June is exciting.

So the sun has finally decided to grace Germany with it's presence which was wonderful. It is gone again but I have high hopes I will once again get to bask in it's rays in the wonderful backyard here. 

Lots of exciting things happening though, rain or shine. 

Last weekend I ran my half marathon! This is something I have always wanted to do and with only a month of training after my MRI from the accident it was no easy task. The course was 70% hills, in the wine bergs of the "Rotweinwanderweg" which is very beautiful but very difficult to run. The first couple miles were no problem along the Ahr river but then we turned off into a neighborhood with the end of the road being a wall of wine berg....straight up. I looked up and saw people running and knew that I was about to die. So miles 3-5 were veryyyyy difficult but once I got used to the hills a little and figured out how far I could push my legs in terms of running or walking up the steep parts it got better. Mile 7 was hilly but completely on top of the wine bergs so I could just look out and see the Eifels and it was just very pretty, I had a lot of fun there and made up some of my time walking up the steeps. Mile 9 was a challenge but then after that it was just mostly fun. I was singing along with my music and half dancing as I was running. I think I go some funny looks but it was fun. I'm used to running in the woods where I don't see a soul along the way (unless they are animals) so I just had fun with it. The last couple miles we were back along the Ahr on the other side and I had caught up to a few people who had passed me. I was pacing myself with this one girl who was near me almost the whole race, then I blew past her :) In the last mile I must have been very excited to finish or my adrenaline was pumping but I just felt like I was sprinting it. We finished through the Kurpark in Neuenahr and then I saw the kids and Nina and Florian, Tina, Mela, Hilde and my whole little fan club and started to really sprint. My last mile was in 9:30 which for a half marathon I think is weird but I was excited! My full time was 2 hours and 20 minutes. That is long but for all the hills and my lack of intense training (my longest run prior to the race was 8 miles..) I am pretty proud of myself. 

In the wine bergs

sprinting to the finish

my little fan club. Tina, Nine, me, Tina, Hilde and Mela, then the kids in the front. 

The runners for wine and beer at the after race party. 

It was a great experience especially since my first one was in Germany. I think it is definitely something I would love to do again. Maybe with a friend....

Thursday of this week we had a CRAZY storm. At 11:30am it looked like 10:30pm outside. Really crazy. There was ping pong ball sized hail, the rain was pouring buckets sideways, and there was thunder and lightning. Trees came down all of the place and almost everyone in Ramersbach had flooded basements. I guess the Eifel and Bonn got hit the hardest. It was like Armageddon here and I was freaking out about how to get the kids back from school/the bus. So many trees had come down into the road to Ramersbach that the bus couldn't come up. Luckily everyone in Ramersbach is like  a little family so another parent brought them home. The evening was sunny and not a cloud in the sky. It was a very crazy day. 

Thursday night I went to Köln with Mela and Eva for the Tegan and Sara concert. Mela had gotten me a ticket for my birthday. It was a great show, and funny the way they were talking to the audience (they are American). I have never seen so many lesbians in one place though....didn't expect that. 

It was a fun night. 

Friday afternoon we went to Anja's and helped her clear away the trees that had fallen in her yard. I expressed my long standing fear of chainsaws so naturally, Florian made me use one. So, take THAT Northbrook Park District, after 20 years I've finally done it! I'm not sure that I'm not afraid anymore though....

Yesterday (Saturday) I got up really early and Mela, Tina, and Benni and I ventured to Amsterdam to go to the Holi Festival of colors. It was very cool although I really wish it had been outside and in the sun. Of course it was raining so they had the top of the Amsterdam Area, where it was, closed. We were there in the beginning and left before it was over which was also a bummer because the music was better as we left, the beginning was just basically house music with the same beat over and over. It was a cool experience and I think by tomorrow my hair and skin will have recovered from the powder....still pretty raggedy. 

Before

Cool with the AJAX in the background

dancing

after

Every hour on the hour there was a countdown and we all threw powder in the air. It was very cool to see. 

This week I start more manuelle therapy for my knees which is good, especially after the race. I also have training for a flash mob which will be a lot of fun! Next weekend is the Showtanzparty which I will have to dance at for La Boom. It's here in Ramersbach in the Florianshütte so most everyone will have already seen me make a fool of myself. Lots more exciting stuff coming up so stay tuuuuuuuned :)

Bis Dann! (Until then!)

Budapest by Bike

So Friends....

I just got back on Monday morning, which was a long day after a long but wonderful weekend. I left Thursday evening which meant missing Florian's geburtstag (birthday) celebration but it sounded like he had quite a party and probably didn't miss me. 

Ben got me from the airport and we found my hostel which was in a great location. We went to his friend, Lászlo's apartment and he wasn't there so we checked out the conveniently located bar right downstairs. My hostel was just across the bridge in the Pest side of the Danube so we were pretty close together (Ben's friend lived in Buda) it made for some great walks and bike rides across the Danube. The man working at the bar didn't speak much English but from his time abroad there, Ben had learned how to order 2 beers and 2 shots of Pálinka, which is a Hungarian fruit brandy. Beer is sör (sh.urr) and wine is bor. There are many different flavors of Pálinka and it is very strong. Not my favorite thing in the world to drink but hey, when in Hungary....

Upon hearing our troubled conversation with the man working at the bar, a woman jumped in to chat with us also in pretty broken English. She was Hungarian but had been living in Florence, Italy for the last 20 years so she sounded more Italian than Hungarian. Anyway, long story short she was very chatty and had a computer with her and was telling me all about her online dating website (after talking about her Italian husband) and showing me her many suitors. It was definitely an interesting way to start the trip....

We went to one of the many "ruin pubs" that make Budapest so cool. They are old buildings that were once something completely random but had been converted into bars so they were decorated very crazy and just had a very cool vibe to them. We hung out there with some of Ben's Hungarian friends from school there which was very cool. They were all so very nice and it was cool to just be led around the city by Hungarians. One of them didn't speak any English but somehow I found out he spoke German so we chatted, more easily since I had been drinking. 

I did learn my first Hungarian words. They cheers with egészségre (egg.esh.egg.ed.re) which literally means for your health. They also say this when you sneeze. I also learned Thank you which is köszönöm (koss.on.om) and hello which is szia (see.uh).

The next morning Ben and I met up and went to the Great Market which was basically a giant indoor farmer's market. We got some fruit and pastries and sat on the river, which is EXTREMELY flooded right now, like most of Germany is. I have never seen so much flooding so that was crazy to me. 

there should be a road to the left of the signs...

where a road should be..

a tram usually runs through that tunnel under the bridge

theres a bus stop and a boat dock....aaaaand a giant tree that got caught as it was floating down the river.

more of where a street should be. 

We made our way to the St. Stephen's Baszilika and got our bikes that we rented for the weekend which was an awesome call. We walked up to the top of the Baszilika where there is a panoramic view of the city. All the stairs were a struggle being hungover but once we made it to the top it was so pretty. 

all the stairs. 

We were at the top of the middle tower. 

After that we got some coffee and made our way down this long beautifully tree lined street, Andrássy which is also where the House of Terror museum is. 

This street dead ends at Hero's Square with City Park behind that. We climbed up the middle statue there and then went and got lunch in City Park, met up with Lászlo and layed by the pond in the sun and enjoyed the nice day. 

Us in Hero's Square with our bikes, of course they had to be in the photo as well.

Checking out the Heros....

The pond at City Park with Hero's Square in the background. 

We all got dinner that night and went out and met up with Fabio's friends from Jersey so it was funny to be in a group of Americans....once again. We went to a really cool place called Morrison's 2 (apparently there are 3 and one of them is in the basement of Ben's school there, Corvinus).

It was giant and as you walked around you discovered more and more rooms, a never ending maze. This was not the only place we went to like that...

The next morning Ben and I met up and got breakfast and went to the Széchenyi baths also in City Park with the Jersey kids. They are the famous baths I have seen so many pictures of. We weren't there for too long before it started to thunder and lightning and rain. It passed pretty soon, but not without leaving a trail of clouds. 

It was very ornate with tons of statues. 

The baths from the outside, such a beautiful building. 

We hung out there for a while then headed out and stopped in the park and got a Hungarian Chimney cake which was delicious. We rode on our bikes around the park and stopped at the beautiful little pond next to a castle in the park. 

After we hung out there for a while we hopped back on our bikes and passed this music/beer festival that was going on all weekend and decided to stop and check it out. The music was pretty good and there was lots of delicious looking foods so that's where we got dinner and a beer. They were making the chimney cakes in the traditional way there which was cool to see. 

They wrap the dough around a stick and turn it over hot coals and it bakes that way. 

We were right down the road from parliament so we stopped and checked out yet another memorial and the parliament building which was very beautiful. 

We had a great bike ride over the chain bridge and of course stopped to take lots of great pictures of the beautiful dusk. I saw some amazing sunsets there and the city at night is my favorite way to see it I think. 

Lion on the chain bridge with the National Gallery in the background.  

The Buda side of the river. The building on the left is the Fisherman's Bastion. 

essential nerdy bike picture. 

That night we went out with the Jersey kids again to a kind of touristy ruin pub called Instant. 

Me, Eric, Ben, Lauren

photobombing stranger, and Tara in the front. 

The next day Ben and I got brunch at a cafe across the street from the main Jewish Synagoge which was very pretty.

 Then we biked to the train station and hopped on a bus into the hills of Buda and went on a chairlift that was very cool. We rose above the city and it was an awesome view. 

It was about 10-15 minutes each way and once we got to the top, there was another hill that we hiked up with a sort of lookout tower which we also went to the top of. There were about 6 layers. One side was the entire city of Budapest and the other side was the hills with trees and small villages, it kind of looked like the Eifel to me which is where I live. 

once again, on top of the world (but not so much snow and in a different country)

Great view with the sun, amazing clouds and the Hungarian flag blowing in the wind. 

After we got back from that adventure we biked over to the House of Terror which is a museum all about the reign of the Arrow Cross Party in Budapest. It was actually the headquarters of this Hungarian Nazi party and once called the "House of Loyalty". It is where they would take the supposed traitors or spies to be interrogated, tortured and executed. The basement still has the cells of the prisoners and the torture rooms and execution room. It was chilling to go down there and think about how recent in history these events really are. The most horrifying part was that the cells and execution room had small blacked out windows that you could actually hear the traffic from Andrássy, reminding the prisoners that freedom was just outside the window, but they would likely never taste is again. That in itself must have been a special kind of horror. 

The awning is like that so when the sun shines through, the word terror appears on the sidewalk outside the building. The Arrow Cross next to the star was the sign of the Arrow Cross Party. 

After that we met up with Lászlo and got some beers and hiked up to the top of the hill their statue of liberty is on to watch the sun set. It was quite a hike but an amazing view once we got to the top. 

It's the hill on the left, this is the view of it from the chain bridge. 

This is her once we were at the top. 

another cool statue as the sun is setting behind. 

The city. 

Lászlo, Ben and I

So beautiful. 

We hiked down and got some traditional Hungarian gulasch soup which was delicious. Then Ben and I returned our bikes at the Baszilika which is very pretty at night. 

 We walked around for a while, and at this point it was pretty late. We went and looked at the flooded river again and ran into a bride and groom. Pretty strange for 1am at a flood.

Right before getting to my hostel we passed a bar that looked like this...

so of course we had to walk in and look around. 

Luckily I had some paper with me so we added to the madness before leaving the city :)

Overall it was just a really wonderful city. So beautiful and I loved it a lot more than I expected to. Ben was a great tour guide and it's always nice to see someone from home. It's always so great for me to be in a city that is so foreign to me. From the language to the currency I was always on my toes and always looking around. The architecture was very pretty and looked a bit like Paris in that sense. I'm so happy I got to make this trip although unexpected when came here. 

There is so much history, not all pretty and they commemorate all of it. The good the bad and the ugly, there is a memorial for it. This was something that was great to see and shows something about Hungary. The past might not always be pretty or reflect great things about where we came from but it needs to be remembered and we should be reminded that terrible things did happen, it makes us who we are.