Being Annoying By Posting Lots of Pretty Europe Pictures

Volterra - Yes, where Bella chased Edward in Twilight

Volterra 2

Volterra 3

Rome - Emperors' private stadium on Palatine Hill

Rome - Roman Forum

Rome - Colosseum

Rome - Colosseum Inside

Rome - Inside St. Peter's Basilica / Lynnea Quick's birthplace and house

Orvieto - Duomo

Orvieto - Gigantic well that a pope had built

Pompeii - Mt. Vesuvius victim from 79 A.D.

Pompeii Streets

Pompeii in a ruined house

Herculaneum

Florence - Secret pocket picture of statue of David (we weren't allowed to have cameras...)

Florence - Duomo from Medicci Family Palace Tower

Dachau Concentration Camp entrance

Munich - Hofbrauhaus - beer place

Munich - Inside Hofbrauhaus (400 yrs of serving beer)

Munich - Glockenspiel

Munich - Hofbrauhaus beer comes in liters

Hohenschwangau Castle in Germany 

Nueschwanstein Castle in Germany

EUROPA!

Americans are dumb, rude, sloppily dressed, and fat.  GO USA!  During our layover in Paris, you could look around the airport and pick out the Americans immediately based on their frumpy clothes, their fat, and their oblivion to the goings ons around them.  I am not saying I am above this at all (I like dressing like crap and being oblivious) but it was just so much more obvious there.


Another thing that became obvious is how difficult simple things become when you don't speak the native language.  In Switzerland, my family annoyed the crap out of our waitress.  She knew a few English phrases like "Hi... Eat?" and then after that we mostly ordered with gestures.  After that, she had to help us get into the parking garage where we left our car because all the doors were locked and we couldn't read the sign that said to punch in your parking ticket number to unlock the door.  After that, she had to call someone to help us get our car out of the parking garage for free because the automatic card reader would not read any of our American credit cards and we didn't have any Swiss Francs yet.  Thanks waitress for going far above and beyond.  She hated us.


I also learned that the Italian word for hot is caldo.  At a gas station I tried to ask for someone to fill my water bottle because they didn't have a drinking fountain.  She said "Ice o caldo?" (did I want ice water or hot water?) and I thought she said "Ice or cold?" (meaning with or without ice but still cold).  I said "cold" because I didn't want to trouble her further for ice.  She heard "caldo" and proceeded to fill my plastic water bottle with scalding water which made the water bottle too hot to even touch and probably melted a layer of hazardous materials off of the inside of the bottle.  I drank the water 4 hours later when it finally stopped boiling, and ingested all sorts of bad plastic stuff!!!  I don't know why hot water was even an option.  It was really hot outside to begin with and the temperature of that water would have scarred my intestines.


Finally, I realized how NOT to communicate with people.  When someone doesn't know English,  my dad's go to way to handle it is to repeatedly shout the same word over and over again at them.  Example: at a toll road, he shouted "Francs!  Francs! Francs! Francs!" at the worker as he shoved money towards him.  This interaction would have been better with no words at all because when he handed him the Swiss Francs, it would have become clear that he was giving him Francs just like every other car that drove through that day and didn't need to tell him.  It would have also been better because the toll guy wouldn't have been afraid for his life.


Ok, here is an obnoxious amount of sweet pics from Grindelwald, Switzerland and the Italian coast (Cinque Terre villages):

Time to Take Europe By Storm

YEP.  I am finally going.  Leaving tomorrow and I don't think I will sleep tonight.
Here are some goals for while I am there:


1) During 2 hr layover in Paris: use my vast French vocabulary that I got from French 3 in high school and my perfect French accent to strike up conversation with some locals and make them hate Americans even more.  I will tell them that I prefer American fries, American kissing, American dressing, American horns and American toast.
2) Ask the Swiss why they are always so neutral and then try to provoke them into some sort of fight to prove they aren't as neutral as they think.
3) Drink Italian wine, eat spaghetti, eat pizza and see stuff.  Then see stuff, eat pizza, eat spaghetti, and drink Italian wine.
4) Drink German beer and don't talk about WWII.  Also shout "PROBST!" (cheers) at everyone and say "Mine lieblingsessen ist brot, Ich pupsin in dein hafferflocken." (My favorite food is bread, I fart in your oatmeal) since this is the extent of my German vocabulary.


AAAAAHHHHHHHH! THIS IS GOING TO BE THE BESSSST!

Doing Every Sport Ever

I want to learn all the sports.  Since I have been mostly running for the past 14 years I have not had a chance to do a lot of other sports.  Now since track is done, I want to do all of them.  I am still going to run but I am also going to do things that require coordination.  Also, I plan to get anybody who has any sort of skill in any sport to teach me how to do that sport.  So far I have tried learning disc golf, swimming, basketball, kickboxing, golf, tennis, rock climbing, and aerobic stepping (not a sport but still exercise) and have had a friend or boyfriend or free wellness center instructor to teach me how.  Tomorrow I will learn soccer.  My friend Hilary played on her college team and wrote me some soccer workouts and it will be awesome.


I still want to learn volleyball, racket ball, hockey, wrestling, ping pong, and everything else except baseball/softball.  I don't care if that is un-american. I have no interest in doing the amount of standing around involved in that sport.  Anyone who wants to teach me stuff let me know!

This Person Exsists

On Saturday I was dropping off my friend at her apartment after a trip to Des Moines and she ran upstairs to grab some gas money for me.  I waited in the driveway entrance to the parking area under the building and my car was blocking the sidewalk.  I was there for 2 minutes at most.  Here is a real person that I met during that time:


Man: [walks up to my car and indicates I should roll down my window] "You know, its illegal to park on the sidewalk."
Me: "I am not parked here.  I am just waiting for my friend."
Man: "The law would say you are parked here."
Me: "Oh... Ok... Do you want me to move for you?"
Man: "Yes.  I would like that." [waits as I move the car forwards 5ft and then proceeds on his way as I return the car to its original position.]


I should say that there was plenty of space for him to walk around the car without stepping in the street or in the scary/dangerous grass.  It would have taken him 2 extra seconds and he could have completely avoided being one of the most obnoxious people I've ever encountered.  But he chose the jerk route.  Good job sir.

Streaking

I have always wanted to go streaking and finally it happened.  AND THE POLICE SHOWED UP.  I will not say who was there but there were three of us.  Also, I do not want to go into too many details because it is quite the long story but here is a summary:


We did this at the cross country course in the dark with nobody around and supposedly no chance of getting caught.  We were there for less than ten minutes and about to leave when a cop car showed up before we could put our clothes back on.  Next there was a lot of naked hiding in the woods and naked laying as flat as possible in the field while the cop shined his spotlight everywhere.  Later a second cop showed up and there was a sobriety test for one of the participants who had managed to wiggle into her clothes and emerge from the field.  The test was passed with flying colors since no alcohol was involved and there was a lot of her saying "I'm just weird and embarrassed" and insisting she was alone.  Next, the cops started throwing around the word "suspicious" a lot and threatened to bring dogs out to find anyone else that was out there.  Finally the night ended with some sneaky passing of clothes into the darkness so I could get dressed and then a naked German flying into the back seat and laying flat on the car floor until we were out of sight.


Just when the night seemed it was going to end as horribly as possible, everything was resolved and we didn't get in trouble at all!  YAY!!!

The Hardest Thing I Have Ever Done

Yesterday I biked 140 miles.  I got up at 5:30AM and left the house at 6.  Then, I biked the last leg of Ragbrai from last year to Davenport, then took a loop around Credit Island, then crossed Government Bridge to Arsenal Island, then crossed another bridge to Rock Island, and headed south to sunset park.  After that I headed back on the same route.  I got back 13 hours later at 7PM and took the best shower of my life, gorged on some leftovers, and then passed out for almost 14 hours.


Here were the most interesting parts of the ride:


- At one point the road was closed for construction and I didn't have any other routes drawn on my map so I crossed a ditch to the nearby railroad and carried my bike for about a quarter of a mile.  A construction worker asked where I was headed and I told him he was on my bike path.
- Being kind of tired at 40 miles in and then trying to reassure myself by thinking how there was only 100 miles left.
- Hitting my first real wall at miles 80-100 and realizing I wasn't going to make it.  Regretting not preparing for the ride at all by biking more than a mile to class and back for the last 9 months.
- Bought 64 oz of gatorade at a gas station to refill the water bottles and talked to an old lady who convinced me to buy a paper poppy made by veterans.  The gatorade helped for the next 15 miles.
- Worst part by far was the last 20 miles in which my gps watch ran out of battery and there were no landmarks to indicate how far was left and it was suddenly the hilliest road in the universe.  I decided not to rest until West Branch and thought I was almost there at least a dozen times only to get to the top of a giant hill to see three more giant hills with no sign of civilization ahead of me.
- Ate ice cream on a bench in West Branch and felt like throwing up
- On the final stretch back to Iowa City I saw a sign that said "Iowa City Outer Limit" and started laughing to myself and almost cried
- Arriving at my front porch, dirty, exhausted, thirsty, and in shock that I actually made it.


Everything on my body hurts.  Especially the parts that were in contact with the bike (hands, butt, and feet).  Also my knees and hamstrings and quads and back and shoulders hurt.  I think my lips are sunburned and I have a bunch of bug bites.  As much as I never wish to do that again, I am glad I did it.    It pushed me way further outside my comfort zone than I ever imagined possible and now I know that when my body says to stop, there could be about 60 more miles in the tank.


Up next: Madison Marathon with Katie on a week from tomorrow.  We are running rogue since registration closed but it won't matter because we just want to finish and don't care about place. WOOOO!

CREDIT ISLAND:

GOVERNMENT BRIDGE BETWEEN IOWA AND ILLINOIS: