in a year ahead of time. I know my chances are not great for getting into the race, but I'd like to at least get my name in the lottery! There are 125,000 lottery slots, and they were gone in less than 2 days last year. The lottery will be held in October, so even if I get my name in on Tuesday, I won't know until this fall whether I get to run. Annoying, yes, but it would be so awesome if I actually got to run it!

That's all from here for now, looking forward to a day of productivity and church tomorrow. :) Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Travels

Wow… where do I even start??? I knew April was going to be crazy, but thanks to our friend Eyjafjallajokull (the Icelandic volcano), I got way more craziness than I bargained for! I just finished posting two photo albums (one more still to come) from my last two weeks of adventures, and I couldn’t believe they began with Newcastle… that feels like it was a month ago. I know I didn’t finish narrating Poland in the last blog, but in the interest of trying to catch up, I’m going to hope that the captions of the photo album were enough to finish the story. We'll see how far I get on catching you up today, may have to divide and conquer today and tomorrow!


Newcastle was a great time – it is most famous for being a shopping district, but had enough historic sites, cool architecture, and scenery to keep me happy. Friday was a day off work, so Martin and I hopped a train from Bury St Edmunds in the morning and arrived in Newcastle by early afternoon. Our hotel was co-located with the train station, which was super-convenient and within walking distance of everything. That afternoon and evening, we walked around, did some shopping, and found an awesome Italian place for dinner where I had the best lasagna I think I have ever eaten in my life.

Saturday dawned clear, sunny, and warm, so we enjoyed breakfast in the sun at a pub with outdoor seating. Then we went to an interactive life science museum, which hopefully you have been to something similar so you will understand how much fun it was. Instead of staring at stuff on a wall like a normal museum, this one was full of hands-on exhibits like physics demonstrations, city-building, and even an amusement park-like spaceship ride through the planets! We had a blast and spent several hours “playing” with all of the exhibits. Here is a funny picture of me in an igloo:




That afternoon we did some more shopping (the mall was probably the closest thing to a US mall I have seen here), walked along the Tyne river and a couple of the bridges, and watched the famous Millenium Bridge lift up for a boat to pass under it. Exploring the town at night was also fairly interesting – Martin dubbed it the “Vegas of England” because we saw so many people wearing weird costumes (like a Storm Trooper in a tutu) walking around. Sunday morning, we ran 7 miles along the river (I LOVE places with great running routes!), visited the “New Castle” (city’s namesake), climbed all the way to the roof for some great views, and browsed a riverside market before catching the train back home. Here is the link to the Newcastle photo album for many more fun pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=418566&id=701905001&l=5d57006b9b


After getting back to my house Sunday night, I basically just switched out dirty clothes for clean ones in the suitcase and got ready to fly to Italy to meet Carrie! I worked a half day on Monday, then drove to Stansted airport for my evening flight to Trieste, where Carrie (my college roommate, who is also a USAF Lt and works as a developmental engineer at Eglin AFB, FL) was lecturing at an international physics center. Trieste is in the northeast corner of Italy, on the coast about 2 hours east of Venice. I arrived at the conference center on Monday night and met a few of Carrie’s team members before we went back to her hotel room to catch up on “girl talk”. :)

The next day, we went with several of her team members on a day trip to Venice. We took the train into the city and spent all day walking around, sightseeing, and shopping. There are no cars in Venice, so the "streets" are either pedestrian walkways or waterways. We saw plenty of the famous gondolas, but did not ride in one since they are super-expensive (80 Euros, about equivalent to $150). We saw the famous San Marco square, with the beautiful cathedral which unfortunately had scaffolding obstructing half of its face. Here is a picture of Carrie and me on a bridge in Venice:



That night, we had dinner back in Trieste with a bunch of people from the physics center at a really good pizza place. On Wednesday, Carrie and I did a walking tour of Trieste with audio guides (yeah, we looked like tourists). There were plenty of interesting historical sites and beautiful views along the coast. We walked through the gardens of the beautiful Miramare Castle near our hotel, and planned to tour the inside of the castle the next morning before leaving for the airport. Here is the photo album from our adventures in Italy: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=419009&id=701905001&l=4896962e6d



So, Thursday morning... I took the first shower, and turned on my laptop to check my email while Carrie was in the shower. My internet home page is a UK news site, so when my browser opened, I saw the headline "Icelandic Volcano Eruption Affects UK Airspace, Cancels Flights" with a picture of an erupting volcano. I thought, "you have GOT to be kidding me..." I read the story, and it said that most of the flights canceled were to and from Scotland, and that you should check with your airline to find out whether your flight was canceled. I immediately went to the Ryanair home page, and found a looooong list of canceled flights. Ours was NOT on the list. So, Carrie got out of the shower, I told her the funny story about the volcano, we laughed and then checked out of our hotel and had a great time touring the Miramare Castle before heading to the airport.


The travel nightmare began when we got the airport in Trieste and found out our flight was cancelled, along with all flights in UK airspace. We decided that if we could get to Paris, we could get across the Chunnel, so we tried to get train tickets to Paris. The station in Trieste was booked full, but they put us on a train to Venice in hopes that we could get Paris tickets there. When we got to Venice, they were also sold out of Paris tickets, but put us on a train to Milan and gave us a train ticket to Paris out of Milan the next morning. In Milan, there were zero hotels available because of some international furniture show being held in the city, so we spent the night in the Milan train station with approximately 200 other people. It was freezing cold and the floor and benches were cement… definitely not an experience I ever want to have again!


We got on our train to Paris Friday morning, and found out from people sitting near us that Eurostar tickets through the Chunnel were booked through Monday, and ferries out of Calais were booked through Sunday. Not good news… Miraculously, there was a British guy sitting across from us who was on the phone with his wife, and she found ferry tickets out of Cherbourg (in northwest France) to Portsmouth (southern England). He offered to get us tickets too, and we jumped at the chance to just get across the water SOMEHOW. There was an Australian girl named Carley sitting near us who lived in London and also joined our little traveling group, and she ended up being a lifesaver when we got into Paris – she expertly navigated the Paris metro and various bus and train stations to get us on the train to catch our ferry in time.


Carley also offered to let us stay with her in London overnight, since we would be getting into Portsmouth after 11 p.m., too late to get a train. Her boyfriend, who also lived in London, was going to drive down to Portsmouth and pick us up. This little plan somewhat fell apart just as we were boarding the ferry, when her boyfriend called and said he wasn’t getting off work til 3 a.m. (he’s a DJ)... and so we were going to be stuck in Portsmouth with no train and no hotel. Carrie and I did NOT want to spend another night in a train station (we weren't even sure the Portsmouth train station was open 24 hours) and decided it was worth the price of a 3-hour taxi ride, so I called Martin to see if he could Google a phone number for taxis in Portsmouth so we could get one back to the London-Stansted airport (where my car was). When I explained the situation, he instead volunteered to drive down to Portsmouth to get us (an 8-hour round trip), which was absolutely amazing. I definitely owe him big time! After dropping Carley off in London and getting my car at Stansted, we got back to my house at 4 a.m. Saturday morning.


Sooo… just in case you weren’t keeping track (and because I left some of the minor craziness out), what should have been a 2-hour flight on ONE airplane turned into a 40-hour chaotic nightmare on 3 buses, 4 trains, 1 ferry, and 1 car ride. What a mess, huh? And it turns out we were actually some of the lucky ones – there are still people trapped places a week later! Carrie was supposed to fly back to Eglin on Sunday, but she was stuck here with me all week until UK airspace opened back up on Wednesday and she was able to get a flight out on Friday.


Whew, I am exhausted just from telling that story again, as I am sure you are from reading it! I'll stop here for tonight and post again tomorrow with all of the fun stories and pictures from Carrie's time in England.

Big News!!!

NOTE: I am posting this early Friday morning before leaving for Newcastle for the 3-day weekend. I have been writing this over about 3 days and was hoping to get it finished before I left, but no dice. However, I am posting it half-finished because I can't wait any longer to tell you the big news and if I didn't post now, I have no idea when I would... because as soon as I get back from Newcastle, I leave for Italy and then Carrie comes back here with me! So here is half a blog... all you're really missing is the second half of the Poland story, so enjoy and I'll catch up when I can!

So… remember a couple blogs ago when I said I might have some big news soon? Well… I got it yesterday!!! :-D I know the suspense is killing you (haha), so here goes: My request to extend my assignment here from 2 years to 3 years was approved, and I got the official notification yesterday that my new DEROS (end of the assignment) is now July 2012 instead of July 2011. WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-D

As you can tell, I am ecstatic, and I don’t even think the news has really sunk in yet. It’s such a huge relief… I have been so worried that my time here is flying by and that I will run out of time to do everything I want to do and have the experiences I want to have. Now I can relax and breathe because I’m not moving next summer. As of March 29th, I have been here 8 whole months (2/3 of a year!)… and it feels like the blink of an eye. I mean, at the same time, I know I have done SO much in those 8 months, but I think I still have trouble believing sometimes that this is all actually real. Does that sound stupid? Sigh… I wish I could think of a better way to explain it.

This extension also means that I will likely be deployed Jun-Nov of next year (2011). Nothing else to say about that right now, really, just putting it out there because that’s how the system works and it will probably happen. No reason to worry/elaborate until it does… just plan on visiting outside of that window. :-)

On to the Poland trip… what a blast! It’s so nice to have people to travel with. I’ll never give up a chance to travel or sightsee for lack of a travel buddy, but having one or two is definitely the preferred situation. Alex and Martin were so much fun, and both of them were way better at navigating the streets of Warsaw than I was! Our flight took off from London late Friday morning, and landed in Lodz, Poland, in the early afternoon. We caught a bus from the airport to the train station, then got on a train for the 1.5-hour ride to Warsaw. I was really excited that the train had compartments just like in the Harry Potter movies!

When we got into Warsaw, it was rainy and getting dark, so we took a cab to our hotel and checked in before heading to dinner. The hotel was really nice, and our “room” was more like an apartment. We were right off one of the major city streets, and there were an overwhelming number of restaurants and cafes to choose from. We picked a traditional Polish restaurant and enjoyed dinner including pierogies, kielbasa, and potato dumplings. Exploring further down the main street, we came upon a huge open park where an outdoor Good Friday service was being held. There was a huge lighted cross, a stage, choirs singing, and crowds of people packed in as far as we could see. Alex explained that Poland was very Catholic, so this type of event involved the entire community. We watched for a while, then explored a little more before heading back to the hotel for bed.

Saturday morning, we had breakfast at an incredible specialty chocolate store/café. The place was beautiful, and we were served a 3-course breakfast including croissants (plain and chocolate), yogurt and granola (with chocolate sprinkles), and rolls (with chocolate spread). And then there was the hot chocolate… want to know exactly what it tasted like? Imagine drinking a cup of warm brownie batter. Yeah, it was that amazing… and smelled like baking brownies! One thing I forgot to mention up to this point is that the exchange rate for the Polish zloty to American dollar is about 3-to-1, so everything is really cheap for us. Our fancy breakfast cost less than $9. Cool, huh? :-)

And this is where I run out of time... on the positive side, I did get pictures posted, so check these out for more from Poland: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=409265&id=701905001&l=e8cd2222ff

Travel Plans

Bath and Stonehenge pictures are online! Check them out here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=406648&id=701905001&l=2f73c2cc5b

I had to get those pics up this week, because this weekend begins a flurry of travel activity that will pretty much consume the month of April... and I am SOOOOOOO excited!!!!! Of the first 18 days of April, I will be working 6 of them. Pretty sweet deal, right? Two three-day weekends in a row courtesy of USAFE, then taking 4 days of leave to add onto the third weekend. Where am I going? I'm so glad you asked... ;-)

First up (in 3 days!) is Warsaw, Poland. My two excellent travel buddies (Alex and Martin) and I will be flying into Lodz, then taking a train to Warsaw. Exact plans for sightseeing are still slightly up in the air, but we have a hotel room two blocks from city centre and will be meeting up with a friend of Alex's who lives there and can show us around. I am a little nervous about knowing zero of the Polish language, but Alex was a Russian major in college and says Polish is similar... and I may pick up a Polish phrase book before we go.

Weekend #2 is tentatively planned for Newcastle, England. Supposedly a very cool town and a beautiful train ride to get there from here. No reservations have been made yet, but I am pretty sure it is going to happen... more on this as decisions are made! :)

The day after I get back from Newcastle (Monday April 12th), I will be working a half day at work... and then flying out of London to meet Carrie in Trieste, Italy!!! Originally, she was just going to visit here after her TDY in Italy, but we talked more and decided it would be fun to explore Italy together too! We will spend Tues/Wed sightseeing in Trieste and nearby sites, then both fly back to England on Thurs. Thursday night and Friday, I'll be showing her around the area and visiting some cool sites, then Saturday we will get to hang out in Cambridge with Carrie's cousins Mark and Kathryn (they were the ones who I visited in Cambridge when I first got here). Then Carrie will have to fly out on Sunday.

I AM SOOOO EXCITED!!!!! :-D I can't wait to hang out with Carrie again, and she will be my first visitor here! (Which reminds me, I need to clean the house... haha) April is just going to be amazing. There is a lot of work to be done before, during, and after, but I don't think anything is going to darken my mood in the near future. :) I ran 12 miles yesterday even though it was raining and I was minus my running buddy, but I did it and therefore am still on track for the marathon.

By the way, I am sure you noticed the change in the blog background... I thought it was nice and spring-y. :) Hope you like it!

Spring!

Happy Spring, everyone! I celebrated with a beautiful 10-mile run yesterday on the official first day of Spring. It felt like spring, too… I ran in Bury St Edmunds again with Martin, and when we got to Abbey Gardens to stretch, there were people everywhere enjoying the sun and warmer weather – kids playing soccer (football if you’re British), several other runners, and people eating ice cream from the food stand. Even the Garden itself seemed to be celebrating the arrival of spring – the flowers are all starting to bloom and the grass is a much brighter green. Everywhere around here is starting to remind me of when I first arrived in August, with the longer days and greener vegetation. Can you believe it has been 7 months?!?!? I know I can’t…

I think I mentioned in the last entry that I wanted to do more traveling, so here’s an update: I am going to Poland the first weekend in April! How’s that for random? One of the intel girls, Alex, asked me if I wanted to go for our 3-day weekend. The idea surprised me, since Poland was not at the top of my destination list, but after a moment of thought… why not??? Why not take advantage of being somewhere that I can randomly decide to fly to Poland for the weekend and get cheap plane tickets? So I will be in Poland from 2-4 April. Woohoo! Not much specific planning has happened yet, but we are flying into Lodz and taking a train to Warsaw, where we have a hotel room two blocks away from the city center, where I am sure we will have no shortage of things to see and do.

Speaking of traveling, I also have to tell you about my Bath and Stonehenge trip a week ago! Pics have made it from my camera to my computer, but not from the computer to online yet, so I will have to post that link when I get them uploaded. The four of us girls left Lakenheath early afternoon on Saturday and arrived in Bath by late afternoon. We checked into our hotel and decided to walk through town and go to the spa that night.

So.... I was kind of nervous about the spa. I mentioned this last time, but... I just don't really see myself as the "spa" type of person. A spa sounds like a place for people who enjoy wearing not much in the way of clothing (if any), spending a lot of money to have weird things done to their bodies, and eating/drinking weird expensive things. Okay, so maybe that is a pretty bad stereotype. But I'm a T-shirt/jeans/flip-flops girl who (almost) never wears makeup or jewelry. I don't like the idea of people I don't know touching me, or the idea of walking around in a bathing suit. Give me a mountain to climb or a castle to explore while other people sit in spas.

But then we went to the spa... and I have to admit it was actually fun. We didn't get massages or anything, but the other girls and I spent a very enjoyable two hours watching the sun set from the rooftop pool, trying out all the scented steam rooms, and floating around the big bubbly hot tub. I decided that it would be a very good thing to do after a marathon, since it was so relaxing. So, I may or may not be planning to look up spas in Edinburgh. 0:-) Does this mean I am a "spa" person? Well... maybe I just learned the truth of the phrase "don't knock it until you try it"!

Anyway, we walked back to our hotel that night with plans to get up and sightsee in Bath in the morning before setting out for Stonehenge. We spent all morning and into the early afternoon touring the ancient Roman baths, walking around the town, and visiting several cute shops. Here is a picture of me from inside the Roman baths, with Bath Abbey in the background:



I was looking forward to seeing Stonehenge, though I had been told by several people that it was not very exciting. And, I can't necessarily argue that, after seeing it... but it's just one of those things I wanted to see, you know? It's world famous, even if it is "just a pile of rocks". We were lucky to have good weather, though it was very windy. It's kind of funny how quickly you come up on the site... you're just driving along the road, and then all of a sudden, there's Stonehenge. You could drive right by it if you weren't looking for it.

We stopped and picked up an audio tour handset, then walked around the trail circling the stone formation. The audio tour made it more interesting, but I was distracted by the multitude of cute fuzzy sheep grazing in the fields surrounding us. After we all took a bunch of pictures to prove we had been there, we headed home. Here is what I think is my best picture of Stonehenge:



I don't have anything planned for this weekend (mainly because I'm on weather standby again), but in two weeks is Poland, three weeks is another 3-day weekend with several travel possibilities being discussed, and four weeks is when my college roommate Carrie will be visiting! I am super-excited about all of these things, and I hope the weather continues to cooperate. Marathon training continues, and I am pretty happy with how that is going. I am less sore today after 10 miles than I was last week after 8, so I think that means my body is catching up to my training pace. 9 weeks til marathon weekend in Edinburgh!

I have another big item to discuss, but I think I'm going to wait until next time when I may have more news... (I'll give you a hint: it has something to do with how much longer I get to live in England!) For now, I need to go ice a birthday cake for someone in the weather flight (gave me an excuse to bake my favorite Funfetti Spring cake mix!), and get to bed. Good night!

More Daylight

I admit it… I have been a very bad blogger in the last couple weeks. Don’t feel left out, because apparently I have also been bad about checking my email, since I had two from my mom this morning asking if I was alive. Oops… sorry Mom. So here is a blog to prove to all of you that I am, in fact, alive. ;-) The base is doing a big exercise this week, and last week was crazy busy getting ready for it. Two weekends ago, I was on weather standby and got called in to work both Saturday and Sunday, which was not too fun and meant I didn’t do much else interesting that weekend. I did put Dover pictures online, so here is the link, though I am guessing most of you on Facebook have already checked them out: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=392098&id=701905001&l=5066889e9e (P.S. The link should work even if you are not on Facebook.)

Last week was good, though busy. On Wednesday, I had lunch with a bunch of other Lts, most of whom I have met through my intel friends from Red Flag. I really like getting to know new people, and it was a fun lunch hour that turned into a planning session for outings over the next two weekends. Friday morning, my squadron ran in a base 5K, which I was really excited about. Official marathon training for my May 23rd Edinburgh (Scotland) full marathon began last Monday, so I have been running more and was looking forward to a little competition. I was happy with how I ran, but irritated that the course turned out to be only 2.7 miles (a 5K is 3.1). Poor race organization, in my opinion, plus it should have been announced at the beginning so there weren’t people walking around afterwards thinking they took 4 minutes off their 5K time (not me, thanks to my Garmin GPS watch). Anyway, despite the distance foul and the frigid temperature, it was still fun to get out there and run with the squadron and others on base.

On Saturday, I went out to dinner with a bunch of my new friends at an amazing restaurant in Bury St Edmunds. You may remember Bury from my two sightseeing expeditions there back in August, most notably Abbey Gardens, St Edmundsbury Cathedral, and the extensive Saturday market. I now know three people who live in walking distance of the Bury town centre, so it is the perfect location to meet up and walk to all kinds of restaurants, pubs, and entertainment, not to mention the historical sites like the Gardens. Saturday night, we met at a restaurant called Benson and Blake’s, which had the most incredible sweet potato fries I have ever eaten. I should have taken a picture, they were that good… haha. :) After dinner, we visited a few pubs, one of which had a live band playing that wasn’t bad.

Sunday was my first “long run” day for marathon training, and Martin offered to do my 6-miler with me on a nice route he knew in Bury, so we went out to run in the late afternoon and it was GORGEOUS. Though it was cold, the weather was clear with little wind, and perfect for running. We ran to Abbey Gardens for a warmup, stretched in the shadows of thousand-year-old abbey ruins, then set off for 6 miles past the towering cathedral, through the picturesque town, and out a long paved trail past fields of sheep and some rolling hills. This was one of those runs that reminded me of why I love running, especially as the sun was setting on our way back and turned the sky pink and orange behind the fields and cathedral profile. Amazing. :-D

Believe it or not, it really is starting to feel like spring here. The most noticeable factor is the amount of daylight rapidly increasing. For several months, I have been driving to and from work in the dark, as the sun would rise after 0800 and set before 1600. Now, it is daylight by 0630, and stays light until after 1800. It is really motivating for running, and just puts me in a better mood overall. It also has me itching to start traveling more on weekends again! This weekend, I am going with a bunch of girls for “Ladies’ Weekend” at a spa in the historic city of Bath. We are going to tour Bath, hang out at the spa, and also visit Stonehenge, which is in the same area. Though I have never been to a spa and am not really sure it is my kind of thing, I’m excited for the new experience, sightseeing, and getting to know the other girls better.

I kind of feel like my life has been in a time warp since returning from Red Flag a month ago. Work has been so busy, and then with so many old friends gone and getting to know new ones, it is like life has never returned to “normal”… and that’s not necessarily good or bad, just something I am trying to get used to, and it has made the last month fly by. I’m excited about the possibilities coming with spring, like travel, races, and visitors. All that plus the good weather and daylight has me in a good mood even though it was a long Monday at work, so I hope it continues through the long week of this exercise!

Fun Stuff

Good news and bad news... Everyone asks for bad news first, so here it is: I do not have a photo album done for Dover yet. Good news? Vegas is finally finished! :) Here you go, let me know if the link doesn’t work: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=388730&id=701905001&l=232251b201

The first fun thing that has happened since my last blog is that I finally got my Mini back! It had been in a garage for quite a while getting a rusted floor panel replaced, and I am thrilled to have my bright yellow baby back. It is definitely a smile-inducer when the weather is cold and gray. I was worried I wouldn't remember how to drive stick after it was gone for so long, but it actually came back pretty quickly and I am having a blast driving it around. What a fun little car. I'll have to get another picture of it on here so you can smile at it with me. :)

This past weekend was the most relaxing since before Red Flag, but included a lot of fun stuff too. On Friday, my squadron had a Hail and Farewell at the base skating rink. Yes, a skating rink, and no, we are not in middle school. I was intrigued by the idea, since I used to love flying around the mile loop at the park at home on rollerblades, but I haven’t rollerbladed regularly in at least three years. I was also worried that it was one of those things where everyone would be too cool to get out there and skate. So I went, but wasn’t expecting much.

As soon as I walked in the door, however, it was like those three years evaporated… I saw people circling the rink and all of a sudden could NOT wait to get out there! I was thrilled to find that a) the rink rented rollerblades in addition to regular skates, and b) there were already people from my squadron lacing up! I couldn’t get my skates on fast enough, and probably looked like a kid on Christmas morning when I stepped out into the rink with my friend Alison and picked up speed. I forgot how much I love rollerblading! The rink was pretty tiny, so I couldn’t get going too fast without crashing into a wall, but it got me dreaming about going all-out down those beautiful quarter-mile long stretches at the park and wind flying past my ears… amazing feeling.

So, I think I am going to skate in a rollerblade marathon. You're laughing. Don't worry, I did too when Martin first sent me the website link about how Berlin runs a rollerblade marathon as part of their marathon weekend in September. But after Friday afternoon, I really want to do it!!! I would love to get back into skating regularly, and it gives me an excuse to go explore Berlin... what better combination could I get? The only issue is finding somewhere to train around here. Alison (who I think is in as well), jokingly suggested the flight line as the only long flat paved surface we could come up with, but I'm not sure that would go over too well with base security. We'll just have to keep brainstorming...

On Saturday, a bunch of people from the squadron went out to dinner and a couple pubs in Cambridge to celebrate Greg's last weekend in England. It was a great time, I missed those guys while I was in Vegas! Today was Greg's last day at work, and it was really sad to say goodbye. He is the last in a string of people to move away in the last couple months, and the weather flight "family" feels smaller every time. At the same time though, the timing amazes me, how this happened at the exact same time that the Vegas trip introduced me to so many new people and new friends... like God knew I was going to need an "extended family". :)

No plans for this weekend yet, but I'm on weather standby so I can't go anywhere too far away. Maybe I'll finish my Dover photo album! ;-)