George, Jen, Sydney and Charlotte were all there from Budapest and John and Colleen were able to make it from Sarajevo. Newcomers Nick and Alison (from Budapest) were a great expansion of the group. Ralph wanted to improve his time by 5 minutes, which to you and I may not sound like much, but spreading 5 minutes out over 13 miles is a 30 second per mile improvement. Quite a lot. Well, that carbo-load the night before –must- have done something because he improved his time by 9 minutes!! He did so great, it was really a great accomplishment. Sunday was spend mostly recovering, we ain’t what we used to be and between the sore backs, knees and general muscle achiness, it was a great day to lay low, read: late breakfast, a visit to the Mucha and shopping!
And what a stellar success, thanks to C&A, H&M and a couple other little stores. I ended up with 8 tops and 2 pairs of pants (all for the price of 2, yes TWO, skirts in Cyprus)! I may be sick of them in 4 months, but at least I have a choice other than leaving my zipper open – how embarrassing! And I got a range of sizes hoping it will last a while. There is 1 more pair of pants I’d love to get my hands on, hoping that Jen can do it when she’s in Vienna next weekend. That night we shared a lovely meal with John and Colleen at Brasserie M (thanks to Mom! - great find).
Monday was a day to double back to the castle, the walking streets a nice lunch and general down time in a world class city. I left for Vienna at 21:00 and Ralph to Larnaca at 22:00. Vienna was nice, a tad strange to return to the ‘scene of the crime’ without Ralph, but again nice to be in a city with art, culture and class. My presentation/event (Tuesday) for work went okay and the Wednesday I was able to spend some time at the Kunsthistorich in the Museumquartier. Flew to Warsaw, gave the same presentation / event Thursday and flew back to Larnaca that night. While I was less than thrilled to get back to Nicosia, it was great to see Ralph and the puppies!
No more work travel planned until the big trip back to the States for the babies. Which I suppose is a good thing. Even though I have a ton more energy this trimester and that need to sleep 20 hours a day is over (thank God) I still get pooped out by about 4 or 5 pm and found those after work mixers to be just exhausting. Only other personal travel we are looking at is Jordan over Orthodox Easter (end of April). I need to hop on it and get something planned very soon.
Oh! The Prague 1/2 was so good, that everyone is already planning on running again in Budapest this fall. It will be a blast, for those who can go. It’s Labor Day weekend, and I expect to still be at home with the babies…. Lucky Ralph gets to travel again and have fun with the usual suspects. Hummmmm putting this, the planned trip to Italy for skiing next February and I’m thinking he owes me!!! ;) let’s see…. A weekend at a spa, a long weekend at a yoga conference, a week in Paris –now that’s getting close!
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