Red Shoes.

On Pregnancy

2010-02-12T16:03:00.003-06:00

I'm pregnant! Took us a while, but pretty much happened immediately following the happy occasion of my TSH dropping (briefly) below 1.0. Sadly, we had a miscarriage shortly later, but were thrilled to find out that all our bits and pieces were provisionally working!

My TSH slipped a bit afterwards and my nails started breaking and I started sleeping more. I knew I needed an increase, but was being stubborn and waiting for my next scheduled TSH test. The test showed my TSH had slipped up into the 1.5 range iirc, so I argued for a dose increase, got it, and promptly felt much better. TSH dropped down to the 0.8 range again, and within two months of that, I got pregnant again!

At that time, we promptly had to up my dose again -very common in pregnancy-, and I'm currently taking 137 mcg/day and my TSH is right around 0.52. I'm thrilled! Am hoping to keep it that low (or lower) post-partum. The goiter doesn't seem much reduced at all, though Mum and Dad say it seems smaller to them. At least it's not bigger.

Coincidence? I don't think so! I'm also pleased that yet again, I insisted on treatment. To have been told that my thyroid is fine, then to end up with a nearly full-replacement dose is a nice acknowledgement that I was right - thyroid *is* wonky.

Oh, and we're due in late May. :)

Filed under "Everything You Know is Wrong"

2008-11-07T12:53:00.004-06:00

First things first, after 50 squats this morning, am having serious trouble staying in control of my legs. Kinda fun. Kinda annoying.

So Slashdot tells us that stretching before exercise may weaken your muscles. I haven't read the original report yet, but this is really interesting. I've always been a bit of a lazy stretcher. I've got moderate flexibility and at times I've stretched a huge amount, and at times not so much. Through it all I've maintained moderate flexibility. Now, I may not feel so guilty!

It looks like the recommendation is to go with dynamic stretches (described in the article). They look pretty cool.

From Slashdot today:

Posted by kdawson on Friday November 07, @09:40AM

from the everything-you-know-is-wrong dept.

Khemisty writes"Back in grade school you were probably taught the importance of warm-up exercises, and it's likely you've continued with pretty much the same routine ever since. Science, however, has moved on. Researchers now believe that some of the more entrenched elements of many athletes' warm-up regimens are not only a waste of time but are actually bad for you. The old presumption that holding a stretch for 20 to 30 seconds — known as static stretching — primes muscles for a workout is dead wrong. It actually weakens them. In a recent study conducted at the University of Nevada, athletes generated less force from their leg muscles after static stretching than they did after not stretching at all. Other studies have found that this stretching decreases muscle strength by as much as 30 percent. Also, stretching one leg's muscles can reduce strength in the other leg as well, probably because the central nervous system rebels against the movements."

Wooo hooo!

2008-09-12T09:11:00.002-05:00

10 pounds down! This is the first time I've lost weight since my metabolism blew in '02.

I can't tell you what a relief this is.

I won't tell you all the numbers involved, but I will tell you this. I've lost just over 4% of my body weight. I've lost approximately 11% of my goal loss.

How'd it happen? Well, I think two things came together:

1. Strict low carbing. What can I say? It works. I've been a lazy low-carber for years now, so it was easy to drop down to strict low carbing. Since I've been lazy low-carb for years (since 2000) also means that I'm not missing any comfort foods, but I'm also a lucky person in that I'm not an emotional eater and I don't eat for comfort. I've been averaging 20 to 40 carbs per day and usually around 1200 to 1400 calories, with a couple of planned lapses for social commitments. This also means that a good bit of this loss was/is water weight as de-carbing dramatically de-bloats a person, but I'm not complaining. Last time I tried strict low-carbing was before my wedding in '04, and I didn't even drop a pound of water weight, so that brings us to point two.

2. 88 mcg/day of levothyroxine. I still don't think I've got a normal metabolism, let alone a fast one, but I think I do have a metabolism now. Life is so much better than a year ago, and I'm coming up on a year of treatment now. My chronic headaches are all but gone, I sleep better, I nap much much less, I get hungry for meals almost every day, my skin has cleared up, I sass my husband more (the poor thing), my energy is better, I'm less sensitive to comments, my nails are growing, my hair is growing faster (meaning I have to change the style to save money at the hairdresser's!), and even before the weight loss I'd lost my permanenent myxoedemic bloat. Looking at pictures from a year or two ago, I barely recognize the tiny-eyed, round-faced person there.

It's certainly worth a pill a day. Next checkup in a week! I am hoping for another increase.

At the moment, I'm not crediting exercise for the weight loss. I'm at the moment an intermittent Crossfitter - I absolutely adore it. I had intended, since I was one month into this newest venture, to restart Crossfitting this week after a three week lapse, then my pesky husband went and sprained his ankle*. I'll try for next week.

I'm concerned about this weekend - we're going away with friends for a couple of nights and I've got to sacrifice a little bit of control over my food. I'm seriously considering bringing a bag of cheese along so I can opt out of meals.

* Softball injury, yes they won the game. He's fine - can even get his own coffee now and is down to one crutch. He's a bit uncomfortable, and the ankle is impressively swollen, but improving. Thanks for asking :)

Up the dosage!

2008-08-09T00:45:00.003-05:00

In a nutshell, TSH has gone up (2.6) so the doc upped my dosage. Up to 88 mcg qd.

Bah. Why? Bad luck? My one swim in a chlorine pool? Shingles? Do my thyroid levels bounce around like this all the time? Did we really just happen to catch my thyroid on the brink of catastrophic failure a year ago?

Also, am grumpy that my weight is up a bit - 5lbs. Might be muscle since I've been lifting a lot lately, but it might also be the result of the month spent gingerly on my bum with shingles. Pants aren't any tighter, so that at least is good.

In the So-What-Isn't-Bad-For-Your-Thyroid-These-Days department: http://thyroid.about.com/od/newscontroversies/a/sunscreen.htm

According to research being presented at the European Congress of Endocrinology in Glasgow, Scotland, there is evidence from animal studies that the chemicals used in sunscreens and some anti-aging products may disturb thyroid function. The chemical studied was 4MBC, which absorbs ultraviolet radiation, along with benzophenone 2 (BP2). The animal studies treated rats with 4MBC for 5 days, which significantly increased levelsof thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), with unchanged T3 and slightly lower T4. These are changes that are "typical of the early stages of hypothyroidism," according to the study's leader Professor Josef Köhrle. The weight of the thyroid glands also increased significantly, another sign of thyroid dysfunction. Interestingly, the thyroid results were prevented if there was adequate iodine in the mixture.

So, um... get plenty of iodine in your diet!

A Case of the Squats

2008-08-05T23:00:00.003-05:00

Disgusting! I know! Heeee...

Today was Back Squats 5-5-5-5-5

My previous PR was a paltry 95#, so I figured I'd start at 45#, add ten for each round, and see where I end up.

So I ended up with 5 each of 45#, 55#, 65#, 75#, 85#

It went excellently. Good deep squats on all of them, and I just started to go wobbly towards the end. I felt like I could have started higher and would have had a successful workout, so next time I shall start at 55# or 65#.

That having been said, I did walk out to the car with particularly floaty feeling legs. Margaritas on the neighbor's deck when I got home only added to the effect ;)

How to get a number

2008-07-29T19:55:00.003-05:00

Lift heavy stuff. Add weights together. This is your number.

Crossfit Total. Check the CF site for the gnarly details.

Shoulder Press, Back Squat, Dead Lift. Oy.

Last time it was SP 65, BS 95, DL 205 for a Crossfit Total of 365

Today, I doubt I got that for my deadlift last time... couldn't do it today. Either I miscounted or I lost strength. Either way it sucks.

However, my shoulder press and back squat both improved markedly. I'm still figuring out where my limits are, and could probably have lifted these last time if only I had known to try.

Thus, today's effort was:

SP 80, BS 115, DL 190 for a Crossfit Total of 385 (up 20)

Step Away From The Corn Flakes

2008-07-22T23:17:00.002-05:00

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/359/3/229

ABSTRACT
Background Trials comparing the effectiveness and safety of weight-loss diets are frequently limited by short follow-up times and high dropout rates.
Methods: In this 2-year trial, we randomly assigned 322 moderately obese subjects (mean age, 52 years; mean body-mass index [the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters], 31; male sex, 86%) to one of three diets: low-fat, restricted-calorie; Mediterranean, restricted-calorie; or low-carbohydrate, non–restricted-calorie.
Results: The rate of adherence to a study diet was 95.4% at 1 year and 84.6% at 2 years. The Mediterranean-diet group consumed the largest amounts of dietary fiber and had the highest ratio of monounsaturated to saturated fat (P<0.05 p="0.01).">
Conclusions: Mediterranean and low-carbohydrate diets may be effective alternatives to low-fat diets. The more favorable effects on lipids (with the low-carbohydrate diet) and on glycemic control (with the Mediterranean diet) suggest that personal preferences and metabolic considerations might inform individualized tailoring of dietary interventions. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00160108 [ClinicalTrials.gov].)

Pushover

2008-07-22T22:13:00.002-05:00

Push Jerks 3-3-3-3-3

Figured I'd start at my last known heft - 65 lb. 45 lb bar with ten extra on either end. Won't say it is easy, but quite manageable. Definitely have to jump under the bar to do it.

Then I formulate the plan. Go up 5 pounds at a time, so I start with 65, go up to 70, 75, 80, and finish up at 85.

So off I toddle. First three done (65 lb) quite nicely. Pop 5 more pounds on either end of the bar for my 70 pounder, lift (grimace), done.

Phew. Okay. Five more pounds on either side, 75 lbs. Lift, grimace, swear, done. Wow, this is harder than I thought it would be.

Then the old brain, however briefly, surfaces for just a moment.

65 plus 5 pounds on either side is 75 not 70. Then, if you follow me, 75 pounds plus 5 pounds on either side is 85.

Duh.

Also, ouch.

Okay... regroup, think again. Add 2.5 lb on either side for the next lift of 90 lbs. Very very hard. Wobbled quite a bit. You really can't get away with dropping the bar at the YMCA so even though I had the safety railings up, I couldn't trust that I wouldn't have to dump it if I went higher, so I did my fourth three, removed the 2 2.5 lb plates and for my final three re-lifted the 85 lbs. That had been my goal anywho.

So to finish we have Push Jerks 3-3-3-3-3 with weights of 65 - 75 - 85 - 90 - 85

In continuing themes: I seemed to be the only person sweating. I grimaced, but didn't grunt. The whole endeavor was *not* assisted by the three fratheads taking turns doing bicep curls behind me. I was uncharacteristically self-conscious. I think I was afeared of letting rip with a ginormous fart (Crossfart?) at an inopportune moment, or some such. Ah... feminine vanity.

Puppycup??

2008-07-22T12:57:00.005-05:00

Row, row, row your boat,
Briskly 'cross the drink,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Crossfit makes me stink.

alt.

Row, row, row your boat,
Briskly to the shore,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Crossfit makes me sore.

As a puppy/buttercup I only had to row 1000 m yesterday. It's intended to be a sprint, but I don't sprint until I've got a fairly good idea of how knackered I'm going to be at a more normal pace. First, run your mile, then learn to sprint it.

Well, I expected to really suck at rowing - not so! Maybe all those years of swimming have finally amounted to something, because they sure as heck didn't tone me up, slim me down, or really do anything other than empty my head and keep me sane. I had the crank on the rowing machine on 10. I don't know if 10 is easy, or 10 is hard. (Edit: I just checked online, 10 is hard. Wow.)

However, I was feeling good, so I did the big dawg workout - 2000 m. This makes me feel better for not having truly sprinted, but rather hurried through the whole thing. I was pleasantly knackered at the end, and kind of wanted to keep going. I messed up my watch, but I think it took me about 10.5 minutes.

Grimace

2008-07-16T23:54:00.002-05:00

Today's workout was great. It was deadlifts. I love deadlifts. I'm good at deadlifts.

Well, comparatively. Let's put it this way. I don't completely suck at deadlifts in quite the spectacular manner that I suck at the rest of Crossfit. It fits with my image of myself as a 'big strong girl'. Raar.

So the workout was stunning in its simplicity. Deadlifts 5-5-5-5-5. Whee. Five sets of five!

I started with 135#. Really easy weight for me. Then I went up 10 by 10 until I got up to 175#. This isn't anywhere near my PR, but I also only had to hoist the PR up once. The final few resulted in me pulling comic faces at myself in the mirror - bared teeth and grimace.

Oh no... that means I'm the face-puller. Ah well. We had a moaner in the gym today. This fella was bicep curling huge dumbells and moaning fit to star in an x-rated movie. Totally intimidated the lady next to him who was on her first workout with a personal trainer - he had her doing a series of arm-wavings-about with a 5# weight. She was working hard, but made some comments about how she felt so inadequate next to Mr. Moaner. I piped up and told her that she was doing just fine, and she'll get there too and I had this moment of clarity and understood a bit better how my brother encourages me when we work out together. Hmmm.

Anyway... I'm still totally embarrassed about the grimacing, but at least I'm not a moaner. In the gym, I mean.

For James

2008-07-10T10:46:00.001-05:00

PR

Deadlift 205#, 7/8/2008

:)

I thought my intestines were going to fly across the room.

About time...

2008-07-07T15:47:00.002-05:00

To quote my brother, "When doesn't this suck?".

Saturday was evil. Evil nasty. Evil nasty bad. Evil nasty bad painful. Crossfit Games workout, hard even at the buttercup level. So, I woke up, cleaned the bathroom, kissed my husband, packed the car, and then set off for a weekend of fun. Husband was on call, so he got left at home. First stop, the gym to do some thrusters with the squooshy bar. I was also supposed to do some pullups, but I only had 10 minutes to spare at the gym since I was late for a lunch date, and I misread the instructions. Since I didn't even attempt them, I got a penalty workout that night! Aiee! Not as bad as the usual penalty workout (50 burpees or 200 meters of walking lunges), but still...

I arrive at the Family Compound, slam down a cup of tea, then get dragged off to the gym with my brother to do the second part of the workout. OW. Owie ow ow. Deadlifts and burpees. I don't like burpees and my legs are still sore. Still, I buttercupped it through - super slow on the burpees and respectably fast on the deadlifts. We even upped my deadlifts weight because even though I have zero metabolic conditioning, I am strong.

Back home, nice dinner and chatting, then part three of the workout. Strictly speaking I didn't have to do it as my instructions had told me to pick two of three options. However, I had to do a penalty round for skipping half of the first workout. Oopsie. Thus, I found myself at dusk dragging an American Bulldog out for a fast walk while my brother went for a run.

I've made the command decision not to run until my weight drops a bit - I have no problem walking fast enough to get a good puffy sweat on and I'm worried that at my current prodigious weight that I'll crush my knees. I think I'll try running when I've dropped 20 pounds.

Of course, the next day I got dragged again off to the gym for even less fun. I am going to call this particular incarnation of evil the deadlift-squat-jumpingjack-with-barbell. Aiee. My legs were so stiff that I couldn't get down into a proper squat, but I was getting better at doing the push jerk at the end when James made me put more weight on. More weight = better form. Weird.

So, this morning I was debating whether or not to check out the WOD over at Crossfit. Do I want to know? Sometimes I psych myself out so much for it that the anticipation is much worse than the actual workout. However, it would be helpful to know if I should do it before work, rather than afterwards - plus it might be a fun one! I'm thinking dumbell swings and deadlifts - fun fun fun!!!

So I checked, and was absolutely thrilled to pieces that it was a surprise rest day! Wheee!

So to answer James' question: When doesn't this suck? When you get a surprise rest day, that's when.

Dearth of Pullups

2008-07-03T18:06:00.003-05:00

Today's workout brought to you by the Marquis de Sade and his good buddy the Marquis de Masochism.

Officially titled "Death by Pullup", this workout strikes especial fear into the hearts and minds of those of us who, to put it mildly, suck at pullups. Suck badly. Aiee. What to do?

Well, I warmed up as usual, sans pullups of course. I'm not the stupid one. The pushups required a bit of dancing about as the half-bouncy-ball I use as a foot rest decided mid-up to slide jauntily away from the railing I was using. This nearly resulted in a bonked nose, but quick thinking and a subvocal "ohhhhh...noooooo" got us through quite nicely. I'm using the half-bouncy ball to raise my feet slightly because that's easier than sawing down the railing - I'm alternating doing my pushups old-school off the floor (for improved realiness) and doing them off the railing to improve speed, depth, and body control.

The instructions for Death by Pullup are as follows. In the first minute do one pullup, in the second minute do two pullups, in the third minute do three pullups, extrapolate until you vomit.

Now I can't do a pullup, and can barely do them on the assist machine, so I failed in minute three. I can actually keep going doing pullups, but I average two a minute - three kills me. So, for minutes four, five, and six I did controlled and slow dropdowns. Here's hoping that helps me build the strength to do this properly one day.

*sigh*

Sweaty is good, right?

2008-07-02T19:22:00.002-05:00

Scaled Crossfit WOD from BrandX

Buttercups:
Three rounds for time of:
10-15 pound Deadlift, 15 reps 10-15 pound
Hang power clean, 12 reps 10-15 pound
Front Squat, 9 reps 10-15 pound
Push Jerk, 6 reps

Hm. Ran into a minor logistical issue here - I didn't have access to a 15 lb bar. I knew I could probably survive the darned thing with a 45 lb bar based on my experiences yesterday and knowing that I'm a strong deadlifter and squatter (comparatively). However, I've done some reading and I knew that there was a key piece of information in the instructions.

"for time"

This means that this is, in addition to strength training, also a metabolic conditioning workout. The weight is meant to be low enough to give you the ability to hustle and get the heart rate up. Compare this to yesterday which, when you're really doing it (rather than playing with an empty bar like I was) you really try to get as much weight on the bar as possible, and if it takes you a bit longer to get through it, well then that's fine.

So, I found a heavy squooshy bar and used that. I hoisted it up next to a 45 lb bar, and it seemed lighter, so I think I did the workout today with about a 30 lb weight? So much for following instructions. First round was about 2:30, second round I forgot to set my watch going again but I estimate a 2:10 (I know it was my shortest round), third round was 2:14. I think I was a bit tentative on the first round because I didn't have a good sense of whether or not this was going to kick my ass, or just tickle it. Turns out it was somewhere in between.

So I hustled. This means I also sweated. I also got bit red faced. I'm red faced sweater - add in the obesity, and this makes me a pathetic looking gym rat. However, I had my hustle on, knew I was doing some good for myself, and considered it a point of pride that I did this while I was still sore from my previous three workouts - though the sorenesses are all melding together a bit now. Plus, my arms looked totally muscly and huge - always a plus!

Much like at my old gym, nobody else in the weights area was red faced, pink in the face, or sweating. We didn't even have a grunter. There were probably five or six other people there. C'mon... there's got to be at least one grunter in the bunch.

Oh wait... maybe that was me? Note to self - check for grunting next time. Also, try not to flick sweat on mirror. That's a touch pathetic.

Ow

2008-07-01T13:48:00.002-05:00

Ow ow owie ow.

After a scintillating month of shingles (pretty much all better now, thanks!) I'm back in the gym.

Ow!

Two days ago was working on my pushups and pullups, and am still really really sore from that. Today was shoulder press work:

Shoulder press 1-1-1-1-1 reps
Push press 3-3-3-3-3 reps
Push Jerk 5-5-5-5-5 reps (5-5-2-3-5 actual)

I did it all with just the 45 lb bar. This was an interesting lesson for me. I was struggling with the last shoulder press and didn't see how I was going to do basically the same thing 40 more times. No way, no how.

However, I'd done my homework - watched the videos, and realized that this is designed really well. I couldn't have done many more shoulder presses, but the bit of heave-ho that you give yourself with the push press makes it possible. Yeah! For the push jerk, I really had to use my legs and jump under the bar to get it up over my head - at this point my arms were blown, so it was a good lesson.

Hm. Maybe they do know what they're talking about. In the meantime I'm considering drinking my coffee through a straw. Less arm movement that way.

Ow.

Campus in the Springtime

2008-04-16T14:14:00.004-05:00

I'm working on campus four days a week for a couple of months, and if you ever get the opportunity to do so in the springtime, I highly recommend it.

Every day at lunchtime, I set off for a walk from the College of Design, through the mall, over the Mississippi and back. Usually, I pick up a bit of lunch on the way to eat at my desk when I return. Combining this with parking at-distance from the U, it means I get about three miles of walking in a day. Not much, but when you're battling having no metabolism at all, every little bit counts.

Today was classic Spring. No preachers on the mall, but instead there was a pretty big rally and march protesting China and the Olympics in Beijing on behalf of Tibet. The milling throngs had mainly three parts:

1. Tibetan Sympathisers - among them, perhaps even some Tibetans. They are walking around with t-shirts, banners, symbolic torches, and having themselves a nice and orderly demonstration. Well, apart from the two shouting matches I saw. You can spot these guys from a distance by their air of moral superiority and the smugness of doing-something-about-a-bad-thing.

My favorite poster said "Chinese students are brainwashed". As if we all aren't, in some way or another.

2. Bewhildered and Hurt Chinese students, staff, and faculty. Some get angry and shout, some make reasoned arguments ("separate Chinese government from Chinese people" being chief among these.) Some hustle by, looking sad.

3. Jaded passers by. Many people, insulated by their white earbuds, sunglasses, and businesslike gait, just march on by. Spend enough time at the U and you'll see enough protests, marches, and rallies to choke a horse.

I don't know all the nitty gritty details of the Tibet situation, but it does seem a sad one. However, today, the people I felt badly for were the Chinese students standing in sad huddles, and walking with their heads down.

Zimbabwe? Really?

2008-04-08T14:19:00.004-05:00

With a combination of colds, travel, coughs, and a soupcon of laziness, I've sort of fallen off the exercise bandwagon. I'm running after it - went for a lovely long walk yesterday and didn't cough once! In fact, I only coughed three times yesterday, and that's awesome news. I've got my workout gear with me, and have scheduled a visit to the gym after work.

Something else I'm doing is tracking my daily consumption on DailyPlate.com. I've learned a few things.

I eat more carby stuff than I should, but still way less than the average American.

According to DailyPlate, I'm allowed about 1800 calories per day for my weight and activity level, if I want to lose 2 lbs a week.

According to them I generally do eat 1800 calories per day naturally. Awesome! I'm not losing weight much, but we all know that there are various other things at play here including basal metabolic rate. Actually, I often eat quite a bit less.

When I have a bad day, my calories can go as high as 2400. That's really really high for me, and happens every couple of weeks or so.

So, it was no small measure of amusement that I came across this today: http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2006/12/27/do_americans_eat_3790_calories_per_day.php

So it seems that the average American from 2000 to 2002 ate 3790 calories per day. WOW.

I'd love to eat that much. Mmm.

Apparently in 1979-1981 the average American ate 3180 calories - a difference from today of 610 calories. Approximately the calories in a McDonald's Super Sized French Fries.

A sobering note. Zimbabwe (according to the link above) in 2000-2002 showed a daily consumption of 2,020 calories. That's still more than I eat.

Finally, check this out : http://www.calorierestriction.org/

There is research showing that restricting calorie consumption can lengthen lifespan. I can't really comment since I haven't read the research yet. They steer clear of making daily caloric intake recommendations (very smart, imho) on that site. More information here, including a pretty compelling discussion of the risks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction

Why do I bring this up? Well, the New York Times has an interesting article here: http://nymag.com/news/features/23169/

Dude tried the calorie restriction diet. He ate 1800 calories per day. Granted, he's 5'11" and I'm barely 5'9", but still... that's interesting.

Back on the horse that bit ya...

2008-03-19T22:54:00.002-05:00

Well, something like that.

The last two weeks have been an assorted plague of illnesses - backache/headache (me), flu (loved ones), heart attacks (yup, loved ones - doing okay now though), followed by a monster cold (me *cof*).

Guess what my wod was today?

Walk from the car into work. At the end of the day, repeat in reverse. (To be fair, it's about .8 mile, nice little leg stretcher)

Whee. Feel the burn.

Plan for tomorrow is much the same. I'm wiped. Luckily we've got some beautiful spring weather right now. Minnesota might get brutal winters, but we get great light. The coldest days have this brilliant blue and clear sky - simply lovely. We get similar skies in the early warm spring days. Really puts a bounce in your step and a wheeze in your lungs.

Crossing fingers, I'll be up for a half-speed buttercup wod on Friday. In the meantime, I'll be sleeping with Prince Robitussin.

The Cookies. I did not toss them.

2008-02-27T15:44:00.003-06:00

That's good, right? Oh, metabolic conditioning, how you hate me.

Scaled WOD. Yesterday's since I'm off schedule.

Four rounds for time of: Run 200 meters 15 Squats 10 Back Extensions. Looks easy, huh?

Paltry performance. A month ago I'd have made it easily. Darn that laziness!

Came in at about 3:45 per. I'm such a wuss that I walked the last two so as not to toss the cookies, and my time improved.

The good news is that I'm really hungry now. Yay exercise and levothyroxine!

The bad news is that my hair is falling out. Went to get the hair done today and every time they combed my hair, tons came out. When I commented on it the gal said cheerily "Oh, I've seen worse!". Hmm. At least it's a decent cut and color now. This is a well known side effect of both Hashimoto's, and the treatment, so it's yet another thing to add to the list.

I also had a grumpy moment in the locker room. I saw my reflection from afar and was dismayed to see that my cheeks had puffed back out. Darned thyroid, darned puffiness. Sulky moment. Then I looked again. The shadow I'd taken to be puffiness along my cheek was actually cheekbone. Ah, I rescind my sulky moment. Yay for cheekbones! I haven't seen them in about five years now! Yay! I had dinner with a dear old friend last week and she told me quite cheerily "You look great! Better than you have in years!" she then added "You *are* still fat though!".

Heh. She really *is* a very good friend, and as such is allowed to say such things. She edited to clarify that she basically wanted me to know that she wasn't blowing sunshine up my bum ... that I really do look better. *grin*

Well that's impressive.

2008-02-24T17:09:00.005-06:00

On Friday, I went to go workout and it was one of those evil ones that have that word "max" in them.

CFWU minus pushups and pullups,

3 rounds:
max pushups
max pullups

Well, I didn't do well. I hadn't eaten, and I was still really really sore from the previous workout. So, I did my best, got changed, and went home.

Once I got home, I realized that the entire workout had been less than a typical CFWU. D'oh!

When I do the CFWU, I take as long as I need to to get in 10 of everything. On Friday I was working hard at doing things continually, with no blood sugar, and massive full-body creakiness.

Note to self: Eat.

On a personal side note, some of y'all may be interested to know that my parents are posting about their adventuring over here: http://nikonvict.blogspot.com Go leave 'em a comment, would ya? There's nothing quite like seeing your comments explode as a welcome to the blogosphere. Plus, if you comment, then they'll post more often and it'll be easier to keep an eye on them. I might even save some minutes on my cellphone ;)

From Peach to White

2008-02-20T10:39:00.004-06:00

Today I am moving at the speed of creaky. Ah well, what did we expect? Am taking a rest day today - going to work out every other day for a couple of weeks while I get back into the swing of things.

Have had a couple of lovely phone calls this week. First thing Monday morning, the doctor's office called and said that the doctor had reviewed my question from last week and the conversation that I'd had with the nurse. She confirmed that the goal is to get my TSH to the low end of normal, round about 1 or so *and* to a level where I feel good. She said that the goal is nebulous, since everyone feels best at a different TSH. This is fabulous news! I was thrilled to bits.

Got another phone call this morning, the doctor had had a chance to look over my blood test results from last week and the verdict is... up the dosage! I'm going up from 37.5 mcg to 50 mcg - doubling the original dose she gave me back in October. Moving up from the peach pill, to the white pill.

This is great news, in that backhanded well-wouldn't-it-be-nice-if-I-didn't-need-it kind of way. This also serves to confirm, yet again, that I was not imagining things and that it was appropriate for me to be, shall we say, assertive in obtaining treatment.

I want to make a t-shirt that says "Check Your Thyroid" and wear it out in public. Or perhaps, "Check Your Thyroid: Make Sure You Get Treated: TSH Only Tells PART Of The Story"
EDIT: Done! http://www.cafepress.com/jehr

Back On The Horse

2008-02-19T13:03:00.004-06:00

Giddyup.

After a couple of weeks of doing components of CFWU at home and discovering that I can do a passable dip off the edge of the kitchen countertop, we finally managed to sign up at the Y. It's only 10 minutes away (in no traffic) as opposed to 25 minutes away (in no traffic) for the entirely awesome but too far away former gym. This is great - only took me an hour to drive there, dress, sweat for a while, re-dress, and go. Yay! It's also next to my favorite fancy grocery store, the library, my doctor's office, my pharmacy, my Barnes & Noble, and lots of tasty restaurants.

My CFWU was awesome. My situps were great, my pushups were no more or less wobbly than the last time I did them in a gym. Pullups were at once awful and awesome. On maximum assist I had to break them up into sets - my strength curve needs to go up, and my weight curve needs to go down before I'll make much progress on these. However, I'm actually doing pullups now, thanks to the fancy assist machine, rather than doing pulldowns in a half crouch. Dips were awesome, next week I'll reduce the assist on those.

The WOD was Front Squat 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1. The idea is that with the first one, you do a reasonably high weight in your range, and add weight so that by the last one you should be at your absolute limit and thisclose to biffing it.

Since I've been out of commission for a bit, I didn't exactly do this. I just did Front Squat 2-10 with the 45lb bar. It went really well. I think next time this comes up I'll be in good shape to push a bit harder.

I do miss the back extension machine at the other gym. I tried doing Good Mornings, but didn't feel like I was doing anything other than stretching my hamstrings. Next time I'm going to try doing them over an exercise ball...

Again with the letters.... "U" and "V"

2008-02-18T10:34:00.003-06:00

Well heck.

http://thyroid.about.com/od/newscontroversies/a/sunscreen.htm
"chemicals called MBC and benzophenone 2 (BP2), frequently found in sunscreen and cosmetics are ...potent disruptors of the pituitary-thyroid hormonal system in rats. It's early days, but if the same effect is discovered in humans, then we may have to rethink how we protect children and those with existing thyroid problems or those in iodine-deficient areas from sun exposure."

I've long been of the opinion that sunscreen is evil. Unfortunately, I'm one of the pale people and it is a necessary reality in my life.

A few years ago I read an excellent paper talking about Vitamin D, sun exposure, and health. I originally was tipped off to this by Slashdot (http://www.slashdot.org)

"[The] trial involving 1,200 women, and found those taking the vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn't take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error. And in an era of pricey medical advances, the reduction seems even more remarkable because it was achieved with an over-the-counter supplement costing pennies a day. One of the researchers who made the discovery, professor of medicine Robert Heaney of Creighton University in Nebraska, says vitamin D deficiency is showing up in so many illnesses besides cancer that nearly all disease figures in Canada and the U.S. will need to be re-evaluated. 'We don't really know what the status of chronic disease is in the North American population,' he said, 'until we normalize vitamin D status.'" http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/29/0724246

Fascinated by this blurb, I went to the original article in the Globe and Mail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070428.wxvitamin28/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home

I was struck by the following quote (made, of course, much more exciting by being taken out of context - do go read the original article)

"The sun advice has been misguided information "of just breathtaking proportions," said John Cannell, head of the Vitamin D Council, a non-profit, California-based organization.
"Fifteen hundred Americans die every year from [skin cancers]. Fifteen hundred Americans die every day from the serious cancers." "

Taking the source back another step, I read through a few of Reinhold Vieth's papers, and came across this beauty: http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/16/3/422 : "We found strong evidence to support the hypothesis that vitamin D could help prevent breast cancer. However, our results suggest that exposure earlier in life, particularly during breast development, maybe most relevant."

Having read these, I don't wear sunscreen on a day-to-day basis. That means that if I'm having a very indoorsy kind of day, I'll get at least 20 minutes or so on my hands and face (more in the summertime) running errands and taking the dog out. If I'm not going out at all, I'll go sun myself for about 10 or 15 minutes in a bikini if possible. Otherwise I stick to the shade and have a nice big sun hat. If I'm sailing, hiking, or going to be in sunshine for long enough to burn, then I bite the bullet and put on sunscreen. I'd rather wear a longsleeve shirt though. I eat salmon, drink milk from grass fed cows, and take a supplement.

This amount of sun exposure usually gives me just enough of a tan so that I don't burn if I end up being outside for an hour in the summer in Minnesota without other protection. In previous years when I kept myself too pale, I could burn too easily and would actually burn more often than I do now.

Hm. I've just realized that in recent years, I've rarely worn shorts in the summertime, and I usually have a long sleeve shirt on. I wonder if that has been a hypothyroidism symptom? Will be interesting to see if my clothing choices change this summer.

Brought to you by the letters "Y", "T", "S", and "H"

2008-02-14T15:14:00.003-06:00

We went to the local Y last night to check it out and it was awesome. There's a water slide!! Of course, I'm a little hesitant to get back into a pool until Big G, the goiter, has withered away. The weights area was small, but looks like it has pretty much everything I'll need. The Y was packed, and there was no one in the weights area, and that's actually fine with me.

My phone died yesterday. Dead as a doornail. Whoops... where did I put the charger? So I charged it up last night, and found a flurry of messages on my voicemail this morning from the Doctor's office. Three triage nurses called regarding the question I'd left at the front desk yesterday. Three! Wow! Awesome customer service.

Finally got the chance to chat with one of the nurses this afternoon and explained why I'd asked the question that I'd asked, and what my agenda was (more drugs please! thanks!). She was great, reading me stuff from my chart, letting me know that they did already have the results of yesterday's TSH test, letting me know how the Doctor usually does things, etc. She was great.

She said that what would probably happen is that the doctor will look at my results when she gets back from her vacation and have a nurse call me to ask how I would like to proceed - up the dosage, or hold steady. She indicated that this was usually what happens when the TSH is neither alarmingly high, or low.

So what's the verdict? 3.54.

August: 2.94
October: 2.31
November: 3.65 (after 8 weeks of 25 mg levothyroxine)
February: 3.54 (after 8 weeks of 37.5 mg levothyroxine)

I am intrigued. Why is my TSH still higher than it was before treatment? By all rights it should have dropped with the medication I'm taking. The endocrine system is so strange and complicated, it makes me wonder what the heck these numbers really mean.

Phlebotomists and Halogens

2008-02-13T13:40:00.004-06:00

Today is blood-test day to see how I'm reacting to the new dosage of levothyroxine. I've been on it for 8 weeks, and I feel better. My nails and hair are growing, my eyebrows are thicker (weird, huh?) and my body shape is changing. I'm still pretty sleepy, and I haven't lost more than a pound or two, but I am thinner. My skin is clearer. My cheekbones are coming back. My eyes are much less puffy. I sleep better - I often sleep through the night now without having to get up. I have less heartburn, and an improved appetite. If I'm eating correctly (meaning, if I haven't eaten at Fogo de Chao recently ;) then I get hungry for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner. Then I'm hungry again before bed. It's wonderful.

As I'd hinted at in the last post, I left a message at the doctor's office for my endocrinologist. I've asked her what her goals are for my treatment. Is she aiming for a particular TSH, is she aiming for a particular level of me not complaining? Something else?

Depending on what she says, I'm going to tell her my goals. My goal is a TSH of .4 *and* complete resolution of all symptoms. This includes normal body weight. I would like her to continue increasing my dosage until I suffer the ill effects of having too much, then backing off slightly. If we don't do this, then I will always be guessing that I would feel so much better, be so much healthier at the next dose up.

Though I don't trust TSH particularly as an indicator of health, I think it's an interesting place to start. My main goal is, of course, resolution of symptoms. However, by aiming for this particular TSH we have something we can measure, and that's always interesting, and might show us patterns we wouldn't otherwise see. So far my TSH has been approximately:

August: 2.94
October: 2.31
November: 3.65 (after 8 weeks of 25 mg levothyroxine)
February: 3.54 (after 8 weeks of 37.5 mg levothyroxine)

I, as you know, haven't been good about exercising lately. Hopefully we can switch to the YMCA at the end of the month, and that will make things much easier because I won't have to block off 2 hours to work out.

However, this has been interesting. I've seen improvements in my puffiness, and my body fat ratio. My average weight has seemingly dropped a tiny bit (maybe two pounds) but my measurements have decreased in the areas where I carry my podge. The nice thing about this is that my body is healing even without Crossifitting. I'm all about separating out the variables! Interesting though it may be, I've got to get back in the gym, I miss it.

I'm going to do the CFWU tonight, tomorrow, and the next day. Hammering hard to get back in the game, then a rest day, then back on the bandwagon. Harrass me if I don't do this, please.

Having gone for my blood test, I'm on another research kick. Why did I get this? Why is this so common now? This isn't about making my disease into my identity, or about crying "poor me!" and cultivating my victimhood. This is about understanding. What about this can be controlled? Where does the genetic component end and the environmental one begin?

I do know that I have unwittingly put myself in the path of a couple of extremely insidious bad guys in thyroidia over the past years. What bad guys? The Halogens.

I love to swim. I swam about 6 hours a week for three years of my undergrad, and about 3 to 5 hours a week while I was in grad school. That's a lot of swimming, but certainly not alarming. Lots of people swim that much. Lots and lots of people swim more than that and are just fine.

However, the University of Minnesota keeps their pools sanitary with Bromine.

I also drink municipal water which is kept sanitary with Chlorine.

I also have pretty decent teeth now from years of treatment of Fluorine.

Aaand, I've got an autoimmune disease of the Thyroid. Thyroids love and need Iodine.

Go look at a periodic table. Have a link: http://www.corrosionsource.com/handbook/periodic/

Look in column VIIA. Top to bottom it reads: Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine, Astatine. Let's ignore Astatine for the time being, it's radiocative, and doesn't occur in nature.

So what?

Well, here we enter the realm of Halogen Displacement. I'm not very good at chemistry so we'll let Dr. Jarvis continue on from here:

"The mechanism behind "halogen displacement" was probably best described by J.C. Jarvis, M.D. (Folk Medicine, Henry Holt & Co., 1958, HB, p. 136), who wrote: "The clinical activity of any one of these four halogens is in inverse proportion to its atomic weight. This means that any one of the four can displace the element with a higher atomic weight, but cannot displace an element with a lower atomic weight. For example, flourine can displace chlorine, bromine and iodine because flourine has a lower atomic weight than the other three. Similarly, chlorine can displace bromine and iodine because they both have a higher atomic weight. Likewise, bromine can displace iodine from the body because iodine has a higher atomic weight. But a reverse order is not possible. A knowledge of this well-known chemical law brings us to a consideration of the addition of chlorine to our drinking water as a purifying agent. We secure a drinking water that is harmful to the body not because of its harmful germ content but because the chlorine content now causes the body to lose the much-needed iodine..." (http://www.altcancer.com/lugols.htm)

So why is this happening with me and not my brother? My brother is the most similar person to me on the planet - we were raised together, ate the same food, saw the same doctors, travelled to the same places until he was about 20 years old. We even lived together until I was 24. Some may cite the feminine predisposition to thyroid disease, and they might have a point there. However there are two important differences in our history.

When I was 9 and my brother was 13 we changed dentists. Our new dentist gave us fluoride treatments on our teeth. I believe that he did this until the patient was 15 or so? That means I got six treatments, and my brother got two.

When I was 20 I started swimming very regularly in bromine pools and continued that more than weekly for about six of the last 12 years.

Was this enough to damage my thyroid? Am I grasping at straws? Am I reading too much into too little? Hmmm...

Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenting an Appetite!

2008-02-08T11:15:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been a busy couple of weeks. It turns out that when you work for yourself, then take a month off, you're mighty busy when you do return! Am just finding myself surfacing from the huge pile of work that stacked up while I was away. Just have some normal ploddy little things left to finish up, then my filing (urgh), then getting all our tax stuff together for our accountant. Quelle thrill!

I also confess that I haven't been crossfitting. I have not lost my taste for the Kool-Aid, it's just been hard to get to the gym. Partially it's been laziness in the depth of the cold and dark Minnesota winter, partially it's been work, and partially it's been the fact that my gym, though awesome and groovy, is actually kind of a long way away. Am thinking of converting over to the local YMCA - it's under 10 minutes away.

Blah blah blah. This is all boring.

Interesting stuff? Hm, three things.

1. My measurements are down again! My weight also seems down just the tiniest bit too. Yay!

2. My fingernails are growing! This is new and strange for me. I've had to learn the fine art of the manicure. Actually, I just take an emery board to the loo with me. Multitasking. This is the resolution of a wonky thyroid symptom - weak, useless fingernails. I never had to trim them before, they just ripped, or frayed, or peeled away. What joy. Mum says my hair is growing faster now too.

3. I'm hungry multiple times per day now. This is also taking some getting used to. Previously, if I had a busy day coming up and knew I was going to miss breakfast and/or lunch, no biggie. That would just mean I'd be hungry for dinner. I usually didn't get hungry in the normal way either - I'd get moody or feel a bit ill. That's how I would know I should eat something. Now I get the entirely pleasurable sensation of growly tummy and daydreaming about food. It's so much fun! I usually have a small cup of oatmeal for breakfast, small sandwich or bowl of soup for lunch, and meat/fish and a veg for dinner. If I don't have these meals I find myself rooting around in the kitchen looking for snacks (a glass of V8 usually takes care of that quickly. Yum.). It's been an interesting balancing act. I try to eat just enough at a meal so that I'm hungry in time for the next one. However, I sometimes misjudge and find myself rooting for snacks, or skipping a meal, then rooting around for snacks. Am having a hard time with dinners though - most nights I do go to bed a bit hungry.

I have a blood test next week to see how my numbers are shaping up. When those results come in, then I think it's time for a chat with the doctor (via a nurse, certainly). Here's my plan:

Ask the doctor what her goals are for my treatment: Is she aiming for a particular TSH? Is she waiting to see when I stop complaining so much? Is she going for a gut reaction?

Depending on her reply, this is what I'd like to tell her. So far, I have felt better with each increased dose. I would like to continue to increase the dose until I feel worse (hyperthyroid). At that point, make a note, do a bloodtest, and back down the dosage a bit. I'd like to get my TSH below .4 mU/l

I've been trying to find out what the statistics are for very healthy people. Athletes who easily maintain good weight, are mentally stable, no autoimmune disorders, no hypertensions, yadda yadda. I want my numbers to match theirs, not the numbers of "normal" people when I look around and realize that I don't want to look like a "normal" person, I want to look and feel great. Thus, I'd like to try and get my blood chemistry to match that of people who look and feel great, not just a statistical middle-ground.

For some interesting reading on BMI vs TSH go here:

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/90/7/4019?ck=nck Small Differences in Thyroid Function May Be Important for Body Mass Index and the Occurrence of Obesity in the Population

Good graphic :
http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/vol90/issue7/images/large/zeg0070535900001.jpeg?ck=nck

I've found a few studies that find no correlation between low BMI and low TSH, but I don't agree with how those studies chose their populations (one study that found no correlation, only had subjects that had been identified with some thyroid abnormality).

Found another good article on TSH Reference Ranges. http://thyroid.about.com/od/gettestedanddiagnosed/a/tshtestwars.htm The TSH Reference Range Wars: What's "Normal?", Who is Wrong, Who is Right...

It's a very good discussion on the ranges, and how some physicians will see someone with a TSH near three (like me) and say "you're fine", but someone who is receiving treatment will have a target TSH near one. If three is fine, why not aim for three, eh?

Lovely chatting, but I've got to go. I'm hungry. :)

Really?

2008-01-23T09:31:00.000-06:00

Wow.

This has not been a good month. Holiday eating (yum!), didn't go overboard but still had more sugary goodies than I'm used to. Travel eating (yum!), didn't go overboard, but selection is limited. Stomach flu (not so much on the yum), made me a picky eater for over a week.

Also haven't been Crossfitting. Have been keeping fairly active, but this last week has been cold, I've been wiped out from travelling, and there's just a touch of laziness thrown in there. Also, I've been sleeping a whole bunch again - whether or not it's the thyroid thing, winter, illness, or some other thing, it's a bit frustrating.

So, it was with some trepidation that I started myself back on track today and pulled out the tape measure to see how I'm doing. My weight is down a couple of pounds since I got home from LA, so I'm hoping the travel bloat has passed.

I did not expect this:

1/23/2007 (10/30/2007)
Thigh 27" (27.25")
Belly 42" (44.5")
Bum 45.75" (46.5")
Boobs No Bra 47.75" (47.25")
Chest Above Boobs 42.75" (44.5")
Upper Arm 14.75" (14")

Total 219" (224.5")

Since Halloween, I'm down 5.5 inches on my body measurements. Wahooo!

Since Thanksgiving, I'm down 2.25 inches. *grin*

I don't feel thinner, I don't think I look thinner, but I can't argue with these numbers. They prove that in some small ways, I am making progress.

Really.

Back from LA

2008-01-17T12:19:00.001-06:00

Well it's been an interesting two weeks. Return home from Williamsburg, promptly get stomach flu/gastroenteritis, immediately upon recovery drive to Los Angeles.

Phew. Am exhausted.

Didn't CF on the drive out there - 5 days of driving and feeling jelly legged from the flu. Once we arrived in LA, I helped my friends move into their sweet apartment in Marina Del Rey, and started re-entering the world of the active person by going for walks.

Walk One : From my cousin's west of the marina, walked up to muscle beach then back to her place.

Walk Two : Dropped off about a mile north of muscle beach by another cousin, walked home to my friend's place just east of the marina.

Walk Three : Around the Getty Museum all day.

I had intended to do a longer walk, but it didn't end up working out. It was also a plan that received gasps of incredulity from locals. "You plan to walk WHERE?" "Do you know how far that is?" "I'll drive you!" "I'll drive you halfway!"

It's okay ma'am. I have a hat.

Here's the plan. I still consider it an active plan as I'd like to do this next time I'm in the area.

Start at my friend's apartment. Walk approximately one mile to the beach around the marina. Walk approximately four miles north along the beach to the Santa Monica Pier. Turn around, reverse directions, and go home.

I'm good at reading maps. I have a degree (undergrad) in Geology. That's reading maps. I have a degree (grad) in Landscape Architecture. That's reading maps. I spent my childhood following my parents through the woods and the desert, sometimes leading them. That's reading maps.

I have a good map of LA, and I have a ruler. I estimated that the walk was between 10 and 11 miles round trip (Google agrees with me). The walk is flat, in easy distance of food, water, and shelter. The walk is interesting. The walk is at sea level. It is probably the easiest 10 mile walk you can imagine, and it was almost unimaginable to the several people I pitched the idea to. Perhaps I've been spoiled by the 13-miler around Minneapolis' Chain of Lakes? I was also raised with my father telling me about the Lyke Wake Walk - a 42 mile slog through heather, bracken, and mud in Yorkshire. To be completed in one go, in one day.

Today I'm just going to do the CFWU to start getting into CF mode. Tomorrow is rest day I think, then back at it full speed.

The good news is that even with all the awful (but tasty!) travel food I've been eating, my weight isn't up. Phew.

Oy. Ve. Redux

2008-01-04T10:52:00.000-06:00

Turns out the creeping crud was, and is, stomach flu. Am doing much better today - can sit up for entire minutes!

Of course, this has not been fun, and in some ways it could not have come at a better time. It didn't happen while I was staying at the inlaws, and it didn't happen during my road trip that begins this sunday.

It did, however, happen during my three days of work scheduled between those two trips. Boo.

The full body aches were the worst - even Crossfit doesn't do that at ya.

Feeling like Helen

2008-01-02T18:59:00.000-06:00

Oy. Ve.

Happy New Year everybody! I woke up late yesterday after a long hard day of travelling. We came back from Williamsburg Virginia via Atlanta and Chicago, and our bags even got to go sightseeing without us! They got back the next day, safe and sound, and completely mum about their extra journey.

Simplest New Year's Eve ever. Romey and I ordered pizza, watched a movie, and I was in bed at 9:38 PM. Romey's made of tougher stuff than me and saw in the new year solo, playing video games.

New Year's Day was lovely, though Romey made the unfortunate discovery that bronchitis plus 5 degrees outside plus clearing the driveway equals lung damage and relapse. He has spent most of his time since clearing the driveway on the couch and coughing.

I woke later than usual and was pootling around the house when Jmz calls. I ask him immediately how he feels. "Uh, fine?" was the puzzled response. "Me too!" I say, "Isn't it wonderful being in our thirties?" He then invites me to come over and meet him at his gym, and have a go at Helen.

It went pretty well. I suck at pull-ups. No way to gloss over that one. At least I'm working at it - am hoping to be able to do them by next New Year's, or at least spend the year trying. Jmz and I both agree that the primary issue is my weight, and the secondary issue is my strength. The weight is up a touch after the holidays, but I am more slender than I have been in a few years, so I'm obviously trading a bit of pudge for a bit of muscle. May I be lucky enough for this to continue. The pull-ups assist machine was the same old friend I used for pull-up assistance for my three years of weightlifting as an undergrad. I had it on max assist, and biffed many of them. I attempted each one though, and managed the yo-heave-ho my way up a couple of times using swinging, pumping the assisting foot-rest, and light cursing.

The running went just fine. Was only for 200 meters, and I held a 10 minute mile pace, though I ended up pretty winded at the end and with a stitch.

The dumbell swings, at 10#, were laughably easy.

Jmz says that apart from the pullups, I'm not really a buttercup any more. *grin*

Anywho, today I feel like Hell. H-E-Double Hockeysticks. The creeping crud that I have deftly avoided for so long has finally caught up with me. Back of nose is goopy, lungs are claggy *coff* *coff*, energy is low, appetite is completely non-existent, and headache is persistent. From Helen to Hell in 20 short hours. Boo hoo.

My arms and back are lovely and sore though, and that at least feels very very good.

Could have been worse...

2007-12-28T12:53:00.000-06:00

Well I'm at the inlaws and we've had a lovely Christmas! I didn't work out over Christmas Eve, Day, or Boxing Day mostly out of laziness. It was lovely.

Yesterday I spent the day intermittently helping my MIL prep for a party that evening, and fretting over my husband. Late afternoon he ended up going into urgent care and came home with a diagnosis of Bronchitis and Acute Sinusitis. This is especially bad because we've got to be careful not to give this to my FIL because he's susceptible to lung infections and he's got a couple of other health issues that make this very dangerous for him. It doesn't help things that I've got a very very mild little cold too. We're such charming houseguests!

So my workout for yesterday happened today. I went rooting around in the storage area and found two 8 lb dumbells. Perfect!

16 lb thrusters (2 x 8 lb dumbells) and 16 lb (2 x 8 lb dumbells) dumbell swings.

Round 1 : 21 of each : 2:48.06 minutes
Round 2 : 15 of each : 2:59.05 minutes (I was really sucking wind at this point and had to rest twice)
Round 3 : 9 of each : 1:40.07 minutes

As I finished I was completely destroyed, jelly legs and all and my first thought was "Hm, I could have worked harder at that."

What? I wasn't tired enough? Seriously, I had a hard time washing my hair afterwards, and also didn't perform a particularly elegant descent down the stairs. It was a bit hobbly. I also didn't so much as sit down in the computer chair to type this up as much as get halfway and fall the rest of the way.

Crossfit really messes up your definition of a "good workout". I'm utterly destroyed, having difficulties with normal everyday functions, and I'm thinking "Well, it was good, but I could have pushed harder."

Reality Check, Aisle Three.

Really? That's all?

2007-12-23T16:31:00.000-06:00

Hm.

Playing with my new watch, and seeking ways to work out with no equipment at the inlaws.

Figured I'd try push-ups today. One in the first minute, two in second, three in the third, etc. Made much easier with bleepy mode on the watch.

My rules: These don't have to be perfect pushups, but they've got to be pretty good. The set has to be fairly continuous - pausing allowed, resting is not.

So what is the magic number?

7.

Only seven. Boo! I failed on the sixth push-up in set number eight.

Well, that's actually pretty good progress. When I'm doing my 10 push-ups in my warmup, I usually rest a couple of times. This way I can guarantee that my form stays decent. Decentish.

So, I still can't do 10 awesome ones in a row, but I know that I can do 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 6 in less than eight minutes. 34. Maybe that's the power number of the day. Not 7, but 34.

Legs no workie

2007-12-19T18:19:00.000-06:00

Well it's been a heckuva week. Husband had to flit off to exciting and exotic Cranbury, New Jersey for an urgent work thing. I was stuck at home in the smog (can you believe it? in Minnesota?) with a dog who is pining dearly for his beloved Dad, trying like heck to get through a ginormous to-do list that always seems to precede travel. On Saturday we fly away to scenic and educational Williamsburg, Virginia for a week with the inlaws. Phew.

Thus, I have unwittingly missed a whole bunch of workouts this week. I have been pretty grumpy about this too. Boo!

However, there was one I managed to do, it was one I could do from home. It was a repeat of My First Ever Crossfit Workout (tm). The realdeal omfg ur insane workout is something along the lines of "Walking Lunges - 300meters".

Um, no. Just no.

First time I did this I did "Walking Lunges - two laps in basement". It crippled me. I was walking like I'd had surgery to replace my thigh muscles with wood. Walking down stairs was an essay in controlled falling down stairs. Walking up stairs was a trial in self control - think Muad'dib with his hand in the burny box. Rumor has it that that workout reduced my brother, he of the impressive buffitude and really good legs, to scooching down stairs on his bum. The workout is that bad.

Of course, that means I love it. Heh.

Well, I made it three laps in the basement this time, and had to dash because I was late for something. Forgot to time myself. D'oh! I even have a fancy new "I'm an official Crossfictim"
stopwatch watch thing. Thanks Jaho!

Two days later, I'm fine. The legs hurt, of course, and I have a delightful new awareness of the subtle and complex musculature of my own bum, but I'm really fine. A bit slow on stairs, of course, but not falling down them and crying up them.

One might say "progress". :)

The walking lunges went much better this time too, my balance was much better and it was a true walking lunge, not a step-lunge-stand-wobble-lunge-wobble-step-whoopsie-wobble...

I'm trying to hatch a plan for being able to exercise at the inlaws next week. I think I might pick an exercise or two to work to exhaustion at each workout with a short run. Maybe situps/goodmornings, pushups, squats, rest, squats, handstands, lunges, rest, pushups, dips etc... Equipment is a little limited, but I think this plan will help me minimize the time necessary for the workout, and should give me lots of lovely sore muscles. Upon my return home I can dive back into the regular schedule and hopefully not miss again for a while.

Suggestions?

Up the dosage!

2007-12-12T13:09:00.000-06:00

Just got back from a checkup with my Endocrinologist. She's thrilled that I've responded so well to the medication so far, and was a bit surprised that I had such a dramatic change with such a low dose. They did a blood test on me, to see how my blood numbers are doing and we got a very strange result.

In July?, my TSH was 2.91. Not very high, but definitions of "high" vary. Some people say over 6 is high, some say over 2 is high. Under.5 is very low.

In October, my TSH was 2.3 or thereabouts.

This week, after 8 weeks of treatment, my TSH was 3. This is weird. It should have gone down.

TSH is the messenger hormone that is produced by the pituitary to stimulate the thyroid and is believed to be the hormone that indicates how the thyroid is doing. So, if your body feels a bit short on thyroid hormone your body sends out more TSH. The thyroid reacts to this and makes more hormone. If your body feels like you have plenty of thyroid hormone, your body sends out very little TSH, and the thyroid makes less hormone.

With me so far?

Well, of course things can go wrong. If your thyroid is sick, your body might have to send out a lot of TSH to really get it cranking so you can make enough of the good stuff. Do this enough and you can stimulate the thyroid to grow. Twice as much thyroid, working half as hard as healthy tissue, should maintain healthy blood levels. As time goes by, and the gland packs it in, even a high TSH can't rev things up enough, and you become deficient in hormone and hypothyroid.

Well, my thyroid has supposedly been keeping up pretty well considering its injury. By supplementing thyroid hormone, the thyroid should have been able to rest a bit. However, my TSH is higher. What the? This means my body is asking for more thyroid activity, not less. We expected my TSH to drop.

Now, I've stated before that TSH is important to know, but really truly doesn't tell us everything. This redoubles that assertion.

My doc was surprised my TSH was up, and when I asked why it was higher, she shrugged and said that she really didn't know. I was glad she said that, I don't mind a doctor saying "I don't know", I do mind a doctor saying "I'm not interested" but that's a rant for another day. She is interested, so I'm satisfied with that.

My theory is that the low dose I've been taking has revved up my body to the point where it wants even more. We gave it an inch, it wants a mile. We'll see...

So the upshot is that she's upping my dosage! We're rechecking my blood numbers in 8 weeks. Yay!

She said I don't need to avoid so-called "goitrogenic" foods (cabbages, sprouts, almonds, etc.). Yay! Turns out that I don't have that kind of goiter. She did say that I have to make absolutely sure that I get enough iodine in my diet, but that she wasn't concerned since I take a multivitamin and eat seafood and seaweed (I have a little scrap a few times a week). We mix iodized salt with our kosher salt for cooking at home too.

She said my chance of recovery is 0%. I've got this for life. My thyroid will slowly continue to fail over time, and my need for supplementary hormone will only increase with time. This doesn't mesh exactly with some other information I've seen, so I'll do some more reading.

She also said that my thyroid should shrink, and that eventually it will probably atrophy almost completely. Much as this makes me sad - I'd rather it heal, I'm pleased that the goiter will shrink away. I'm self-conscious. I don't mean that I'm embarrassed by it, heck, I whip it out at parties and show all my friends. I just mean that I'm continually aware of it - I notice it in mirrors, especially at the gym where the light above the treadmills makes it especially apparent. Husbeast and I see it too often to be able to judge if it is shrinking, but my Mum says it is. Thanks Mum!

Go go gadget goiter!

So Sumo Me

2007-12-06T19:07:00.000-06:00

Buttercups, 3 rounds for time

Run 200m
15 Sumo Deadlift Highpulls : Broomstick or 15#
15 Thrusters : Broomstick or 15#

Started at 20#, and to prevent puking I went down to broomstick for the next two rounds. Luckily I'd read up on this workout and it is a metabolic conditioning workout. Work it, and work it hard, and keep the weight light enough to do so. With a higher weight, you slow down and you get a very different result.

I was still pretty slow 6 minutes, 8 minutes, 5 minutes.

It did mark the first time EVER when the run felt like rest. I was bright red, sweating bullets, and Mr Oh-It's-So-Amusing-That-You-Are-Red came by with a couple of smart comments. On the last one I just said, panting, "You try it". He is very good-natured, and does mean well, but Jmz (brother) will hopefully agree that it is hard to think of full, socially graceful sentences mid-workout.

Sumo Deadlift Highpulls are fun. Sumo means wide leg stance. Deadlift means, um, deadlift. Highpull means you get it up to your chin.

Important points of note:

Deadlift form stipulates that you can lightly drag the bar up the fronts of your legs as you stand. Logically, when doing the highpull, you do this up to your shoulders. Unfortunately, I discovered that my boobs are very effective barriers to progress and just about unhinged my bra. Note to self, hoik the bar out a bit.

Second note to self. Don't hoik the bar too much, lest you punch yourself in the chin with a barbell.

Third note to self. Hair in bun does not survive this workout. Hair fell down. All of a sudden had five (yes, five) random men smile at me a say hi as I walked by. Gym rats do prefer blondes, I guess. Well, long hair at least.

Fourth note to self. Flipping through Muscles 'n Gonads or some such similar publication at the reading table, I noticed something. There was a proportion of the women who didn't look like women. There was some key element of femininity missing - a hardness to the face, a squareness to the jaw. All of these women had tremendously impressive bodies, and very oily tans, but this perfection seems to have sapped something from them too. That got me a-thinkin'. All of the uber-buff ladies on the Crossfit site have really impressive bodies too, but they are all stunning. Beautiful and healthy looking, and undeniably feminine, even if very lean and very buff. Makes me wonder about the hormonal effects of the Crossfit program.

Fifth note to self. Remember that this workout gives ya jelly legs.

Now that is interesting...

2007-12-04T10:44:00.000-06:00

Well then.

I was naughty this weekend. With the husband away at a Judo thing, I went a little nuts. I had bacon sandwiches, ice cream, brie and grapes, and a small tub of asian pasta salad.

Husband returned, and we had pizza at a friends house.

Then yesterday we had French onion soup.

Carby carby carby. Granted, at no point in this little oo-I'm-being-naughty diversion did I overeat, but I still expected there to be some damage.

I weighed myself and I measured myself.

Weight is the same. Yay!

Measurements are down. Yup. I'm surprised.

Thigh: 27.25" to 26.5" (starting measurement to today's measurement)
Belly: 44.5" to 42.5"
Bum: 46.5" to 46"
Boobs (No Bra): 47.75" to 47.5"
Chest (Above Boobs): 44.5" to 43.5"
Upper Arm: 14" to 14" (bigger!)

10/30 total is 224.5"
11/27 total is 221.25"
12/4 total is 220"

Belly and Upper Arm dropped since last measurement. Boobs are up a bit, but boobs do that.

So, I had an awful lot of fun, and didn't do too much damage. This is good.

Michael's Back!

2007-12-03T22:19:00.000-06:00

I celebrated my return to Crossfit with my favorite workout. Wait... no, scratch that. Second favorite workout. My favorite is the dumbell swinging one. That's fun!

As a reminder, my Michael is:

Three rounds for time of
400 M run
10 back extensions
20 situps

Reflections compared to last time? Last time it took me 7 : 9 : 8 minutes (I think). This time it took 7:9:7 minutes (I think). Overall, I did it one minute faster this time.

Here's the funny thing, I made an effort to rest a lot less. I ran a bit slower, at 8 to 8.2 kmh rather than 8.3 to 8.5 kmh. I didn't take a moment to recover after running, and I went straight to the followup exercises.

So, I think I did each individual component a bit slower, but rested less so my overall time improved.

Weird.

Oh, and the situps got easier as time went by. Explain that one to me.

Other things of note...

Had trouble having a brief conversation with my friend Tom during my third run. I could get about two words out at a time. Also got a wicked stitch. OW.

There was a two-person kettlebell class in the back room. That looks like fun! They were really sweet and didn't mind if I snuck in to do my situps. I was going to chat to the lady teaching it and ask about the classes, but she was swinging a kettlebell vigorously and I was trying not to toss my cookies, so I didn't have a chance to ask her.

I was, again, the only person in the gym who was all red and sweaty. Again. There were a couple of guys on weightlifting contraptions who were grunting plenty, but no sweaty. No red.

The closest I saw to someone suffering along with me was one of the ladies in the kettlebell class, she didn't look like she was terribly fit -pretty much, she looked like me- but she was working really hard. She was pushing her limits and it made me really happy to see her! I think she's going to be sore tomorrow.

On Guilt and Rest

2007-12-02T11:00:00.001-06:00

Well, I skipped the workouts for Thursday and Friday, and am probably skipping today too.

I hate doing that, it makes me feel guilty. It makes me feel like I deserve the body shape I've got. It makes me feel lazy.

However, I've had a bout of stomach upset. I'll save you the gory details, but will say that I didn't trust myself not to embarrass myself with exertion in public. Today I'll be shovelling the driveway and helping a friend move a concrete mixer - that'll be plenty. Back on the bandwagon tomorrow.

This is my confession, because I seek forgiveness. I do know, however, that the point of exercise, the point of Crossfit is not to never miss a workout. The point is to make it your lifestyle, make it the default. Who cares if you miss a few days or a week, if in general you're at the gym, taking your lumps, and doing the work.

So tomorrow, barring further intestinal woes, back atcha.

I was right... it does hurt today

2007-11-27T13:26:00.000-06:00

Don't make me laugh. Abs in bad shape today.

The brother told me a while back "The simpler the workout looks, the more in trouble you are." You ain't kidding.

Take, for instance, yesterday.

Warmup almost as usual, but finally had the strength to go to the next level with developing a solid pushup. Until yesterday, I'd start laying down, push up, descend wobbily, recover for a moment, rinse, repeat. Yesterday, I had the strength to start up in plank pose, at the "up" portion of the pushup, descend wobbily, push up, and recover up in plank pose. Massive difference. It means my core was engaged the whole time. Getting up I thought, gee... that's gonna hurt tomorrow.

I was right.

The workout for yesterday was tremendously simple - scaled down to buttercup level it was "5 pullups 5 times" subbing as necessary if you can't do a pullup.

I can't do a pullup. If I was at my ideal body weight, I think I'd be close, but I'm about 60 pounds overweight right now. I had been working on doing pulldowns, and have tried unsuccessfully to work on jumping pullups. Then I discovered the standing pulldown. Really engages your core - I can't lift as much standing as I can sitting on the squashy seat.

So I start with something easy: 110# 5 times. Work, but not too hard.

Again 110# 5 times. Harder, but not hard enough.

120# 5 times. Um. Have to jump a bit to get it started.

130# 5 times. Gosh, I must look ridiculous. Have to jump quite a bit to get it started. Really working at controlling the nadir before letting the weight down.

140# 5 times. Even with jumping, I failed on the final three.

Ow.

Onto other news. My weight today is officially EXACTLY the same as it was on 10/30/2007. You don't get to know the number though - state secret.

The good news is that my body measurements are down by 3.25 inches

Thigh: 27.25" to 26.5"
Belly: 44.5" to 43.5"
Bum: 46.5" to 46"
Boobs (No Bra): 47.75" to 47"
Chest (Above Boobs): 44.5" to 43.5"
Upper Arm: 14" to 14.75" (bigger!)

10/30 total is 224.5"
11/27 total is 221.25"

If this continues, I might just be out of plus sizes by summertime!

Just occurred to me

2007-11-19T11:41:00.001-06:00

It just occurred to me that my brother and I were the only ones at the gym yesterday sucking wind and sweating buckets.

Granted, there weren't many people there, and there was a guy sweating a bit as we were leaving. However, I'm constantly amazed at how often I'm at the gym and I'm the only one who is red faced, sweaty, and breathing hard. Was very glad to have brother along.

Misery loves company. ;)

Oh My, Michael

2007-11-18T19:15:00.000-06:00

Today's workout is something called the Filthy Fifty. Think of a dozen evil exercises, and do about twenty of them each. Yikes.

Luckily, I missed yesterday's workout. A deceptively simple one called "Michael". The buttercup version looks pretty darned easy.

Three rounds for time of:
Run 400 Meters
10 Back Extensions
20 Situps
(from http://forum.brandxmartialarts.com/)

Easy peasy, right? Riiiight. Just you try it.

Well, in another stroke of luck, my brother also needed to do this workout today. He joined me. He's an absolute monster and can do the full workout:

Three rounds for time of:
Run 800 meters
50 Back Extensions
50 Sit-ups

So we go to the gym. We compared notebooks and it looked like my times from the last attempt were pretty close to his. Nice! Of course, he's doing a bigger workout, but I'm pudgy and unfit so it's fair.

I ran the first 400 m. Felt pretty good. Ran at 8.8 kmph which is an improvement over my last run at 8.5 kmph. 8.8 kmph = 5.46 mph = 10.97 minute miles. At the end I walked for a minute, and by then brother was done with his 800 m.

Back extensions were awesome. I think they're fun, and am sorely tempted to do 20 and then just do 10 situps. V. naughty.

Situps sucked, but so very much easier than last time!

Second run, less fun this time. Went down to 8.5 kmph. Again, walked a bit at the end.

Back extensions still fail to feel like exercise.

Situps sucked so much more. Still did better than last time where I failed partway through. At this point I'm panting hard. Not gasping, and not puking. Both are positive points. Brother seems to be hurting a similar amount, so I taunt him when I finish a couple of seconds ahead of him.

Third run. Not pretty. 8.2 kmph, then 7.9 kmph, then 7.5 kmph, then walk with a stitch, and finish last 100 at 8.5 kmph. Pretty close to gasping at the end, with a wicked stitch. Walk for a moment, and leave the treadmills a mere moment before brother does.

Back extensions become a lovely rest time. Love 'em. Brother suffers mightily during them, so as I leave to do my situps, I mock him again. Luckily he was tangled up on the back extension rack and couldn't reach me to hit me.

The situps went better than the second round, but I had to grunt on the last ten to finish. How ladylike! I did finish a few moments before brother.

All in all, I improved my time from last time by over a minute a round. Yay! Brother did well too, wasn't a personal record, but it was a highly respectable showing.

He also gave me a ginormous compliment - he said it looked like I was really working hard. That's nice to hear - I don't want to waste my time out there, and it's fun to have someone notice. He also gave me a molasses cookie, which was awesome.

It was really fun to do the workout with someone who knows what's going on, and has an idea of how I feel. Even though my workout was a much easier version of his, I was proud to even remotely keep up. I could have done even better for time if I hadn't taken a minute at the end of each run to recover a bit, but I'm still pleased with how I did.

Let's see how Michael the Third goes when it comes back up in the queue. Will have to invite brother along again and see how we both do.

Hungry

2007-11-15T16:42:00.000-06:00

Back to the new normal now, just about. Energy level is high again, and the bloat seems to be on its way out. Tummy is still bigger than it was, but my cheekbones have re-emerged from the podge, and I'm very glad to see them.

It's still hard to say for sure if I've lost weight, since it fluctuates so much on a day to day basis. It seems to be averaging about 2 pounds down from the beginning of this adventure. However, since the advent of the Big Bloat of '07, it's hard to tell.

Today has been a really hungry day. Woke up hungry, was hungry again for lunch, and was hungry enough when I got home that I had a snack. I'm already really looking forwards to my dinner. I'm really enjoying the hunger, and I find I delay eating a bit to revel in the novel sensation. I'm also trying hard to eat moderate portions of high quality foods (especially given the sins of last week), so pushing the hunger just a little bit is just fine. It helps me gauge my eating, and I hope it indicates that I'm not overeating.

Last time I had a truly hungry day was the day after my workout included a run. Yesterday, my workout included a run. Ding ding ding! This requires further testing, but I think I'm going to modify my workouts slightly, and add a bit of running to the warmup when appropriate. If running is the secret to triggering hunger, and if hunger is some kind of indicator of a metabolism, and if a metabolism will help me de-fattify, then all is good. That's quite a stack of if's though.

I didn't run much, mind you. I ran as prescribed in the buttercups portion of the workout of the day - 400 meters three times. 3/4 of a mile, total. I ran at 8.5 km/h, or 5.28 mph. 11.5 minute mile pace.

In other news, I checked myself out in my workout gear and though my figure wasn't impressive in general, I've got a great butt. :)

I announced this to husband, upon returning home, and he grinned. He also said that my "shape was different." I asked him if my shape was "better" and he grinned. He's not one for splashing around compliments, and doesn't tend to tell me things that he thinks I should know. I've told him that, being a girl, knowing isn't enough. You need to tell us again and again - not every day, and not every week, but just once isn't enough for girls. Aren't we silly? However, I'm taking this one as a big ol' compliment, and am subsequently fairly pleased.

Trainer dude was at the gym again yesterday, and as I was walking the gauntlet from the treadmills to the back room, all red and sweaty, he asked grinningly if I was having fun yet. I replied "Of course! I'm red and sweaty, aren't I?".

Three Dog Night

2007-11-12T18:45:00.000-06:00

Three Post Day. Slightly different, but I digress.

Am feeling a bit better now. If, that is, you intend "better" to mean; shaky legs, sweaty, weak arms.

I was a good girl, took the bitter pill, and went and worked out. Couldn't quite remember what I was supposed to do as I left my note in the car. Ah well.

I was supposed to do:

Complete as many rounds as you can in twelve minutes of:
3 Handstand Push-ups
6 L Pull-ups
9 Steps, Walking Lunge
(from http://forum.brandxmartialarts.com/viewtopic.php?t=3592&sid=ae4aa62e1845a6c3e0bbb84ae37926a7)

Instead I did:
Complete as many rounds as you can in twelve minutes of:
3 Ugly half push-ups with my feet up on a bench.
3 Pull-downs
15 Steps, Walking Lunge

I only made it two rounds in the twelve minutes, but I think I'd have made it three if I had only done 9 walking lunges. D'oh.

I also forgot to practice L-Sits at the end, so if it is compatible I'll add that to tomorrow's workout.

The first 3 pull-downs were 120#, the second 3 were 130#.

Total case of shaky leg right now.

I'm still Ol' Bloaty right now, but as I was changing in the locker room I noticed a bit more definition in my deltoids. :) Squee! My legs look lumpier too. Lumpier in the good way.

My destiny may still be fat girl, but at least it will be fat muscly girl. That's a much happier girl to be.

laughing

2007-11-12T16:21:00.000-06:00

Just had to share this. Very very few people visit this blog, and that's fine with me. Ultimately I write this for myself, though I'm incredibly honored and flattered when *anyone* else comes for a visit. Welcome!

I've had a few random visitors, and they found me by googling the following:

"vici shoes" 2 visitors
"abnormal swiss cheese thyroid" 1 visitor
"alentejo pork head cheese" 1 visitor
"breadfast nooks" 1 visitor
"gondoliers shoes" 1 visitor

A lot of the googlings involve shoes, so in that honor, I give you a Feets shot from Portugal, and one from Venice. Enjoy!

Red Shoes in Lisbon

Red Shoes in Venice

It was bound to happen eventually...

2007-11-12T15:14:00.000-06:00

It was bound to happen eventually. Didn't have a good day yesterday. I was draggy all day, even had a three hour nap in the afternoon. Bleah.

There are various points of note, however, that I'd like to mark down for posterity.

1. I used to feel like that all the time, and I don't now. This was a short sharp reminder of how wonderful things are now, in general.

2. I do feel much better today, not totally back to 'awesome', but definitely coming out of the blahs. I'd like to note that this isn't a mood swing - my mood has been fine, this has been an issue of energy level.

3. *girly part* I got my period last Thursday evening and it ended this morning. That's a four day period. Massive improvement over the 8 day festivals I've been having up until this month. The blahs could be related. *end girly part*

4. Today, I weighed in at my all time highest weight EVER. Last week I was starting to think I'd lost some weight, since my average seemed to be down a couple of pounds. Now, my belly is swollen, my face is very round again (cheekbones! I miss you cheekbones!). This seriously feels like a twelve pound bloat. I'm afraid I'm not exaggerating.

5. In all fairness, I've eaten like crap lately. Pizza last Thursday, Indian food Friday, party food (including cake, crackers, grapes, and other crap) on Saturday, and chips yesterday. Writing this down horrifies me. I'm mad that I might have done this at myself, and as of this moment am going to toe the line a bit better.

The good news is that it's a Crossfit day, so I've got that to look forwards to. I really enjoy the workouts. Today it's lunges (love doing lunges!), handstand pushups or the closest you can manage, pullups or the closest you can manage, and l-sits (at which, I suck). Should be fun!

One Month

2007-11-09T09:25:00.000-06:00

Today I took the last pill in my first 30 day supply of levothyroxine. I am continuing to feel awesome. I'm sleeping though the night better. I have fewer sugar cravings. I wasn't eating a huge amount of sugar before, but if I walked past exquisite pastries or similar, I wanted them. Now, not so much. Sometimes they look really scrummy, sometimes not.

My appetite is still really changeable, most days are low appetite like before, but I get the occasional day when I get hungry three times. I like those days, dinner is extra delicious.

My energy level remains high, but not stressy high like grad school. It's awesome. I only had two naps this month, and those were on days following very short nights of sleep. It used to be a good week if I only had two naps.

My self-esteem is higher too. This one is hard to quantify, but rather than looking at things I haven't done and seeing them as a personal failure I just see them as things I ought to do. That's an important distinction. I'm also much more likely to say 'just deal with it' when someone presents me with a personal flaw or mistake. My poor husband has to withstand more practical jokes now too. Poor guy.

I'm warmer in general, I wear fewer clothes and no longer have to sit wrapped in a blanket on the couch. This one's a bit harder to quantify as well since we're deep in late fall/early winter here in Minnesota. It's getting chilly! We had a little bit of snow while I was writing this, and all of the trees I can see right now have lost their leaves except for my gorgeous little red maple. That is a stubborn tree!

I have been told that I look a bit thinner and seem more energetic. I'm not much lighter - maybe averaging a pound or two down, but I've been exercising a whole bunch so I'm willing to accept that I might be thinner but not lighter. I'm definitely more muscly.

All in all, it's been a good month. I'm thrilled with my progress, and incredibly grateful for everyone's support. Thank you!

As a postscript to yesterday's workout. I am quite uncomfortable today - legs a bit sore, lower back very sore. It's not the bad sore, like I've hurt myself, just good sore. I'm also feeling it in my hips a bit.

Dead

2007-11-08T18:29:00.000-06:00

I can't decide if I feel great or awful right now.

Deadlift 3-3-3-3-3

So off to the gym I go, do the warmup. Good news there. Though my pushups are still mightily ugly, they are less ugly than they used to be. We're all about the less-ugly round here. Everything else went fine. Got bored with the back extensions so instead of having my arms at cross-your-heart I went up to hands-behind-head. The goal is to work up to the full superman.

While I was doing the matwork portion of working out there was a woman getting a training consult from a guy and she never stopped talking. Never. Not once. I was in awe. She also prefaced all exercise with either 'I can't do that' or 'Can I really do that?". Now I'm all in favor of modesty and trying to be reasonable up front about anticipated limits, but I hope like heck I've never done *that*. Dude was being great with her though and saying awesome things to her like "Yeah you can do that", "See, you've got muscles!".

So I pop next door in buffdude central, the room with all the big weights and bigger fellas.

Fwaw.

There are two barbell stations where you can do deadlifts, and one of them has three big gorgeous fellas at it. They're doing big lifting.

Chin high, trying to look cool but not bitchy, I go over to the other station and I've got to set up the barbell. Last time I did this, my brother helped me. This time, I've got to solo it because there's NO WAY IN HECK that I am asking for help. Unless I crush a toe.

Okay, first things first, the 45# bar. Good, it's already there.

Next I need the lever bar thing for holding it up. Check.

Okay, I'm aiming for 135# for the first lift, so I find the 45# doughnuts, grab one and lever up the bar. Stabilizing it with my foot, I put on one doughnut, then the other. So far so good.

Get all lined up. I'd watched the instructional video today, so I knew in theory what to do. Feet under bar, shins 2" away, bend, grab, arch back for the duck butt, deep breath, look up...

and they're all looking at me.

Great. Let's hope that I can lift this, that I look tidy doing so, and that I don't break wind or similar.

135 135 135

Ok. Not so bad. Put it down. They're all off doing their own things now, so am much less self-conscious.

135 135 135

Starting to feel it in my back a bit. Still, going to step it up a touch.

145 145 145

Okay, that's feeling like exercise.

145 145 145 145

Got a little back rounding on the third one, so aborted the put down. Stood back up, then did it properly. Then lost count and did it all again. Whoops. Are we seeing a theme here?

Last one now

155 155 155

Back is on the verge of failure, arms have a bit of a tremor, and a forgotten hamstring injury just woke up.

Okay, I admit it. I feel great.

:)

I managed to put the bar away without embarrassing myself and then got to enjoy the walk to the locker room with the feeling like my back has just relaxed from a huge cramp. Hard to describe the feeling. I felt great, but awful. Mostly great though.

Heavy

2007-10-31T17:16:00.000-05:00

Everything is still going wonderfully, but that's getting boring.

Went to the gym today for my ritual humiliation. The exercise of the day was announced as:

Front Squat 5-5-5-5-5 reps
Followed by "Everyone do this as Rx'd"

Darnit. Gonna have to do the big one today. Okay. Look up how to do a front squat, grab my keys, head to the gym. Gym was nice and empty. There was a girl on the stairstepper machine, physique similar to mine, and she was going very slowly for the brief moment while I was watching. She was also bright red, and drenched in sweat. I was thrilled - she's obviously pushing hard, not just doing the time. I was remotely proud, and wished her silent luck.

So I suppose I do understand a bit more why awesome-you're-red-and-sweaty guy spoke up last time. Note to self.

So, I head back to the back room and do the warmup. My pushups are ugly as heck, but at least they're full body pushups now, not just the knee-massagers. I'm doing dips between two benches so I can scooch my legs under myself for a bit of support. Hard to notice any progress on these. Everything else was total piece-of-cake.

So on to 'front squats'. I head through to the area that's got lighter dumbells and grab the 30 pounder. Just to see how it goes.

1.2.3.4.5 Okay done. Easy in fact.

Grab the 40 pounder.
1.2.3.4.5 Done. Not as easy. Harder to lift up to the shoulder-chest-rest zone, so I had to shrug and toss it just a bit. AHA. Okay, note to self. Next time I do cleans, try it with some weight - much easier! Also easier to get elbows pointing north with the heavier weight.

Grab the 50 pounder.
1.2.3.4.5. Ooof. Done. Not as easy again, but not feeling like I'm close to my limit.

Grab the 60 pounder.
1.2.3.4.5. Ooof. Oof. Done. Feels like exercise! Also noticing some muscles starting to make themselves known.

Grab the 70 pounder.
Ooopsies. Fumbled the shrugtosscatch. Try again. Fumble again. Needs work.

Grab the 60 pounder.
1.2.3.4.5. Done. Not putting it down. Just wait a second. Harder to catch breath with 60 extra pounds on my chest. Wonder idly if this is easier because of my big boobs. Hm. Okay, two more sets and done.

1.2.3.4.5. Ugh. Almost there. Must be using something in my abs because the front of my stomach hurts now.

1.2.3.4.5. Done. Done done. Back tired now too. Interesting. Now to try and put this thing down gracefully so I don't embarrass myself in front of gnarly guy.

Make notes.
40 50 60 not70 60 60 60

Ummmm...

Oops. Did an extra set.

Note to self regarding ability to count to five reliably. Needs work.

Quickie

2007-10-26T18:43:00.001-05:00

Big grin time. I'm not lighter, but I think I'm just the barest smidge thinner. Yay!

Confirmation at lunch today when my friend Joy, who hasn't seen me since spring, said "You seem thinner, and more energetic!"

:)

Stomachache

2007-10-25T18:29:00.000-05:00

My digestion has not gone awry... it's just that I've just discovered that I can't do 60 situps. Boo. Well, I probably *can* do sixty situps, but not as a part of the workout I did today.

http://forum.brandxmartialarts.com/viewtopic.php?t=3532&sid=b678dbf6207017bc10f16b4ab22ba435
The realdeal workout for gnarly types is:

Warmup
"Michael"
Three rounds for time of:
Run 800 meters
50 Back Extensions
50 Sit-ups

Dilute this down to Buttercup strength and you get:
Warmup
Three rounds for time of:
Run 400 meters
10 Back Extensions
20 Sit-ups

The running is no problem now, I'm a bit slow but I make it.

The back extensions are super easy - apparently I've got a strong back. I get done with my 10 and seriously feel like I've been cheating. Not hard at all.

The sit-ups, well, different story. First 20 went fine. Second 20, not so much. Third 20, much better than second, but still didn't make it to the end. Boo.

While I was in the back room at the gym trying not to embarrass myself doing situps, there was a guy in there who is obviously a competetive bodybuilder. He was huge and brown and muscly and wearing nothing but his knickers. His girlfriend was videoing him and he was practicing for a competition, trying to find the most "interesting" poses. Don't mind me over here in the corner, sweating over situps. *blush*

Speaking of blushing. When I exercise I turn bright red. Always have done. It has nothing to do with how fit (or not) I am at any given time. Simply put, I exercise, I turn red. So I'm doing the running bit of today's workout, I'm actually rather pleased because it went really really well. No funny pains. Only got a sidestitch twice. Ran the whole time at a proper running speed. Yay! Also bright red. Also sweating inelegantly.

As this is happening, I look around the gym. There are quite a few people in, and the people watching here is pretty good. Nobody else is sweating. No one. No one else is red. There's a girl who often works out at the same time I do while I'm running round the gym looking confusedly at the directions I wrote myself at home and muttering to myself (what's tabata again? wait, was that 10 back extensions and 20 situps, or 20 back extensions and 10 situps? darn, that guy took my pulldown machine. ack, gonna puke. phew. didn't puke. whoops, shirt flipped up on the extension machine, good job I'm wearing my brunhilda bra, must remember to wear cute undies - pants creep down butt during squats... you get the idea).

She is a very elegant exerciser. No sweat. No red face. Cute hairdo. Perfect little outfit. No muscles ;) She comes in, does half an hour on the elliptical machine, then leaves. Seems boring to me, but I guess it must work for her.

So, I stagger off the treadmill and start the walk of shame back to the room with Mr. Incredible in it posing for a video camera and this other buff dude looks me up and down and says, very nicely, "Wow! You're red! Did you just go tanning?"

*laughing* "Nope! I'm just really unfit!"
He replies "Well it looks AWESOME!"
*again laughing* "Thanks! This is what happens every time I exercise... charming, eh?"
He replies "Wow... I wish *I* could do that"

Ummmm... okay. Trade ya.

Weird interchange. Nice guy though, next time I saw him he was helping someone use the equipment, so there's a decent chance he's a trainer there.

Normal

2007-10-23T18:47:00.000-05:00

Saw an awesome post on alt.support.thyroid today on the concept of the "normal" range on lab test results.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.thyroid/browse_thread/thread/a5ee2a2b8f6fe91f?hl=en Poster: kgrhoads at alum dot mit dot edu, Oct 22, 9:28 AM

"When doctors talk "normal" ranges, they seem to be unaware (or have totally forgotten) that the "normal" here is the technical statistical usage, being the Gaussian distribution, a.k.a., "normal" distribution, and has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with "normality" in the common usage sense. A value can be within the Gaussian reference range for the lab and be highly ABnormal. "

"Now, that does not mean that this value is ABnormal. It just means that being within the reference range is NOT PROOF OF NORMALITY in the common meaning for "normality". "

"Personally, I believe the use of "normal" for labs should be abolished, and only "Gaussian" should be used. That way people are not being set up for misinterpretation of the meaning of the lab values. "

Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from my brother: "I'm right, because I proved my point with math."

Requesting a do-over, please.

2007-10-21T13:43:00.000-05:00

Well, things continue to be great. I'm sleeping a bit better, haven't had a nap yet (woohooo!), and am feeling energetic all day. I don't think my metabolism is at full roar yet, I'm having non-hungry days back to back with hungry days.

I would like to request a do-over though. The master's degree would have been *SO* much easier with this level of energy. I honestly do not know how I did it.

Hm.. Thinking about it, I think I do know how I did it. Adrenaline. I kept myself at a high stress level so I could function successfully. The second I relaxed, I'd do nothing but sleep. My uncle called me Rip-Van-Richardson and my husband was very kind about me sleeping away my free time. If I had a day off (rare!) I'd generally sleep until mid morning, drift around the house for a while, then have a five hour nap in the afternoon, then be in bed at a decent hour for the night's sleep. Why didn't I think this was weird? Why didn't I ask questions sooner? Why didn't my doctors ask any questions about this? Every time I went in for some random little thing - headaches, tendinitis (I was swimming 4 to 6 hours a week, and royally bollocking up my joints in the meantime), neck pain, etc. they would *always* ask "Is anything else going on?" I would follow with the usual fat girl litany - I'm overweight, I exercise a lot, I don't eat much sugar or starch, I don't sleep well.

They'd always nod, but never say anything. Perhaps passing judgement - not exercising enough, not eating right, etc. They'd send me to physical therapy where I would be pronounced very strong.

Finally, this last spring, I went to the doctor because I had some brown mottling on my back. Looked a bit like leopard spots. I basically wanted reassurance that this wasn't the creeping death, and found out that it was tinea versicolor, a yeast infection of the skin that turns it brown. Easily fixed, not a problem. Yay! Also not the creeping death, big plus there. She asked the usual "Anything else?" question, I responded with the Fat Girl Litany, and she said "You should get your thyroid checked."

Whuh? Never occurred to me. So, being a grad student, I made an appointment with a new physician and then I Googled it. Holy buckets - I think I'm hypothyroid! I read the encyclopedic sites with lists of symptoms, diagnoses, and treatments. I read the anecdote sites with the usual assortment of the highly knowledgable, the frustrated who haven't found the right treatment yet, and the enthusiastic people who *have* found the right treatment who tell the frustrated to try what worked for them. I then found citations for papers in medical journals, and read them. I then read the papers that *they* cited.

Thus armed, I danced off to my appointment, and the doctor gave me a good bollocking for not coming in sooner. She pronounced the thyroid "big" and said I had a compelling list of symptoms. When the blood test came back my TSH was 2.94 - right on the edge of "normal" with the new guidelines. She said, well, you're not hypothyroid so get on the ball with diet and exercise.

I was a bit upset, did some more research, and then found a great little paper. The paper describes patients who are clinically euthyroid, but diagnostically hypothyroid, and remarks that they benefitted from treatment. That's me! I asked for some followup tests - total T4, free T4, T3, thyroid antibodies. Doctor referred me to an endocrinologist.

Endocrinologist tested all this stuff, and found out that I have Hashimoto's Thyroidits. My numbers all came back awesome, except for T4 which was in the very low end of the "normal" range. This is good, it means that my injured thyroid is keeping up pretty well, even if it is pretty huge.

Endo started me on a teeny weeny dose of T4 to see if it would help with my symptoms, and voila, it has.

Thus, I declare myself Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, clinically euthyroid, symptomatically hypothyroid, responding AMAZINGLY to treatment.

In retrospect, I don't think I'll do that Master's degree over again. That was a heck of a lot of work ;) Plus, it now becomes a point of pride. Master's. Hypothyroid. Uphill, both ways, barefoot, in the snow... So began the legend ;)

Presenting... a metabolism! Woo!

2007-10-18T22:16:00.000-05:00

Have been taking my daily pill and doing my exercises with a good girl. Weight is actually up just a touch, but my muscles have been stiff and sore, so I'm not too concerned. The big issue of the day is hunger.

Before T4 (shall I be all cute and call it "b4t4"?) - I'd get hungry for dinner. Usually. Not always. I ate lunch because people would get upset with me if I didn't - people terrifying me with cries of "It'll slow down your metabolism!" ditto on breakfast. So, I'm supposed to eat when I'm patently not hungry... okay... So, I took my lumps. quite literally, and ate two to three meals a day. Often wanted the meal - I'm a good cook, but rarely hungry for it.

After T4 supplementation, Today especially - Hungry. Woke up starving. Was very sad that I had to wait an hour to eat (stupid pill, evil clock, slow slow minutes, grr). Went over to friend's house to hang out and actually dug through her fridge for a bit of breakfast. Yum! Then, we took her girls out to the museum, then went out for lunch. Yum! I was hungry for it! Then I came home and promptly was quite hungry for dinner! Yum! Lamb stew! I even had two bowls. And a pear.

In other news, since the medication began I haven't taken an afternoon nap. This is probably the longest I've gone without some kind of nap in about five years. Sugar cravings are almost totally gone. I'm sleeping a bit weirdly - wakeful in the middle of the night and things, but it's not bad.

Exercise has been coming along nicely. In the Brand X Crossfit universe, there are Infidels, Big Dawgs, The Pack, Puppies, and Buttercups. I aspire to being a full buttercup, but since I can't do a proper pullup yet, that will have to wait. As it is, I'm a buttercup in training - it's awesome!

Let's hope I'm lucky!

2007-10-16T23:35:00.000-05:00

From http://www.thyroidmanager.org specifically http://www.thyroidmanager.org/Chapter8/chapter8.html#id2452111 : Massively abridged quotation ... "it is now clear that up to one-fourth of patients who are hypothyroid [due to Hashimoto's] may spontaneously return to normal function over the course of several years."

That's outstanding. There's a 25% chance that this isn't a life sentence. Yay!

This article also discusses the generally accepted theory that there is a genetic component to this disease. Here's a shout-out to my blood-relations: Check your neck! Heck, everyone should.

I was reminded by a comment on an earlier post (Thanks!) of the Check Your Neck campaign. You all have excellent Google-fu so I will not insult your intelligence by posting links that will no doubt cease to work the minute I stop looking at them. The general idea is that you should keep an eye on your neck, and on necks around you, watching for swellings, masses, or changes. Hickies don't count.

When I originally started suspecting that I might have a thyroid problem I found the Check Your Neck site and got the shock of the year. I went to the bathroom, tilted my head back, and swallowed in front of the mirror. My thyroid was huuuuge. Huge in a magnificent manner that made me wonder why I hadn't seen it before. When I'm at the gym running, the lighting makes it look especially nice and large. How on earth could I have missed it? I looked at my Mum's and my husband's necks, and realized that I have a goiter. Charming. Nice to meet ya, Big G.

Check Your Neck. If you see something that worries you, talk to your doctor! If your doctor isn't as worried as you are, check with another doctor!

Whee!

2007-10-15T00:22:00.001-05:00

Man, I feel awesome. Still sleeping a whole bunch, but I actually have energy during the day. It's like waking up from a long nap. I'm getting projects done that have been annoying me for years. I'm not bothered by starting something, because I'm pretty sure I'll be finishing it soon. I'm not working on things "because I ought to" or "it really needs doing" or "is due now" or "don't want to piss off so-and-so". I feel like I've finally been let in on a secret and I'm jealous as hell of all the time that has been wasted.

I can't be imagining this - I'm certain it's not psychosomatic.

This of course means that it still could be. I got my way - proved that something is wrong, secured treatment, disproved the naysayers. Ha! This could be the high of achievement... except I didn't even feel this good when I finished my Master's degree.

So, I must do the needful. Meet Big G.

Before Swallowing:

Swallowing:

After Swallowing:

Not quite as visible in real life ;)

Sorry if that grossed you out. Kind of grosses me out too. It was harder than I anticipated to post this.

Cheers!

So without any further ado..

2007-10-12T21:45:00.000-05:00

I'm on meds. Took my first one yesterday, second one today. Levothyroxine, you sweet darling thing you.

I'm due back in for testing in six weeks to see how the ol' blood numbers are shaping up, and in the meantime I take a little peach pill each morning with a huge glass of water (it's a very dry and choky pill, if tiny). It's one of those "don't take with food" ones, but since I'm not a breakfast eater, that's no biggie.

This isn't a problem unless my metabolism increases, then I will sit with the dog and look wistfully at the fridge with droopy eyes until the evil clock has ticked away those precious minutes. Evil clock.

So, the big question is - are the meds helping? From what I can tell, you're not supposed to be able to feel results straight away. The half-life of Thyroxine (the hormone my little pill is replacing) is approximately one week (more if you're hypo, less if you're hyper), so my body shouldn't be saturated with the full dose for a week or so. The six week checkup is supposedly because the body's biochemistry takes that long to react to a change in situation. A bit like turning a barge. Looking at my waistline, an apropros comparison.

However, I think I notice a difference. It could be psychosomatic, it could be my suspected cold that I'm fighting off, but it *could* be the treatment.

1. I'm warmer, sitting here happily in a t-shirt. I don't sit happily in t-shirts even in the summertime.
2. I'm more energetic. I was pootling around today doing all sorts of little householdy things and not being at all draggy about it.
3. I don't think I ate enough today. Well, until the unfortunate Bridgetty pizza-for-dinner-debacle which I choose to blame on husband. Late afternoon I got shaky arms and shaky legs which really felt like the hungry shakies. Appetite hasn't gone up yet, but the metabolism might have.

I think it's crazy to think I'm feeling a result so quickly, but we'll see.

Body temp tonight is 97.9F. I tracked my temp for a while this summer and I was usually running around 97.2F, though I can't pretend that I measured with any sort of useful scientific rigor. Call it an anecdote if you will.

Hashimoto ftw!

2007-10-10T10:24:00.000-05:00

Just got an awesome call from the doctor - we have a verdict! Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Feels sort of official now.

My blood numbers came back in the "normal" range, but right on the edge. I'm borderline hypothyroid, as a result of the Hashimoto's.

She's starting me on 25 mcg thyroxine - very low dose. Will check back in six weeks to see how I'm responding.

I am hoping for the following:

1. At least moderate de-goitering. The thyroxine should make it so the thyroid doesn't have to work so hard, and doesn't have to continue to grow to just barely keep up.

2. Resolution of the symptoms of hypothyroidism that I've got.

Phew...

Domo Arigato, Mr. Hashimoto

2007-10-07T12:32:00.000-05:00

Awesome site - great information: http://www.thyroidmanager.org/Chapter8/8-frame.htm

When I first saw the ultrasound of Big G I thought it looked like black Swiss cheese. It turns out that emailing this observation to my family may not have been the compassionate and appropriate thing to do. Apparently comparing one's failing organs to cheese tends to make people worry.

I think it's funny, I don't like Swiss cheese: http://www.thyroidimaging.com/scan_cde_hashi5.htm

Well heck.

2007-10-07T00:27:00.000-05:00

As of Thursday, October 4th "Ultrasound consistent with a diagnosis of Hashimoto's Thyroiditis". Lovely.

Well the good news is you can all call me Goiter. The bad news is.. well... the goiter.

Goiters, bunions, it seems like I get all the sexy diseases. What's next? Lumbago?

Brother's comment at party during conversation regarding potential super powers each of us might have. "Mutant Superpower : Gaining Weight! Form of... I'll sit on you and eat!"

Later on, MJ (5 years old and precocious) came through and told me, giggling, that I had a big neck. Gasping with hysterics I asked her who asked her to tell me this - she said it was my dad. Hmm... he's in Wisconsin. We're not. Okay, plan b for interrogating a five year old. What do we know? Well, there's a kitchen full of men round the corner. Must have been one of them. Ask "MJ - did the guy who asked you have a hairy face." MJ looks puzzled. Hmmm... "Did he have a blue shirt, or a black shirt?" MJ looks puzzled "I'll go check". Off she toddles, then comes back followed by five grown men with the gigglesnorts.

Black shirt. Brother of mine, you're busted.

So now we wait for the doctor to call me with the numbers from my blood tests. At the last measurement my TSH was 2.94. "Normal" is between .5 and 3.0. Dr says that could be high for *me*, if my normal range is low on that scale. Now we're waiting on Free T3, Free T4, Total T4, Thyroid Antibodies, Renin, and Androstenedione (?). The last two are because Dr also suspects that I have Cushings.

Right now, am basking in the glow of sweet vindication. Why? Here's why...

1. It means I might not be so bad at looking after myself as I had thought. When you are overweight, everyone has an opinion. No matter what you eat it is either too much (high calorie) or too little (slowing down your metabolism) or the wrong stuff (too many carbs, not enough carbs). No matter how much you exercise it's not right; too much cardio, not enough cardio, too much weightlifting, not enough weightlifting, too much intensity, not enough intensity, exercising for too long, not exercising for long enough. Then there are the helpful folks who say, when you want it enough it'll come together, try harder. To them I say here and now, you try it.

2. It means I need not feel guilty for having pushed my Primary Care Physician to get me to a specialist.

3. It means I am not crazy, and I'm not imagining my symptoms.

So the plan... what's the plan?

1. Wait for the call from Dr and figure out what the medical response will be? Goiterectomy? Pills? Waiting?

2. Exercise. http://www.crossfit.com/ or rather http://forum.brandxmartialarts.com/viewforum.php?f=16&sid=74059d7b82f8aa7e7fa9cdcec3157228

Cheers.

Vive la France!

2006-05-20T03:36:00.000-05:00

May 2, 2006
Tuesday

Today I woke up in my own sweet time, took some Advil, went back to bed, then got up again an hour later. Advil is magical stuff I tell ya. Breakfast of champions. Vitamin I.

Went into the studio and worked until mid afternoon when my ibuprofen and I went home. Nothing much else to report – Venice is still oh so Venetian with the crowds and the canals and the occasional whiffy odors of canals at low tide and urine.

May 3, 2006
Wednesday

Woke up early in a bit of a panic – our presentations are tomorrow and I haven’t finished my work yet. I set off for studio early making my way past my Venetian landmarks. Since our vaporetto pass has expired, we’ve to take the much cheaper vaporetto from Zattere rather than from San Marco. So, I zigzagged my way through the city, past all of the shop windows with the familiar displays, over the bridge, past the church, round the corner, then onto the boat to the Giudecca.

Once on the Giudecca, take a left past the fishmongers and the internet café (not open yet) over the bridge, down a bit, over the next bridge then across to the rowing club. Gino, my pussycat, came over to say hello but he didn’t bring me a mouse today. The man sorting softshell crabs in his boat was there and tossed a crab up for Gino to eat.

From then on, in studio work work working all day. Left midday to check email and grab a sandwich, again in early evening for a bite of dinner, then again late evening to go home. Phew – finished all of my work. Some people are staying up all night to finish what they need to do, so it was a relief to not have to do that.

The city is more or less dead at night – only one in five windows is lit, as the city is grossly underpopulated, despite being totally overrun by tourists. Property prices are skyrocketing as the rich and famous of the world all want apartments in Venice, and most of them only turn up for about two weeks every year.

Now, I’m a big fan of Venice, and I do think that most people should visit this place for two or three days. I could also envision living here (even though I don’t particularly want to) as the place does have lots of charm. However, I could not remotely imagine wanting to return for two weeks each year – no way, no how. A one room shack in the Dolomites – sure, give it to me! Venice? Nope.

On my way home I swung by the Rialto area where some drunk tourists were still staggering about – one of them even being noisily sick into the canal, eww. Got some gelato and decided to eat it on top of the Rialto bridge to watch the boats go by and enjoy the breeze. Looks like that is a popular idea – the bridge was crammed full! I did find a spot well away from the sick gentleman, enjoyed my gelato (fior di latte and nocciola – plain ice cream and hazelnut).

The gelato here is good and my favorite thing is that you can get a tiny cup for a euro. The cup is just a bit bigger than a Dixie cup, and you can have two flavors. My favorites are plain/hazelnut, chocolate/orange, chocolate/lemon, and plain/coconut. Yum!

May 4, 2006
Thursday

Woke up, did the necessary morning ablutions, drank several espressos, then set off for the Giudecca for our final presentations. I thought the started at 9, so I set off well before my wiser roommates who knew that they started at 9:30. Ah well.

Got to studio, sat through all the presentations, presented, ate lunch, sat through more presentations, and then staggered home stiff and sore from all the sitting.

I presented with Lynn and Angela and we went just before lunch – we got a good review, lots of discussion and many favorable comments, so that was nice. This also freed us up to make liberal use of the wine at lunch (wine and pizza – heck yeah) so that we were a bit pie-eyed for the first few presentations of the afternoon.

When we got home, we drank more wine and watched videos on Sandra’s laptop until we all went to bed with gritty and puffy eyeballs, and a sense of great relief at actually being done with a class.

May 5, 2006
Friday

Got up fairly early, feeling great. I love this sulfite free wine – when I’m at home two glasses is my limit. Any more than that and Roman reminds me that I’m going to have a headache and feel icky in the morning – must be the sulfites. I’m going to have to hunt down some sulfite free wine when I return, or I’m just going to have to homebrew my own.

Lynn and I went straight over to studio to upload some files and do a little final cleanup on our projects for submittal. When that was done I rushed all the way back across the city to start packing my bags so that I can ship all of the heavy unnecessaries home so that I don’t have to lug them across Europe again on a bad back.

So, an hour later I went staggering back across to the Rialto post office with two very very very heavy boxes – one balanced on each hip. The calle out from our apartment is so narrow that I had to walk down it at an angle because with a box on either side I was far too wide to fit down it easily – luckily people made way for me as they saw me coming so I didn’t get crushed up against a grimy and pigeon smeared wall.

With cracking arms, I staggered into the post office, put down the heaviest box, and proceeded to kick it up to the queue. There was a big sign over one of the windows “Tourists are asked to only go to the Tourist window”. Well, the other window opened up first so I waved the person in line behind me up to it, then went to the Tourist window a few minutes later.

Well, I found the one guy in Venice who doesn’t speak English. Great. I’d packed my phrasebook in the box to send home. Great.

I smiled, said hello, and with a combination of bad Italian, grunting, and hand waving, I told him that I had two boxes to send to the U.S. I hoisted them up to the counter with shivering arms and his face fell. He said “Paper” and made wrapping motions with his arms. At this point my face fell – he wants the boxes wrapped in paper. Um… I did an exaggerated look around, shrugged my shoulders with my hands up, and shook my head. This is sign language for “I’m so sorry sir, I do not have any paper to wrap around these boxes.”. I followed this with a questioning look to the nice man, and another smaller shrug “Kind sir, do you perhaps have some paper I could buy?”. He shook his head politely “No, signorina, I’m afraid I don’t.”

After a bit of mutual headscratching he dove behind the counter and pulled out a large yellow box, pointed at it, pointed at me, and looked hopeful. Nod, nod, yes please!

Hands close together, hands far apart – What size would you like?

Hands far apart – Maximum please!

One finger up, two fingers, three fingers – How many would you like?

Headscratch, shrug, one finger up – I’m not sure, but let’s start with one.

Slow walking fingers, fast walking fingers – Slow mail or fast mail?

Slow walking fingers – Slow please

He then presented me with a box, a pen, and a form to fill out, drew a circle in the air with his finger and pointed at himself – Pack this box, fill this form out, then come back to talk to me again.

My shivering arms, my new purchases, and I hauled ourselves a decent distance away from the window, and I proceeded to unpack my boxes and repack as much into the new box as possible. Damn. Won’t all fit. The line was now much longer, and I took my boxes back to the end of it – kicking them along in front of me. Again up to the window. Point at yellow box, hold up one finger and say “media” – One more box please, medium.

Again with the kicking all of my belongings across to a spare bit of ground, packing another box, kicking them all to the back of line, waiting through the line, then back up to the window.

Exchanged big smiles with the nice man behind the window, gave him his pen back, then hoisted up the big heavy box. By now I’ve got the arm shakes so badly that even holding a pen is difficult. Marvelous.

Hand over the form that I’ve filled out, smile again, he smiles back. After a bit of industrious processing he takes the large box and sends it on its way.

I lift up the small box, point at it, point at the sky, make fast walking fingers – This one should go fast mail – airmail please.

Nod nod – Got it.

I hand over the box, he starts industrious processing again.

He looks at box, looks at the address tag (that I didn’t fill in), looks around comically, then makes a tossing motion over his shoulder – Signorina, you did not fill in the address – where do you want this to go?

Smack myself comically in my head, shrug, then do whirligig motion with my finger around my ear – My apologies, Signore, I must have lost my mind. I’d be happy to fill in the address.

A few more handsigns later, followed by a quick and earnest “Mille grazies!” and I took myself off to find a sandwich as I had neglected breakfast and had the arm shakes.

My sandwich and I sat in a nice campo nearby watching the tourists and the pigeons wooing their womenfolk, then I went off to buy a summery skirt from a shop I’d been eyeing. This is the unfortunate thing about packing in February for a three month trip – you pack sweaters, but you don’t pack light summery gear.

After that, I headed back to the apartment to hang out for an hour before heading back over the Giudecca for our going away party. Well, it wasn’t a party, it was dinner, and it was excellent!

Amid the wine and the cocktails and the talking, this is the meal we ate, courtesy of the three fisherman that they’d hired for a day. Everything the fisherman caught was to be our dinner. Mmmmm!

First was fresh sardines that had been grilled, then tossed with chilled vinegar and onions. Yum! Most people were squicked out by the bones so they made tiny little filets. I had no such problems and ate them whole. Down in one!

Next was pasta with sauce. In Venice, this means pasta with an onion and sardine sauce, and again it was excellent.

Next was pasta with Seppie Nero, or cuttlefish ink. When I had this before I wasn’t too fond of it, as it was the cuttlefish, their eggs, and their ink all mixed together – it was a bit strong and rich. However, over spaghetti, it was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Next was fish fry. A little filet of whitefish, a bunch of cuttlefish (sans ink), and a handful of whole tiny shrimp. They had all been deep fried and except for the shrimp, they were covered in a very light and salty batter. It was outstanding – the best fried fish I’ve ever had. The only disconcerting thing was the tiny shrimp – they were whole, and meant to be eaten that way, but they would insist on looking at you with these tiny black eyes. I was extraordinarily lucky as Lynn doesn’t like food with tentacles, so I got her cuttlefish. Score! (note: cuttlefish are like squid with shorter tentacles and a bigger body with a large bone in it shaped a bit like a spatula)

Shahv, I don’t think you would have liked dinner very much.

It was at this point that we learned of the train strike the next day – what joy. We’re supposed to go to Florence

Afterwards, we staggered our drunken selves back across the city and to bed.

May 6, 2006
Saturday

Don’t make plans in Italy.
Really, I mean it. The two days that we have tried to take train trips, there has been a strike. I don’t know if it is a fascist conspiracy or if it is just good old fashioned bad luck.

We woke early today with the intention of packing and creating all of our contingency plans for places to stay if we end up being delayed by the train strike.

In the end, none of us had to change our plans at all, which was nice – turns out only about 15% of the trains weren’t running. Ah, Italy.

So we packed, schemed, had lunch, then rescued some friends who were being kicked out of their apartment early due to the craziness of the landlord. Since we were vacating our apartment early, they took it over (along with the wine stash that we were leaving behind).

Sandra left first, escorted by the Birthday Girl, Miss Hannah, and Lynn and I left shortly afterwards. Sandra was on her way to visit her very good friend Vanessa up in Switzerland, and Lynn and I took off for Florence.

We arrived in Florence, got ourselves to the Hotel Piccolo (literally, the small hotel), and then walked down to the River Arno to scope out the Academia and the Uffizi for the next day.

We found a gorgeous little restaurant, and had an excellent and ginormous meal. First we had a raw artichoke and parmesan salad, followed by ravioli with butter and sage (me) and ribollita (tastes like stuffing, for Lynn), followed by a Florentine Steak (very good, and very large so we shared the smallest one they had) with delicately deep fried artichokes and squash blossoms. Yum yum yum.

May 7
Sunday

Art day. Well, I can’t actually say that I like Florence very much. I like the food, and the art is good, and the surrounding countryside is indescribably lovely. However, the city itself is grey, full of belching vehicles and tourists, and seems to almost universally lack charm. After the clean air of Venice, it was a bit of a shock.

Clean air of Venice??? I hear you muttering with shock. Yes, I mean it. Venice has the cleanest air of any city in Europe. Granted, the pollution plume from the port of Marghera to the south is a bit dire, but in Venice itself the air quality is quite good. Here’s why – no cars, no fuel oil. Yes, it’s full of boats – but there still aren’t many of them when you compare them to vehicle traffic in other cities. Fuel oil was outlawed in the city many years ago, so all they can burn is natural gas. Yes, the canals get a bit whiffy on warm days at low tide, and men and dogs can’t resist piddling all over the place, but in general the air is clean and bright and fresh.

Also, a lot of the foreign tourists were still enchanted by the Europeness of it all – and as we have just about had enough of European cities, this didn’t impress us in the slightest. Ah well, it turns out that when you are tired of Venice, Florence doesn’t impress you much. *sigh*

First stop, the Academia for an ogle at Michelangelo’s David. We had booked our visit ahead of time, so all we had to do was present ourselves at the front door at the appointed time and we were let right in (ahead of the crushing crowds). We didn’t realize that the Academia really only has a small collection, so despite ogling David for a good long while, we whizzed through fairly quickly.

Afterwards we went for a bit of a wander and grabbed some lunch. I was tired as I hadn’t slept particularly well so I was a bit quiet and grumpy. We sat on a variety of park benches and drank a variety of cups of coffee from different vendors, then presented ourselves at the Uffizi at the appointed time for our visit. We felt very lucky that we had booked our time previously, as the lines for regular admission were horrendous, and the next appointment available was on Wednesday (might I remind you that this was Sunday). Yikes. While we were in line to get let in, a tourist came by and demanded to know where we got our tickets and was horrified to look at the other line and know that that was his only option before Wednesday. Poor guy.

The Uffizi was worth it. Amazing… not only did we see the Great Masters’ Greatest Hits (Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera, Titian’s Venus of Urbino, a whole whack of Da Vinci’s), but we got to see lots of other great stuff – a few El Grecos, a Rubens stuffed in a corner, early work of other famous dead artists. It took three hours to go through the collection and it was great – go see it!

Afterwards, we were very footsore so we headed back to the hotel, and had a lovely meal next door next to an American tourist who, to the great embarrassment of her friend, did not react well to the Europeness of it all – when presented with her dinner she pronounced it uneatable and demanded that the gnocchi with gorgonzola cream be represented to her as “gnocchi with red sauce”, she complained that whenever she ordered coffee that she got espresso, and was unhappy that the Mc Donald’s didn’t have egg mcmuffins or free refills, and was interested to know what channel we watched on the telly. Might I remind you that she was only 7 days into her trip to Europe and only had three days left. Funny thing is that she was on the same Go Ahead Vacations tour that my husband took a few years ago when traveling through Italy with his family – these guys do great tours, they basically provide you with transport and accommodations, and you only have to do the tourist shuffle with them if you want to – otherwise you are left to your own devices and can explore your destinations however you’d like to.

Ps. For dinner I had steak in truffle cream Nyaah-nyah nyaah-nyah-nyah!

May 8
Monday

Lynn and I woke, breakfasted, packed, and stashed our luggage before setting off for the other side of the Arno to visit the Boboli Gardens at the Palazzo Pitti. On the way we had lunch (ravioli with truffle cream sauce – I now know that I will always order truffles on the menu, provided that they’re not served with liver) and watched the wiry locals rowing up and down the Arno in sweaty formations.

The gardens were lovely and afforded some excellent views of the Tuscan hills. We wandered and wandered and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Before presenting ourselves back at the hotel to get our luggage and go to the train station ridiculously early.

Lynn and I hate to be late for things, and we’ve had ridiculously overprogrammed schedules as of late. Therefore, we didn’t plan enough things to do for today and planned a bit too cautiously, and found ourselves reading books on the trainstation platform for nearly an hour and a half before our train arrived and we could settle ourselves down and get some sleep.

May 9
Tuesday

The train ride was just the same as train rides at night usually are – one charming roommate who ate a bag of cookies, another drunk one with a snoring problem.

Now that’s not fair. He was not the one with the snoring problem. He was just snoring. We were the ones with the problem. Not knowing him in the slightest, I didn’t feel comfortable with jabbing him in his side with a sharpened finger and instructing him to turn over, the way I do with Mr. Snory Guy (aka Mr. Husband).

So, we arrived in Dijon quite grimy and a bit frantic because the train was half an hour late, leaving us with three minutes to catch our next train.

So, with cracking muscles and bleary eyes (I didn’t have my contact lenses in yet) we hauled our collective selves over to the next platform – hurled ourselves inelegantly onto the train, then frantically checking with the conductor that the train was indeed going to Lyon.

We got ourselves jammed into seats, then had to get up and move when the people who had reserved the carriage showed up. Luckily they had a couple of spare seats so we jammed ourselves back down, small bags on on our knees, large bags in the aisle.

It was therefore with a great deal of relief that we climbed off in Lyon and went to go wash faces and find our next train over to Carcassonne.

We got on, elegantly this time, and sat down in comfortable seats to snooze our way down south.

We arrived in Carcassonne to brilliant sunshine and cool breezes and faced our next challenge – what to do with our bags? We packed enough stuff for three months, and despite having shipped a great whack of stuff home, they’re still large and unwieldy – if not heavy.

We promised with hands on hearts not to tell you all where we managed to stash our bags, and all people we approached with the problem agreed that it was, indeed, a great problem and a common one too.

Then, we checked in at the Tourist Information Office to pick up a map, then wandered off into town to get a sandwich and a pastry in honour of Sandra.

After a bit we came back, collected our bags, then sat in the sunshine to wait for Sandra’s train to arrive and my Auntie Gilli to fetch us all to take us home.

Sandra and A. Gilli arrived within five minutes of each other, and we were soon on our merry way – enjoying the excellent French country side and chattering away.

Back at the house we got ourselves settled into bedrooms, greeted the menagerie, and settled down to an excellent meal of Duck followed by Paris Brest for dessert (choux pastry, cream, and strawberries – I thought Sandra was going to die of pleasure) and cherry brandies all round.

May 10
Wednesday

Today we decided to have a lazy day around the house, we punctuated walks in the countryside, sunning ourselves outside, and minor duties like laundry with an amusing array of cups of coffee, tea, and glasses of wine. It was incredibly civilized, let me tell you.

Sandra spent the day flitting off into the hills for walks and such, and I showed Lynn around as she hadn’t been here before.

After this heavenly day, with pink cheeks, we adjourned inside to dinner for an excellent repast of stale bread, moldy cheese, and tepid muddy water.

Oh, I’m lying. Trying not to make James jealous.

Ok, ok, for dinner we had Caribbean Beef followed by the stickiest and gooiest chocolate cake you’ve ever seen.

Again, I thought Sandra was going to die of pleasure.

More cherry brandies, and we all retired snoringly to our beds.

May 11
Thursday

This day, amid the fuss and flap of packing, we went to Lake Montbel to sit in the sunshine, let the dogs have a swim, and basically rove around enjoying ourselves. We sketched, watercolored, and marveled at the scenery. The lake is the purest turquoise, and the backdrop of snow capped mountains, charming farms, and thick forests added to the aura of tranquility. We also found hundreds of large floppy frogs and little darting lizards.

We were having such fun that we forgot to go back into town in time to have sandwiches or pastries, because the boulangerie was shut. We made do with beer at the café, and then made our way home.

While Sandra and Lynn were having their final baths and doing their final packing, I wandered around and did a few odd jobs. At one point Tom, the neighbor, brought over a handful of his homebrewed beer and I thoroughly enjoyed one in the sunshine. Tom’s beer is quite the concoction – it has a good half inch of yeast in the bottom and he instructs us “pour it softly – is yeast – not poison – very good if you are constipated”. He then asked how long we were staying, and upon learning that we had a Canadian and an American who were leaving that very day he told us “a Canadian once sent me maple sugar” (kisses his fingers with relish) “two kilograms – I added it to the beer” and then he kissed his fingers again, rolling his eyes with pleasure. He then eyed me up and down and asked “are you free?” and cocked his eyebrow in the direction of his house (it’s just next to Auntie Gilli’s and Uncle Mike’s) “you can stay and do the washing up”. Mike explained that I’m married and that my husband is coming in ten days. I then explained that my husband is very nice, and will enjoy Tom’s beer a great deal. Tom brightened up and said “if he is not very nice – I have herbs – I make something – pht. He is dead”. He then tossed me a lascivious wink, and wandered off cackling.

I must explain something about Tom – he’s a delight. He’s Dutch, I think, and has lived here for ages and ages. He’s had an assortment of wives, has two very handsome sons, and has been known to go outside, wave his arm in a wide arc and pronounce “I have found heaven – why would I move?” The entire top story of his house is open to the elements, he gets his water from a spring up the hillside, and doesn’t have a proper loo – just something called an earth closet. His front yard is a riot of flowers, and he’s got an extremely aggressive little Jack Russel called Bouffe (local slang for stick-to-your-ribs food). He eyed my Aunt a little while ago as she was carting hay down to the horses and told her “don’t worry – if Mike goes, I’ll take you on” again with a lascivious wink and a cackle.

He also once came out and announced “I have been to the supermarket – I saw them all – wheeling their carts full of cancer out – all their food is from packets – their children only know screens – they do not know how to run – they have not seen the sun” I do rather think that he has a point.

Tom is very good friends with one of the local farmers, Roget, who could be a character in a Peter Mayle book. He chews his words before he spits them out, and like all the locals he adds consonants to the ends of them – perhaps just to confuse those of us who learned our French from Parisians. We have merely exchanged bonjours, and I think that is as far as we will get.

So again, we ate an excellent meal (Chinese spare ribs, followed by Ginger Cake – I though Sandra was going to die with pleasure), then set off to take the girls to Carcassonne for their night train up to Paris.

May 12
Friday

Today I did nothing.

Oh, that’s not true and I know it, but it certainly felt like nothing. After a bowl of muesli I did some revisions and took one of my final exams online. The other one I was supposed to take didn’t turn up, so I emailed my professor who later assured me that he’d fix it so that I could take it later in the summertime.

After that, and a bit of lunch, I wandered around and read a bit, knitted a bit, played with my pen and ink set, hung out with the dogs, hung out with Gilli and Mike, and basically was a lazy lazy lump.

It was gorgeous.

That evening we had another excellent meal – pork chops with apricots, roasted peppers and tomatoes with anchovies and garlic. No pudding tonight as Sandra had gone home, so we just had Mojitos instead, and Gilli and I went through old family albums and tried to figure out who looks like who.

May 13 onwards

The rest of the trip passed in a haze of warm sunny days, trips into the countryside, trips to markets, and the pleasing tasks of smallholders – weeding, fencing, livestock maintenance, eating, drinking, and above all sleeping (I did get called Rip Van Richardson at one point.)

Sadly the trip has been cut a bit short due to urgent summons from home, so Roman and I will get our French holiday when we come back in August for the wedding of a dear friend.

Love to all of you, and thanks for indulging me in this!

Xxoo

Joanne

Quickie

2006-05-06T04:52:00.000-05:00

Hey all...

Just a quick note - am on my way to Florence for a couple of days, and then on to my Aunt's house in the South of France.

All is well - Disease has passed, shoulder/neck still a bit of a bother but not too bad, and my final review for Studio went very well, though I will spare you the morbid and boring details.

Miss y'all!

Ciao!
-J4

The one where she's in a right filthy mood for days on end.

2006-05-02T03:42:00.000-05:00

April 23, 2006

Sunday

I’m sorry. Did I just shoulder-check you? I’ll bet I looked grumpy too. Many apologies.
You see I don’t feel well today. I woke up with a terrible sore throat, and a lot more phlegm than is normal. There’s also the minor issue of the great blood sucking fiends that buzz around our apartment at night, but that is hardly your problem,is it?

You were in my way and I was trying to cross town to have breakfast with a friend. I know that you’re not on a schedule, but your consistent blocking is slowing me down by minutes, and I’ve just about had enough.

You’ve also got to understand that I’ve been here for over four weeks now, and the tourist thing is starting to get to me just a bit. I realize that you are running on low sleep, high excitement, and sensory overstimulation. I was just like you when I got here. Well, I was probably a bit grimier than you, but I attract grime as I travel and you appear to attract bottles of water.
Venice thrives on overstimulation – they know that you will probably only be here for two or three days, and that there is a wad of cash in your pocket that you’re dying to spend here. You want something shiny and pretty and above all Venetian.. maybe glass, maybe lace, maybe a carnival mask, maybe a scarf, or perhaps the comedy aprons with life size prints of David’s nether regions on them. Venice has memorabilia for everyone. Me? Oh I want a rowboat… but that requires negotiations with the husband, and he doesn’t fly in for another month yet.

I know that you are rattling through the city like tourist pachinko between the Ferrovia and San Marco… from this store window to that store window, then back again, then a stop on the top of the bridge (why, oh why do you ALL have to stop on the top of even the most mediocre bridges?), then a quick rattle down the steps, stopping halfway to root around for your map, then off to bounce down the next calle.

I know, at this point if you rattle into me I don’t budge. I’ll shoulder check ya. If you seem to be trying to grind me into a wall, heck, I’ll hip check ya. Have you seen that gentle gleam on the wall? That’s pigeon poo and I am *not* touching it.

Would rules help? Ok, here goes.

1. Pretend you are driving. Signal your lane changes, check your blind spot, look in the direction you are moving, drive on the right and pass on the left, and for heavens sakes… beep when backing up. Don’t stop without pulling over.

2. Don’t buy anything from street vendors. In particular, don’t buy those little balloons with sand in them that you can mold into funny faces. They turn into little grenades in your luggage and it *will* ruin your laptop.

3. If it is wet, it is sewage.

4. Yes, that is pee that you smell. See rule 3.

5. It’s not a “special deal just for you, signorina” – it’s a special deal for anyone willing to pay cash – you can usually save 20% on tourist schlock if you pay cash. Signores also.

6. If you see someone with a yellow Billa bag, they’ve just been to the grocery store. Chances are that they are a local and will hipcheck ya if you get in their way.

7. San Marco is not hard to find. Really. If you can’t find a sign to San Marco, find a sign to anywhere else – the chain goes like this: Piazzale Roma – Ferrovia – Rialto – Accademmia – San Marco. Easy Peasy.

8. Don’t take the water taxi. For tourists, the vaporetto is 5 euros, the taxi is 50. Chances are, it’s faster to walk anyway. (except to the Giudecca, that would require a swim and you should take a look at rule 3 again)

9. Abandon your fantasies of walking arm in arm down a narrow calle with your significant other. Seriously. You’ll just piss off the train of traffic behind you, and the lady in front of you whom you threaten to grind into the wall will hipcheck ya.

April 24, 2006

Monday

Stayed home with the Disease.

Very grumpy about it – spectacular weather. About 75 and sunny with a cool breeze.

Just not fair.

Tomorrow is a holiday here, so lots of people are enjoying long weekends being noisy in my canal. Grr.

April 25, 2006

Tuesday

Another gorgeous day. Tried to go in to work… went home early. Evil evil Disease.

Am v. grumpy.

Is Italian Independence day, so lots of pomp and circumstance around – as well as even more noisy people in my canal. Part of me wants to channel my inner anglo-saxon and shout rude things at them out the window. Wouldn’t do any good as they would just shrug at me.

April 26, 2006

Wednesday

Disease appears to be fading. Bene bene. Went into studio and realized that because of the beautiful weather, I’m actually not behind in my schoolwork – just my tan.
Spent the day working, then came home to an excellent dinner cooked by Sandra. Took six of us to eat it all (Tuna Saor).

Evil bloodsucking insects were v. bad tonight. Perhaps would work as a weightloss strategy? However, am starting to look like a junkie with random needletracks up and down my arms. Have one amusing array of bites – 7 in a row in a perfect zigzag. Hm, perhaps it’s aliens? James, you would love it - in the apartment we have many random claps. It's usually someone chasing a mosquito, but who am I to say?

April 27, 2006

Thursday

Today we rose bright and early and headed out to Piazzale Roma to get on a bus for a tour into the countryside. The first stop was at Villa Mercer (or Villa Barbaro, depending on which patron you favor) by none other than Mr. Famous himself, Palladio. This has long been on my list of favorite buildings, so I was delighted to be able to visit. I was floating around, enchanted the whole time. Mum, the entire interior is a mural by Veronese – yes, it’s *that* good.
Also, I’m please to announce that the Italian countryside has burst its way into spring when I wasn’t looking. When we hit Venice, it was winter and the countryside was spare and bleak. Now it is rich and green – the vines are poking out with little soft leaves, the trees have exploded with green, and the wisteria is everywhere – draping everything in delicious lavender blossoms.

Next stop is Carlo Scarpa’s Brion Cemetery. I’m not a huge fan of Carlo Scarpa’s work – I generally find it lacking in charm and warmth, but this cemetery was rather good. It seems a bit like a WW II bunker from the exterior – rammed earth walls up to a cement perimeter, but the interior is filled with precious little spaces, goldfish ponds, miniature streams, clever mechanical contrivances (cement doors that swing easily, glass panels that slide down into ponds to allow passage), gorgeous little tiled details. I have to admit I rather liked it in person, though I’ve studied it in a couple of classes and never liked it before.

Afterwards we went to Asolo for lunch. Heh. I loved this… my favorite pair of hiking boots ever were a pair of Asolo boots – I think I wore them almost every day for about five years. They started out strong and fierce, and by then end they were as soft as slippers. We had lunch in a gorgeous restaurant (they were very proud that Scarpa used to eat there) out on the veranda, protected from the rain by a large porch roof. We had lasagna al forno, white asparagus risotto, chicken, pork, beef, salad, coleslaw, fennel, sausages, and coffee. Good lunch, on the whole.
Next stop is the Canova museum – he was one of the (if not *the*) greatest neoclassical sculptor of all time and his work is extraordinary. Google him if you must. His old workshop has been converted into a museum and they have most of his plaster and clay mockups from which he made his finished marbles (they have a few of those too). It was extraordinary and enchanting and I very highly recommend it to you if you are ever in the area. Seriously, this was one of my favorite things that we’ve done on this trip.

After that, a bit of a sleepy bus ride later and we were back in Venice, ho hum.

When you are tired of Venice, what next?

I do like it here – it is extraordinarily pretty for a rotting sinking liquid city in a swamp. It’s lovely to be constantly seeing all these happy vacationing people who feel, here, that they are away from the world. I occasionally am extremely frustrated with them – Welcome to Venice, take a picture of everything! Their lemminglike crowds, the way they stop on bridges and in bottlenecks. Their seeming inability to keep to the right so they can at least be passed. If I’m not in a hurry, and not ill, I can find my zen with the crowds. I can float along with them, surge ahead if I can, but mainly buffet myself along with them. When I’m not able to find my zen with the crowds, I tuck in and power through them moving them firmly out of my way when necessary. Occasionally, if the oncoming crowd is dense and seemingly impassable, I make my problem their problem and I stand bull-like, and immobile, leaning into the crowd with my shoulder as they eddy around me – swirling as they pass. Once the clot clears, as it were, I charge onwards with a serious look on my face that usually gets people out of my way before I even get there.

April 28, 2006

Friday

Nothing spectacular to report. I’m feeling a bit better, so the weather is of course much cooler and rainier. Fine with me, as I prefer it that way. Sunshine stresses me out – I have to plan ahead so carefully to make sure I don’t get burned, that I much prefer gloomy rainy days. Went into school and worked all day. Hohum.

April 29, 2006

Saturday

This is to be my last full Saturday in Venice – in one week I leave this place (perhaps forever) when Lynn and I take the train to Florence for a couple of days.

We started out by heading over to the Giudecca for our final rowing lesson, and it went wonderfully. We streaked out across the water like seasoned pros and paddled almost the entire length of the Giudecca, on the lagoon side. It was amazingly great fun and I will miss Venetian rowing greatly when we leave here. I’m anticipating missing it so much that I’m trying to devise strategies to get my husband or brother to start rowing with me when I return to the states. Plot, scheme, plan…

Afterwards Lynn and I had some water in one of the café’s on the main fondamenta (frizzante for me, natural for Lynn) and we sat there slurping happily away chatting with the people we knew as they walked by on their Saturday errands.

Afterwards we decided to go to San Marco to finally have a look at the inside of the church – then decided not to when we saw the length of the line outside the place. We even know the trick for skipping the line (check a bag at S. Basso) but the crush outside made us wary of the crush inside, so we decided to go to the Academmia art museum instead.

I’m sorry Mum… it was glorious.

I saw Bernini, Bellini, Carpaccio, Veronese, Titian, and even a tiny little Da Vinci pen and ink. Many others who are far more eloquent than I have been stumped trying to convey how marvelous these paintings are..

April 30, 2006

Sunday

I broke a heart today. Well, perhaps I only disappointed it briefly, but as this is my journal, I’m allowed some of the excesses of poetic license.

I got up this morning, breakfasted with the ladies, then set off for adventure on my own. I had the intention of spending the day on boats, zigzagging my way across the lagoon – but I didn’t get past Murano, the glass island. I wandered around and avoided the shops selling the Chinese glass, and stopped in the shops of the local artisans – might have bought a couple of things too ;)
I ended up doing this all day, which hadn’t been my intention – oh well.

Around lunchtime I found myself outside a nice looking restaurant, so I presented myself to them and said “table for one, please”. The waiter looked rather taken aback, then seated me. “really just for one? One? Really just one? “ Yes, just for one.

I pulled out a book, and started reading as he fussed with fetching me a menu and a glass of wine. “How long are you here?” Another five days “Five days??” Yes five days “When did you arrive?” Five weeks ago “Just for one?” For lunch today, yes.

He profoundly approved of my choices for lunch – prosciutto and melon, guinea fowl with cheese and truffles, tiramisu, red house wine, espresso unsweetened. For the first time since I hit Venice, I allowed myself to dine royally. This is an expensive trip, so apart from a couple of souvenirs, I’ve been trying to live frugally. If I eat out I just have one course “solo primi piatti” or “solo secundo piatti” with the house wine (it’s cheaper than the mineral water, usually). Most of my traveling companions have been buying themselves new wardrobes, and all I have bought is a pair of flip flops, a light jacket, and one shirt. When I get to France in May I’ll need to buy a cotton skirt and another breezy top, but that’s it. Luckily, this is made easier by the fact that I’m a bit of a Clydesdale by European standards (yes, yes, Yes, I *know* I’m European – but I’m stocky like the Welsh, and tall like the Vikings – I’ve got larger hands than my six foot tall mother). I do fine trying on pants here, as the saving grace of my figure is that my bum and hips aren’t huge. My shoulders are too broad, my boobs are too big, they don’t carry my shoe size, glove size, or hat size. I’ve tried on several dresses that fit me perfectly almost everywhere, look gorgeous, and don’t meet across my chest for several inches. Bah!

The waiter keeps stopping by. “Just one?” yes “Five days more?” yes “Will you meet me for lunch tomorrow?” No, I’m busy, but thank you “Just for an hour” No, I’m sorry “Perhaps dinner?” No, I’m sorry, I’m working this week “Working?” Yes, I’m here for a project on the Giudecca “Perhaps just a drink then” I’m sorry no – and my husband wouldn’t like it “But where is he? Just one today” He is at home “Ah, it is sad to be estranged” We aren’t estranged – he's just not here “Where do you go after Venice?” Florence, Carcassonne (with the husband, I’ll have you know) “And you are here for five more days? Just a drink.” I’m sorry, no. May I have the check please.

And so after clasping my hand, and blowing me a fingertip kiss, he allowed me to leave. I must reinforce that he was charming during this interchange, not creepy, and all he really managed to do was to make me miss Roman all the more. *sigh* My heart is breaking, and I know I get to see my sweetheart in 21 days. I can’t wait!

So a crushing and hot boat ride later, and I was walking home across Venice – one of my favorite walks from the Ferrovia down to the Rialto. I stopped at one spot, where a calle dead ends into a canal, and watched the rats for a while. A gondolier came gliding by with the requisite romantic couple. “Ciao!” he called, “Ciao!” I returned with a smile. He slid the gondola (with the requisite romantic couple) over towards me and grasped my hand as he went by… “Ciao bella!” he said sultrily. I laughed and said “Grazie! Mille grazie!” and he floated away.

*sigh*

These Italian men, I tell ya. Now, before you start getting silly visions in your heads, I must tell you that I do not look good today. I slept on wet hair last night so it is a little strangely shaped. I’ve been outside in the drizzle most of the day so my makeup has removed itself and my hair is doing this odd frizzy wing thing as it is escaping from my uneven ponytail. My eyebrows, as people keep pointing out to me, have disappeared. Daily sun exposure for three months apparently turns them so golden that they match my skin. Charming.

May 1, 2006

Monday, bloody Monday

Some of you may not know this, but I’ve had a pain in my neck ever since I got married.
Seriously. Well, ok. Not “ever since I got married” but close. The story of the pain in my neck is the story of how delightful my husband is – allowing my academic ambitions to overshadow our early marriage. We got married on December 11, on the Saturday of finals week. We got home on Sunday, and after a nap and presents, I did homework and my glorious new husband kept me company with cups of coffee and kind words. That Monday I gave my final presentation for my design studio class, and that evening I fell gravely ill with a cold. The rest of the week lost itself in the rhythm of exams and projects and wheezing through blocked nasal passages, and then that weekend my brand new husband and I packed up the truck and drove all the way to southern Texas for our first marital holiday. This was not to be the honeymoon – we still haven’t had one, and it may be a while before we do. This was a marital vacation – we were going to Big Bend, Texas to meet up with my parents and one of my sets of Aunts and Uncles who had flown in for the wedding, all the way from France.

We thought this a fine plan as I had always wanted to take Roman to Big Bend and it should be nice and warm, just being on the Mexican border.

Was I ever wrong.

Again my ludicrously indulgent husband (did I mention that he let me come to Europe for four months?) made this easy on me and proclaimed it a grand adventure, and claimed through chattering teeth that it was a wonderful time. You see, it got cold. We live in Minnesota – we know cold, and this was it. Windy, 7 degrees Farhenheit, and up in a mountain basin in summerweight tents. Funny thing is that this is the third time this has happened to my family – each time setting records for the excited local meteorologists.

One night, it was especially windy, and the six of us (Roman, me, Aunt, Uncle, Mum, Dad) set off for a nearby one-horse town in search of a motel – hot showers, warm beds, it was to be heaven.
The room was very enthusiastically heated, and strangely enough I didn’t sleep well because I was far too warm. C’est la vie. The problem, however, was that after a few nights of sleeping in a tent, this soft and bellied bed gave me a crick in my neck, and I’ve still got it.
It got better and worse for a few months, and took a turn markedly for the worse when I reinjured it along with my shoulder while chopping down brush at the cabin. At this point, my right arm started going numb, and for the first time in my life I was having discomfort using the computer. Quelle dommage. So I went to the doctor and got prescribed physical therapy and swimming (I declined all forms of chemical intervention – painkillers, muscle relaxants, and strangely enough antidepressants that apparently help with this sort of thing in extremely low doses). The swimming did the trick. Then, I came to Europe and have not managed to swim since – every time I visit one of the Venetian pools, it is closed. It is illegal to swim in the canals, so I must just wait.

Therefore, while I’ve been here I’ve been slowly losing flexibility in my neck and shoulder. My party trick, which always elicits exclamations of “Ewwww grosssss!” from my travel companions is to roll my shoulders near someone’s ears. My left shoulder is silent, my right shoulder crackles and pops loudly and clearly.

This seems an awful lot of setup to tell you that I couldn’t sleep last night. Not a wink until about 5:30 AM. I couldn’t tell if I had a neckache, and/or a sinus headache, or if I’d cracked my skull and the collected minions of hell were dancing on the open wound. This was perhaps the worst headache of my life and the Paracetemol (it’s like Tylenol) that I’d taken barely made a dent.

I finally felt a bit better this morning, so I slept until noon – I’m sacrificing a day of work on my final project (due THURSDAY – AIGHHHH) because of this. Now, the headache has crystallized into a hot spark between my right elbow, the base of my skull, and the middle of my back. For the first time since being a child, I cried because of pain today.

I’m desperate with worry – if this doesn’t improve, I won’t be able to finish my final project, I’ll have a devil of a time on the next leg of my travel (Lynn and I are going to Florence, then zigzagging our way over to the south of France to visit an Auntie and rendezvous with a friend – they’re going on to Paris and I’m going to stay with the Aunt getting steadily more excited that Roman is coming to visit too). I don’t want to go to the hospital/doctor since I know precisely that they only things they can do to help me is give me muscle relaxants (no thank you), strong painkillers (no thank you) or physical therapy (I’m already doing it).

So I’m sitting on the couch drinking espresso, eating a bar of chocolate, and moping into the computer. The gondoliers are gliding by shouting “wayooh” and “ooowayah” as they go round corners. One went by a minute ago singing “O Sole Mio”.

If you’re going to stay home sulking for a day, this is certainly the place to do it.

May 2, 2006

Tuesday
Bit better today! More updates later.

The one where things get marginally less exciting

2006-04-26T03:13:00.000-05:00

April 18, 2006
Tuesday

Up bright and early to go meet our tour guide over on the Giudecca in front of Redentore – one of Palladio’s churches. The guide is a lady of some eminence, who’s name I can’t remember, and she is the expert on Venetian gardens. She also wrote a book "The Hidden Gardens of Venice".
We started off, as I had said, at the Redentore church on the Giudecca, and scurried round the back to sneak into the monastery. Our guide is also a lady of some amusing personality, so we were in hysterics half the time at her turns of phrase and manners of speech. She has the habit of grabbing your arm in an iron clawed fist, and thrusting you forwards to look at something – all the time referring to you as "child". To be honest, she reminded me of a wackier version of my grandmother, Nana Olive.

The monastery was cool, a monk in a brown robe thing led us round and the guide translated (all the time they were arguing about her cigarettes too). The first thing we saw was their olive tree that was supposedly grown from a cutting of one at Gethsemane. Next was a miniscule olive bosque, and then some turf-and-trees arrangements along the shoreline. Guess life is pretty hectic as a monk, and sometimes you just need a nice spot for a picnic? Next stop was the main garden area with some grape vines, lots of artichokes ( this is artichoke country – they have an island in the lagoon that does nothing but grow artichokes and strawberries this time of year), and a nice view of the back of the Redentore church.

After that we wandered down the Giudecca and wandered in and out of some lovely, but unremarkable villa gardens. Two deserve special note here: One had an altana, like a deck that is suspended over the roof. It was nice up there, as the owner let us cavort our grimy selves up through her lovely house to allow us access to the views and breezes. It gets quite muggy here in the summertime (duh, it’s a swamp), so the precious few people with these altanas are very very lucky.

The second garden of note merely has the ‘a famous person was here’ notoriety – it’s the very unremarkable garden in a court of apartments where Elton John stays when he is in town. Yes, I took a picture. No, he wasn't in town.

Next we went to the excellent church of San Giorgio Maggiore, at the eastern end of the Giudecca, and went up the belltower at precisely noon to have a look at one of the best views of Venice. How do I know it was precisely noon? Well, it did at noon what belltowers are supposed to do at noon – scare the pants off increasingly deaf tourists.

We then got a hilarious retelling of the building of the church. It was designed by one of the Mr. Famous Guys of Venice, Mr. Palladio. He based his measurements for the church on a bit of wood that he lost, then promptly died. They build the church basing their measurements on a similar piece of wood. They started building the church from the front with the intention of meeting up with the remnant of the old church at the back that was to become the choir. Then, because of the different bit of wood that they used for measurements, they ran out of room for the belltower – so it got shoved off to the side. Heh.

Afterwards, we had an unremarkable afternoon in the Studio, then off to our respective homes for a variety of nice quiet evenings.

April 19, 2006
Wednesday

I have neglected to mention that Lynn has what seems to be a variety of illnesses. She has been largely absent from any and all activities that do not involve sleeping and sweating for about three days now. She has just about had enough, so today is the day that she has decided to go to the hospital and find out what variety of the Black Death, the Bubonic Plague, etc. that she has.
We have also, in other lovely news, had a stopped up loo since last Thursday. Since it was Easter weekend, no plumbers were available to come help us out, and they just didn’t seem to get it together enough to stop by yesterday. Yet another phone call to our landlord resulted in the instruction that we were to have someone waiting at the apartment at 2:00 this afternoon to let the plumber in.

After frantically working through some stuff in studio, I took off to come back and meet the plumber (with tourists clogging the corridors, and vaporettos – it takes nearly an hour to get from the rowing club where our studio is, back up to the Rialto, where our apartment is). We had been instructed to have somebody waiting down by the gate to our apartment building – so there I stood looking eagerly at every man with a wheelbarrow who walked by. After a while I realized that I was getting some raised eyebrows, and must have been looking like the world’s most unsubtle working girl. At this point I ran back upstairs to get a book so I could read while standing and could cut down on the leering I was doing.

2:00, 2:15, 2:30, 2:45… no plumber. Shrug. I was helping people find their hotels nicely, and when the same family walked by four times, I helped them find San Marco (back that way, over the bridge, straight straight straight – at the Disney store go left, follow the signs). I at least got them lost in a different direction and did not see them again.

At 2:45 I called the apartment office – they promised to have someone there by three. At 3:30 I called again, and they promised to have someone there by four. At 4:30 a very cheerful pair of plumbers came by and solved our problem for us. What joy! Two flushing loos! The luxury of it all.

An hour later, an exhausted Lynn came staggering back in with a nasty infection, and a fistful of medications. She had had an exciting time not speaking Italian in a hospital where they spoke no English. Apparently you can communicate a lot by pointing, gesturing, and sweating.

April 20, 2006
Thursday

Big day! I get to see Roman in a month! This was enough to put me in a good mood, so I got up early and went to go check email and get to work in Studio. Worked there all day, but as the weather was stunningly gorgeous (for the first time), we all cleared out fairly early (about 4:00) to go and sweat on our balconies at home. Well, I went present shopping, but I could imagine sweating on my balcony, and massively preferred that to the sweating on tourists that I was already doing.

April 21, 2006
Friday

Got into studio fairly early again since we have presentations to give yet again this afternoon. Had a brief and sunny lunch out in the boat yard, then back in for a 5 hour series of presentations. What joy. Lynn got to take off early to got meet her husband who was flying in for the day from home (in Friday evening, going home Sunday morning)

April 22, 2006
Saturday

Slept in today, as I woke up with the plague… the Disease! Over the course of the day it manifest itself in the form of a cold – so I spent the day finishing up the present shopping, then came home to groan on the couch. Sandra and I made a steak and artichokes dinner (it was outstanding) and finished up with liquorice gelato and strawberry coulis. Yes, that *is* as weird as it sounds, but it is good.

Can't think of anything clever.

2006-04-20T03:08:00.000-05:00

April 7, 2006
Friday

Today we had our final walking tour with the Professor who is above scale. We started out again very close to our apartment, and wandered up to the northern part of Venice. We zigzagged through some elegant and touristy areas and got to a part of Venice that is referred to as ‘lesser Venice’. This is not meant as a demeaning term, but rather to refer to it’s rather more humble architecture. You find more people living here, and more shops for things that people need in homes, like light bulbs and plumbing fittings.

We also visited the Gheto, from which we get the word Ghetto. This was the island in Venice where they put the Jewish people as they immigrated here from other places. This island was totally isolated, and could only be accessed by boat, even though the canals that surrounded it could very easily have been spanned with bridges. This was a form of enforcing a curfew, and there were many injustices in the system as I’m sure you can imagine. I’ll spare you the depressing details, and leave you with a couple of lasting points. First of all, this is still an area of town where many Jewish people live – there are five synagogues in the area, and most signs are in Italian and Hebrew. Second, this is the only area of Venice with skyscrapers – imagine having a 9th floor walkup. Yikes.

We didn’t have much to do in the afternoon, so most of us scattered to work on other homework assignments. One of my classes was having a brief meeting in the afternoon to discuss where we were with our assignments and to hash out strategies to try and get us all done with the coursework by May 12, or at least by the end of the summertime. My goal is to be done by May 6, but I’ve got another three classes to get through by that time, so we’ll see how it goes.

April 8, 2006
Saturday

Grumble grumble grumble. Had to get up very early to get over to Piazzale Roma (Venice’s bus stop) by 7:30 in the morning. After getting crammed onto a bus designed for midgets, we rode for four hours to get into Milan. Every person in the class of my height and higher ended up with bruised knees because the seats were spaced so closely together that there was nowhere for our thighbones to go. Ouch.

So it was with collective creaking bones that we stumbled off the bus in Milan for the Isaloni furniture show. The show runs for about 10 days each year, and is only open to the public for one day. We got in because we are design students and because our professor is admirably well connected here in town. The show was amazing – to walk from one end to the other took about half an hour at good speed. It’s the largest furniture show in the world, and it’s where they keep all the cools stuff. Things like glowing green bathtubs, postmodern showers, and every kind of cool furniture thing that you could ever think of. Now, you all know me. I’m not that much of a shopper for furniture, clothes, jewelry etcetera (books and wool are notable exceptions, I know) – however I had no trouble walking round here mentally furnishing and refurnishing an ever grander array of imaginary dream homes. I saw a lot of modern furniture that I was surprised to like – and a lot of old fashioned stuff that I was surprised to hate. Weird – I might be turning ‘designy’.

Half of the fun at the furniture show was the people-watching though. All these interior design divas and buyers were walking round shouting things like "Ciao darling!" and admiring each other’s outfits.

By the way, I’ve got some bad news.

The 80’s are back.

I’m serious. Men in white jackets with pink shirts and pink ties, loafers with no socks. Women in miniskirts and leggings. Lots of 80’s perms and hair that’s business in front and a party in the back. Behold the return of skintight jeans tucked into boots. Huge sunglasses? You got em. Blue eyeshadow? Yup. Jellies? Heck yeah. Madonna bracelets? Uh-huh. Billy Idol crew cuts in platinum and gel? Oh yeah baby. Bermuda shorts? You know it! Punk plaid pants and mohawks? Yup yup yup.

Ew.

I am pleased, however, to announce that some nice things are coming our way too. Coats with actual tailoring, and shirts that go past the hipbone. These are both pieces of great news to me, because I cannot wear crop tops – they look ridiculous on Rubenesque, short-waisted long-legged women like me.

April 9, 2006
Sunday

Up early, of course, to go to rowing lessons out on the Giudecca. I got to row on the six seater this time, and we did much better. We rowed in sync, in a straight line, and my back didn’t feel on fire at the end of it. I’m really enjoying this Venetian rowing and will have to see if there’s any way to continue doing it in the U.S. without spending a fortune.

Afterwards I went off and wandered around Venice on my own for a bit. Snoopy was very excited because I took him to go see the Doge’s Palace. He was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t the Dog’s palace, but I told him that he could pretend if he wanted.

The palace was extremely cool – I loved the paintings and the armory especially. The armory really reminded me of some video games that Roman and I play, so I actually stood in a room full of tourists, axes, maces, pikes, and swords, and got a bit misty. The woman next to me asked what was wrong, and I told her that I missed my husband. She then got a bit of an odd look on her face as if to say "what kind of guy must *he* be?". *laughing* In retrospect it’s very funny – but at the time I just did not feel like explaining. Especially since it is now getting a bit old having to be constantly explaining how I, with my bizarre accent that is neither English nor American, happen to be traveling with Americans and married to one at home, studying in Grad school, and spending six weeks in Venice simultaneously.

It is interesting though, the confident way I stride through Venice now seems to inspire confidence. Lots of people stop me to ask me the way places and I can generally help them. Here’s my quick speech I give people "Unless you are trying to get somewhere very very specific, put away your map. Venice is small – you can only get a bit lost before you’re going to see a sign somewhere. Follow the signs and pick the landmark closest to your hotel – signs there are signs home. All signed areas lead to other signed areas. Go have fun and don’t worry so much about your bloody map."

However the touristy fun could only last for a brief couple of hours before I had to get back to the apartment to start work with my group on our project.

April 10, 2006
Monday

Woke, went into school worked all day, got home midevening, went to bed.
Only two things exciting happened today. First of all, my left thigh felt like it was going to crack in two. Going up and down stairs became an adventure in peglegging. Andrea, one of the girls in my group, had similar problems with her right leg. It turns out that when you row correctly, you don’t murder your backs, you murder one leg. Will have to remember to switch sides next time – it’s like doing an hour of lunges on one side otherwise.

The other cool thing was the aqua alta! The water level was very very high when we got home, so we got our cameras out and headed back down to Piazza San Marco via a circuitous, yet dry, route. Piazza San Marco (not to be confused with Pizza San Marco, which is very overpriced) is the lowest point in the city, and therefore has the most dramatic flooding during the aqua alta. They set up elevated walkways and everyone shuffles along trying not to fall into the sewage/water. It was marvelous! Some kids got café chairs in a long row and were crossing the plaza by stepping on chairs that they moved out in front of them like a long caterpillar. Some insane people rolled up their jeans and were walking around in the water barefoot – remember, in Venice if it is wet, it is sewage! Ew.

April 11, 2006
Tuesday

Woke, went into school, worked all day, got home midevening, went to bed.
Mini aqua alta, but only enough for the drains in San Marco to bubble up a bit – this happens fairly frequently so it was pretty ho-hum.

April 12, 2006

Do you sense a pattern here? Woke, went into school, worked all day, got home late evening, went to bed.

April 13, 2006

Woke very early and headed into school. Lynn, Angela, and I had estimated that we needed a further three hours of work to finish up before our presentations began at 12:30. Because we are superstars, the three hour estimate was dead accurate, and we still ended up having time for lunch before the 6 hour presentation marathon began. We presented exactly in the middle and I think we did well – the feedback was both complimentary and constructive, so we came away with enthusiasm and ideas for ways to push our ideas to the next level.

There was also the most amazing stench of sewer gas that kept wafting through the studio, sending us all into fits of giggles and making orange peel a pretty high priced commodity.
When we got home, Lynn and I decided to go out to dinner. We ended up going to a lovely little place right next to our apartment. Sandra and her Mum (she just arrived for a visit) ended up going to the same place an hour later, and ordering almost the same seafoody things that we got.
When we got home again, we made a significant dent on the wine stash from the awesome fill-your-own-bottle place. I love Europe. I can drink wine all evening and feel great the next day – the wine is all sulfite free and I’m certain that that is what makes a difference

April 14, 2006
Friday

Got up a little later than usual this morning, for a change, then collected the assorted troops and Sandra’s mum, then set off for the island of Murano. When we got there we were taken on a tour of a glass blowing factory. It was awesome! We didn’t realize until much later than we were extremely privileged to do this – this is a factory that does not open its doors to the public, we were let in as a personal favor. We also didn’t realize that the old guy wandering around in there was the owner/signature artisan of the place. Their stuff was exquisite (Carlo Moretti, if you want to Google it), and the family has been working in glass since the mid 1800’s, though this arty part of it was founded in 1956 by the Carlo – the guy who’d been wandering around behind us. The famous architect Carlo Scarpa had worked their briefly too. After a brief, and very very careful, wander around the showroom where I briefly considered buying these two very very cool 86 euro glasses, we wisely decided to leave without spending that much money on something so heavy and so breakable. Had they been cheaper, lighter, or tougher – it might have been worth it.. ah well…

Afterwards, we sat on the fondamenta with an excellent view of the lagoon, and ate pizza and beer. Yum!

After grocery shopping and heading back over to the studio to upload our homework, the rest of the day was shot – so in the evening we sat at home, drank cheap wine, and listened to the gondoliers floating by.

April 15, 2006
Saturday

Today is a bona fide day off. No rowing lessons, no boat tours, nothing!

So of course, I planned a full agenda for myself. I didn’t plan on going to any museums as they were sure to be crammed by tourists, and I didn’t plan on doing much shopping, as the shops were sure to be crammed by tourists. Yes, yes, I know. I’m a tourist. However, when you’ve been here three weeks, the wine lady knows you on sight (I get a free biscuit every time I stop by J), then the crowds start to be a bit much.

So, I slept in, and it was glorious! I made it until about 8:30, when the garbage men and their songs of love and garbage woke me. I got some coffee and enjoyed watching them for a while – it’s really very entertaining. In the mornings the residents of Venice take their garbage down and leave it out in the calle (like an alley – like a street) for the garbagiers to come and put it in their hand trucks. They sing too.

The garbagiers then take their full hand trucks to a nearby dock that has a garbage boat (a garbarge, perhaps?). There is a little crane on the garbage boat that picks up the hand truck, hoists it over the boat, drops it into a frame that opens the base, the junk drops out, then the truck is returned to the dock to be carted merrily off again. The best bit is when the garbagiers know that the trash is from a good place and they start sorting through it, saving the good bits. Then, they are likely to turn around, burst into song, and then pee in the canal.

All good fun when you’re waking up to a small vat of espresso.

The first thing I did was walk up to the Billa, the grocery store near the ferrovia (train station) to pick up a couple of unromantic essentials for the house (dish soap, and coffee). When I was dropping the loot off at home, Lynn and I started chatting and discovered that we had planned the exact same day, completely independently. We wisely chose to continue on together as she is excellent company. Hannah was off being very social, and Sandra spent the day showing her Mum around Venice.

First stop was making sure that the Gelato shop on San Lio was as excellent on Saturdays as on Fridays and Thursdays. Important work you know.. for the… um… homework. Yeah, for the homework – mapping the gelateria network for San Marco and Castello.
I tested blood orange and chocolate (it was outstanding) and Lynn continued her detailed thesis on straciatella and fior de latte (she claims it was very good, but asserted that more tests would be needed).

Thus refreshed, we walked down to Piazza San Marco, and then west towards Campo San Moise where I knew that there was a book shop that sells books in English. We bought a couple of novels, and I found a great map book of Venice (it asserts that the house we’re in is from the 15th century, and that the fancy house across the street used to be some sort of Doge’s palazzo – that explains the lions on the façade I suppose).
Next stop was walking all the way to the eastern part of Venice to visit the giardini pubblico, the public gardens. There’s a nice naturalistic bit, and a wonderful grove of pine trees. It was nice to sit in the greenery with our new books, but I got cold after a couple of hours and walked home.

April 16, 2006
Sunday

Another day off! What joy! Some members of the household dashed off to try and catch Easter Mass in one of the famous churches – I decided to go for a walk instead. Lynn and I therefore went up to the ferrovia to see if we could finalize our plans for travel after the trip – both of us want to have a look at Florence and Tuscany for a couple of days while Sandra visits a friend in Switzerland. We’re all converging on Carcassonne (France) at that point to spend another couple of days with my Aunt, before Sandra and Lynn head home, and I start the long lonely wait for my husband to come to visit.

We get the tickets to Florence squared away pretty easily, but then run into trouble getting to Carcassonne. It turns out that it is nearly impossible to travel between these two points on the map – which is odd since they’re pretty close together and in the US I would just drive. The train takes a bajillion hours and 437 train changes. Airplanes involve taking multiple trains to get to far flung airports, changing planes in sixteen different countries, then taking yet more trains to get to where you want to go. I may be exaggerating a touch, but that *is* the Venetian way. In the long run, the train may win by virtue of the fact that if we don’t mind circumnavigating the globe twice, we’ll probably be able to take a night train for part of the trip and will be able to save a night in a hotel room.

The irony is that it will probably be easier to come back to Venice from Florence to start our trip to France.

After that, we took a walk through the western part of the city that I had not seen before – I got to be the navigatrice (Lynn *is* very brave) and didn’t get lost once, This is a new record for me, since I am getting lost in Venice all the time. Luckily, Venice is small, so you don’t generally stay lost for long – but since I largely think I know where I am going, I often blunder on in a straight line, neglecting to turn, and finding myself in an undiscovered corner of the city saying to myself "well this is interesting". I’d also like to have a word with the shopkeepers who keep changing their displays – it gets very confusing. To get to San Marco I used to take a left at the Disney store, another left at the black dress, right at the orange vase, keep left at the spangly mask, etc. Now the dress is peach colored, the orange vase is a blue bowl, but the spangly mask is still there.

The upshot is that I keep setting off for San Marco, and ending up at Academmia. It’s a bit like when you climb in the car and intend to go to the grocery store, but end up at work.
I digress, I apologize.

Our walk wound us through the western part of the city, hopped us over the grand canal, and then took us over to have a look at the Fenice, the opera hall that burned down in 1996. If any of you read The City of Falling Angels, then you already know all about this. Having successfully found it (admittedly not hard to do) and then standing there for a moment not quite sure what to do, we took pictures of it then walked on back home.

For record, this walk took us nearly eight hours to complete, with a one hour stop for lunch at a place that served, among other things, horse pizza. Don't worry, I had the margherita.

Distance in Venice is funny, and I’m coming up with a theory. Measure the distance you think it is on the map, then triple it. With all the dodging around tourists, buildings, bridges, sotoportegos, pigeons, beggars, and the like – it ends up being pretty accurate. At home, I generally walk a mile in around 15 minutes. Here, it takes 45 minutes, and I never stop walking.
To that end, I’d like to announce that I have reached my zen with crowds. They no longer bother me – I either float along with them, or I surf ahead dashing through transient passageways between people as they eddy around. It’s very calming, and for a person with definite reclusive tendencies – it’s quite a revelation.

We came home and I made Lamb stew with the extremely inexpertly butchered lamb leg that we had procured at the market. The stew ended up very nice and we had it with an assortment of spring veggies, wine, and then some bizarre and boozy pasque cake.

April 17, 2006
Monday

Another day off! Unfortunately Lynn is sick again, so she stayed home with chills and fever. I set off to have another look at the giardini, and I ended up sitting in the shade reading all afternoon, fending off the occasional suitor. Since I’ve been outside for most of every day since early February, my hair is quite light blonde and my face and hands are very brown (farmer tan!). It’s still too cool here to put on short sleeved shirts, though reportedly this time last year you could go swimming out at the Lido in the Adriatic.

Venice Vidi Vici Redux

2006-04-12T05:32:00.000-05:00

April 1, 2006
Saturday

I woke up with backache today, which is unfortunate since the first thing on the agenda is a Venetian rowing lesson. So, we headed back over to the Lagoon side of Giudecca and presented ourselves for the hilarity. The two fundamental differences between Venetian rowing, and English rowing are that the Venetian needs to stand up to see sand bars. Thus, the Venetian can’t row with a pulling motion – imagine the hilarity, pulling back on the oar as the boat slides away in front of you, then sploosh. Back to the drawing board. Therefore, the Venetian rows backwards. Well not quite – you push with the oar paddle down and retrieve with the oar paddle above the water. It’s really cool and I enjoyed it quite a lot. This is the same kind of rowing that the gondoliers use.

While we’re on the subject, here’s my take on the whole ‘gondola’ thing. They’re really cool and an important part of Venetian history. The gondoliers are charming, and the locals say that any woman who falls for one of these has ham over her eyes. Many of them sing, but if you ask one if he sings he will say "maam, there are the lovers and the singers. I do not sing." To be a gondolier you must have at least one Venetian parent. About three quarters of them are married to American women, and most of the rest are married to Northern Europeans (they reportedly like blondes). When a gondolier dies, his license passes to his widow to be redistributed to the next lucky gondolier. I believe that there are no women gondoliers.
When you come to Venice, and you all should – it is very charming, you must bear this in mind. The first few times you see a gondola, or a gondolier (is he gondoleering?) you will be overcome with the emotion of "Cool! A gondola!!". Once the novelty has worn off, start watching the passengers – it’s a hoot. Take for instance the late middle aged couple who apparently thought a gondola ride down the Grand Canal would be fun. Haha! Not so! They forgot about water taxis and carabinieri and vaporettos. We saw them later on a back canal and the clenched up wife looked a little happier, until another water taxi went hurtling by. If you have romantic visions of snogging your way around Venice, think twice. The gondolier is *right* *there* and keeps pointing out landmarks. Another unfortunate couple we saw had paid the extra bajillion euros (ok, more like 100) for the accordion and singer to come along in the boat. Really cool for passers by, but you just invited two more people on your romantic boat ride. The wife in this case loses points for being all clenched and furious. The husband loses points for videotaping the whole thing. Dude, say something sweet to your wife. Lady, declench a bit – this is costing about 200 Euros.

The people we do see having fun are the ones chatting with the gondoliers about the scenery and life in Venice. The other ones having fun are the groups – six people in a gondola chattering their way around Venice.

I do ask one thing though – near Calle de la Fava there is a charming and empty Palazzo – please stop taking flash photography of it. You’re waking me up.
So Lynn and I spent the rest of the day running errands. We found the swimming pool, but nobody was there and they didn’t have times posted. Ticked off, we went for an excellent lunch near the Academmia bridge, and then went over to Piazza San Marco to visit the Correr Museum.

It was outstanding – I highly recommend it! I saw all sorts of Titian, Carpaccio (the painter who liked red, not the raw beef), Bellini, etc.

We were footsore at the end of it, so we decided not to go visit the Doge’s palace or San Marco itself yet. Instead we wandered back over to an area near Barnaba square where I had been sent to find the best mask shop in the city. Ding! Found it. Very cool – this is the place that did the masks for Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.

After that we were well and truly exhausted, so we headed back home to giggle at gondolas off the balcony.

April 2, 2006
Sunday

Today I walked around all by myself. I set off in no particular direction and basically walked the city with the frustrated tourists (because not *all* the shops were open). I ended up at the site that I’m studying for a precedent study in school – along the southern edge of Venice, from Zattere over to Spirito Sancto. So I took some notes and some photographs and may have accidentally eaten some gelato.

Afterwards I wandered home to find the door stuck shut, so I wandered off again and might have accidentally had a couple of cups of coffee.

Next time I came home, I camped on the step until Lynn found me and let me in. Our locks have been acting weird and my key stopped functioning briefly. It’s fine now. Lynn isn’t though – the poor thing has been very very ill all day. Looks like the dreaded Disease has returned.

April 3, 2006
Monday

Today we woke with the usual creaks and groans of those in uncomfortable beds. My bed is actually very comfortable, but I now have a permanent ache in my lower back. I liken it to sleeping in a hammock in a box (as the bruises on my left elbow attest). It takes usually two hours to get four women through the shower (taking turns, Shahv), breakfasted, espressoed, then to the meeting site. Today, thanks to a miracle of luck and excellent forsight on behalf of our professors, we only needed an hour and fifteen minutes.

We’d been told to meet at Bartolomeo, a campo (it’s like a piazza, but it’s not a piazza, it’s a campo – see if *that* makes sense) that we had never heard of, and likely never been to. Much map searching resulted in an excellent revelation. Bartolomeo is the campo on the right side of the Rialto bridge. About 200 feet from our apartment. Yay!

For once, all the people with apartments near the studio had to schlep their butts across Venice. One of them was overheard complaining that it took nearly 45 minutes. Well yeah… it’s a long walk, plus a wait for a boat, plus a boat ride, plus another long walk. If you are very lucky and the rubberneckers are still in bed, and the boat arrives perfectly on time, you can make it in just under 30 minutes.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. On the average day when I’m not commuting to the Rialto, I’m commuting past San Marco – one of the prettiest plazas mankind has ever made.
Lynn stayed home to babysit the disease, and hopefully make it so that we don’t have another breakout of the Disease, and the rest of us walked very slowly around the key sites in central Venice (Rialto, Fish Market, San Lorenzo, Sta. Maria Formosa, St. Marks). I had been to all of these sites multiple times, but some of the people who live on the Giudecca had never been to any of them, so it was fun to see their reactions. Venice is extraordinarily cool and picturesque – a liquid city rotting gently into the sea.

Our professor bears a brief mention here. When I started taking classes at the University many many moons ago, my first ever class was History of Architecture to 1750. I’ve no idea why I took it, but all I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time. Sort of like why I took Latin at the same time too. In this class I was introduced to many of the wonders of the ancient and semi-ancient world by one of the premier art and architecture historians who have ever lived. This is the class where I first heard about St. Mark’s square and the infamous bell tower that fell down one propitious day in 1906 – squashing some precious architecture, and harming no people. Don’t worry, they rebuilt it. Well, the professor in that class is the self same guy leading us on these tours. All hail. He’s funny, charming, encyclopedic, and slightly above scale. How do I mean "above scale"? Well, for the first few days taking his class, where he was standing wayyy at the front of that musty auditorium over in Nicholson hall, I thought he was of normal size. Then, one day, I wondered why a midget was standing next to him – and then I realized. I finally saw that the Professor was a giant, albeit a gentle one. He’s about 7 feet tall and perfectly proportioned. When his arm is stretched out pointing at the horizon, I can walk under it without ducking. Therefore, there was much hilarity when he announced that he would not be carrying a yellow umbrella for us all to follow in the swirling crowds, as he would be quite easy enough to see without one. His delightful daughter also came along, as she had been to Venice quite a few times already and could show us the tricks of the trade, as it were.

When we were done with the tour we had some *gasp* *horror* *amazement* free time. We’re not used to this, so you must bear with my excitement. I spent the afternoon running errands – I needed some more paper and pens, wanted to go see if the pool was finally open for business, I had to take some more notes for the project due on Thursday, and I had to run by the grocery store for a few essentials. Giddy with freedom, I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon and evening, then collapsed into my boingy hammock for a good night’s sleep.

Note: We have insects in our apartment. Little invisible flying ones that have managed to drive Lynn and Sandra absolutely bananas, and have left us all with an array of attractive bitemarks all over ourselves. I had eight at last count. Charming.

Bzzz..

April 4, 2006
Tuesday

Similar to yesterday, except we went to some important churches in the area rather than important public spaces. They were predictably gorgeous, peppered with Carpaccios, Veroneses, etc. Usually they’ve got these pictures in very dim bits of the churches, and you have to pay a euro or so to light them up. Great. It’s either too dark to see, or totally glared out. Sorry Mum, they don’t let us take pictures L.

Tuesday afternoon was much like Monday afternoon, except the errands were different and involved more homework. We’re doing studies of "quotidian" Venice. That’s just a posh way of saying daily Venice or normal Venice. We’ve been each assigned one of the famous public spaces in Venice, with the object of drawing and describing it so that we can make a catalogue of space types for Venice. There’s the piazza (only one actually, St Mark’s, the rest are campos), campos, fondamentas (walkways next to water), and bridges. I ended up with a long bit of the fondamenta along the southern side of the Dorsoduro district. I didn’t actually end up being too happy with my analysis – I was very distracted while I was there because I thought I was coming down with a cold and it was south-facing and very sunny and hot. This used to be the bit of Venice where the used to hoist lumber out of the lagoon that had been floated down from the surrounding area, and dry it out in the nice sunshine. Now, it’s where tourists get sunburns, gelato, bad food, or visit the Swiss Embassy.

April 5, 2006
Wednesday

Up dim and early and on the train to Vicenza. We spent the day looking at the great works of Palladio.

Back in ancient times, when I was taking my first architectural history class, I had the good fortune to fall in love with a building. The Villa Rotunda. It’s a spectacular building, and I think I loved it because the picture in my history book was on a lovely sunny day and it looked like a little bit of heaven on Earth. Especially since it was November and cold when I first saw the picture. Since then I have been desperate to see this place, and despite the fact that I woke up with a crashing headache and sniffles (behold… Disease), I was *not* going to miss it. After a breakfast of espresso and ibuprofen, and a lulling train ride, I started to feel halfway human again.

We arrived in Vicenza, where I discovered that the person who currently owns (and lives in) the villa only opens it to the public on Wednesday mornings. They get a tax break from the government to do so, and the charge an arm and a leg to let you in to look at it.
Behold one of the negotiations to get us in

Us- Group of 34 please.
Them- Ok, but you can’t have the group rate.
Us- Why? We’re a group.
Them- By "group" we only mean school group.
Us- Well, we *are* a school group.
Them- But you’re not all under the age of 26.
Us- Grrr..

Fascists.

So, less an arm and a leg, we finally got let in.

Despite the cold weather, the grouchy owner, the headache, the sniffles, and the blasé classmates (some were entranced, others were rather ho-hum about the whole deal), it was perfect. It was enchanting. It’s got to be good, to look nice on a cloudy glum day. It’s the simplest of designs – a cube with a dome on top and temple fronts on each of the four faces. It is simply decorated, clean, and perfectly proportioned.

Unfortunately the interior has been entirely frescoed over with enthusiastic and wonderful, but inappropriate to the spare surroundings, paintings of various scantily clad pagan gods, goddesses, and lovely young men in not very much armor. Rowr. Hardly what the architect intended, but that’s how it goes.

Pity the owner is such a grouch.

Well, we spent the rest of the rainy icky day visiting variuos palazzos in Vicenza that were designed by famous guys, then caught the train home.

Oh, I forgot to mention the train strike. The Italians are so very civilized – fill-your-old-evian-bottles-with-wine stores, espresso all over the place, tasty fishes, and polite train strikes.
I’m not kidding. The train strike was scheduled between 10 am and 6 pm, at which point service was to resume as normal. It was announced on the news so that people could plan ahead. Personally, I think they all had dentist appointments and haircuts scheduled and wanted to ride around on their scooters saying "Ciao!" with their helmets off looking cool.
Other strikes are similarly polite. Take for instance the vaporettos (basically Venetian buses). When they strike, they are fully aware that they strand a whole bunch of people on the Giudecca which is only accessible by boat. So, to make it so that no one is too inconvenienced, they send a boat out to boing back and forth between the old town and Giudecca, so people can still get back and forth.

Yes, I like Venice a lot.

However, once we got back, dashed to the grocery store, ran the rest of the way home, and made dinner, we were all exhausted and had to sit down to work on the rather large homework assignment due the next day. Groan.

I’m not too thrilled with the work I did, but then again, I never am.

April 6, 2006
Thursday

Woke up early and met the Professor over at San Giorgio – an island just east of Giudecca that has a good church and a couple of gorgeous (if badly lit) paintings. It was raining buckets as we headed over there, so we were very cold and wet when we arrived.
Then it got worse.

We stopped over next at another famous church, and by that time the wind had picked up. It was about 45 degrees outside, raining sideways, and windy – gusting up to about 48 mph.
Class was then cancelled. The lagoon was churning and fuming, and we kept seeing umbrellas skidding by like collapsed insects. As the day wore on, all the dumpsters in town filled with these leggy catastrophes and if it had not been so windy that our breath was blown away, we would have laughed.

We were on the big east west canal that is between Giudecca and the old town, so the wind was worse there, and we staggered inelegantly down to the internet place to check email, then next door for soup. My jeans didn’t dry out for over 10 hours. Not from the soup, from the rain.
We couldn’t just bail and go home and have baths and cups of coffee because we had presentations to give that afternoon on our homework.

Shivering, and with blue fingers, we finally made it home at about 8:00 and I made onion soup, then off to bed to try and warm up.

It turns out that the locals say this wind comes from Trieste and it can sometimes come every other day for a very long time.

Venice Vidi Vici

2006-04-03T11:57:00.000-05:00

March 17, 2006
Friday
Barcelona - Carcassonne

Sandra and I woke early, hugged Lynn goodbye, and set off for the train station. We’re seasoned travelers now, so we thought we’d be all sneaky and take the metro to the train station. One transfer and we’d be there – easy peasy.

With all our luggage.

Up and down multiple staircases.

Unable to take off our coats because they were pinned to our bodies with our massively heavy backpacks. Those of you who saw my big pack before I left – please note that it is more than half full when I put in my course books, coursework, laptop, and spare hard drive.

So, we arrived sweaty and frustrated at the spot on the map that clearly said “train station”. Well, actually it didn’t. But it would have if it had been in English – as it was, it was the Spanish equivalent.

No train station. We flagged down a passing helpfulperson and he pointed us around a barrier that hid the train station from view. Great. It still took a couple of full block circumnavigations, but we made it eventually and with about ten minutes to spare, we hoisted our collective selves onto the train for the trip to Narbonne.

Sandra is glowing this whole time because she has a serious thing for trains.

Off we go, trundling up to France through the excellent scenery, and we finally found ourselves in a country where we have at least a moderate chance of telling what the locals are saying. We heave ourselves onto the platform and set off in search of a WC. It was at this point that I’m proud to announce that after many years of storage in my rustbucket of a brain, I managed to drag up enough French to get us access to the loo in at least a moderately polite manner. No hand waving and shrugging necessary here!

Off to Carcassonne now on the TGV. We have assigned seats, but the ticket is written in Catalan so neither we, nor the helpfulpeople on the platform could tell which was the coach number and which were the seat numbers. So, we heaved ourselves onto the nearest car on the train and dragged ourselves without much dignity through four cars until we found a suitable selection of seats for us and our stuff. Luckily, we dived off at the next stop and were never caught by the train police for sitting where we oughtn’t

Auntie Gilli and Uncle Mike were waiting for us on the platform, having arrived quite creatively through the goods transport section, and after cuddles and introductions we heaved our stuff onto the cases of wine in the back of the truck and set off.

Sandra had a minor moment of terror when she realized the truck had the steering wheel on the wrong side. Heh. English truck.

We arrived at heaven shortly thereafter. My aunt’s house is a French farmhouse near Carcassonne in a lovely little valley, full of books and dogs and excellent dinners (the house, not the valley). At this point we met the neighbor, and his yappy dog Bouf, then went in for cups of tea and cuddles with Ellie and Buller while we were waiting for the farrier.

Ellie is ancient – about 107 in dog years and is mostly deaf and blind. Buller is younger and more rambunctious, so we set off with Uncle Mike to take Buller on a walk up to Pinade (did I spell that right?), their hay meadow up the side of the valley.

I’m sorry James.

I’m really sorry.

Maybe you’d better go somewhere else for a bit – don’t read this. Please. Come back in a few paragraphs to start with tomorrow's entry.

Then Auntie Gillie made a meat pie for dinner, followed by blackberry pie from their own blackberries. Yum… Sandra looked with amazement at her plate between mouthfuls, and with astonishment asked for the recipe. (note: meat pie is probably James’ favorite dinner ever – well, that or stew and dumplings)

Wait for it.

Pie means pastry. Hehe… the pastry bugaboo has followed us to France. Sandra’s going to kill me now. J
So after that we had cherry brandy from pilfered cherries, and then off to bed.

March 18, 2006
Saturday
Quiet day at home

I slept in gloriously and stumbled downstairs to find that the management were on their way off to their weekly French lesson taught by Mike’s brother. Sandra and I sat at the kitchen table marveling at our luck, drinking cups of tea, and making a serious dent in the stores of homemade jam (blackberry fig and cherry were the serious casualties here).

We then spent the afternoon stumbling around sleepily, walking Buller, and then sitting down again to an outstanding meal. This one was followed by homemade ice cream.

March 19, 2006
Sunday

Another quiet day at home – Sandra didn’t feel well, so we spent most of the day mooching around the house being thoroughly lazy. I did a bit of weeding in the garden and wandered around a bit saying hello to the horses and sheep.

March 20, 2006
Monday

Today we went to the market at Mirepoix and ran into more English people. We had coffee and nibblies out in the plaza in the hot strong sunshine, and basically thoroughly enjoyed ourselves being lazy. So far the only French person we’ve met was the farrier on the first day, because the neighbor who came over with him was Canadian/English.

March 21, 2006
Tuesday

I came downstairs to find the whole household in a bit of a flap. Ellie had been let out for her morning wander around the yard, and had not come back. Normally she navigates with her nose and if she finds that she is in a tight spot, she stays put and yells for help. Well, this morning had no yelling, and no Ellie.

We were concerned – hushed tones of “well, she is very old” and “maybe she has died” were bandied about. We split up and searched the reasonable radius that she could cover, and found nothing.

Unfortunately, we had to head over to Carcassonne to pick up my Auntie Marlene and her boyfriend Ray, so we asked the neighbor to keep an eye out for Ellie is she returns, and off we went.

First stop was Ferran to my Uncle Tony’s house. It’s gorgeous and situated on a sunny hillside with views of the Pyrenees. Sandra, Mike and I hung out there watching Cricket and pottering about (translate: we sat outside in the sunshine with wine). Finally we had the full contingent in attendance (including the most excellent and charming aunt of my uncle) and an excellent lunch was had by all.

However, we were all worried sick about Ellie – is she hurt? Uncomfortable? Scared? Lost? Fine? Dead?

When we got back to the house, we set off again in search parties. We all struck off in different directions, fearing the worst.

After about an hour, I ran into Sandra who had seen some buzzards circling up near the hay field we visited on the first day. We decided to go check it out, and on the way we nearly turned around four times. This road is very steep, very rough, and it’s a very long way up to the meadow.

As we got closer, we heard a little unearthly howl. After a brief moment of wondering if that was a wild boar, we ran the rest of the way, burst into the meadow, and saw Ellie standing at the other edge near a ravine.

She was fine.

We charged over there, checked her over, had a quick cry, and I picked her up to bring her home. Ellie wagged all the while as if to say “took you long enough”. Sandra ran on ahead with the good news, and I stumbled my way back down the road with little grunting Ellie in my arms.
You can’t keep a Staffordshire down, I tell ya. I kept having to let her down to walk at her snails pace because she vastly preferred that, and as we got to the bottom of the hill we ran into an ecstatic Gilli and Mike and took the little wandering dog the rest of the way home.
We had a celebratory dinner that night to welcome Marlene and Ray, and to celebrate the amazing and intrepid explorer Ellie.

March 22, 2006
Wednesday

After cautioning Ellie not to go off wandering again without at least leaving a note, we set off for Carcassonne to get our train tickets to Venice, and to visit the Cite. The cite is the extremely charming medieval town center, and there was much shopping, drinking, and eating to be had.
Had a brief bit of excitement in the morning when we were all sitting out in the sunshine drinking cups of coffee. Smudge (one of the pussycats) caught a lovely big fat mole and brought it into the house for a visit. Oh, the chaos that ensued. We sat there in shock, Auntie Gillie leapt after the cat hollering 'I could use a little help!!'.

Following the ruckus upstairs (with a pair of gardening gloves - didn't want a mole bite) we proceeded to trap the mole in a corner. Buller, excited beyond belief, dispatched the mole with a quick chomp and trotted outside, our brave hero.

March 23, 2006
Thursday
Nothing much to report today – tried to arrange some travel things, walked up the Big Hill to have a look at the Pyrenees, or at least in there direction. I got a couple of excellent splinters too.

March 24, 2006
Friday

Breakfast, impossibly charming market in Limoux, lovely walk around, awesome grocery store, coffee and goodies in the plaza, excellent dinner, lovely company, great walk. You know, just your average ho-hum day in the south of France. ;)

March 25, 2006
Saturday

Gorgeous sunny weather today. I spent the day weeding the garden and mooching around with various cups of tea, until the time came to posh up a bit and head into Limoux for the carnivale. The carnivale was great – we sat in the town square with coffee and yummies while costumed folks with a brass band made their very slow way around the square waving wands and sprinkling confetti on the assembled masses. It was delightful, and the brass band continued merrily tooting along as we walked back to the car to go off to the neighbor’s house for yet more excellent booze and nibblies.

Hint: Always bet agains Sandra and me if we’re a team playing pool. We were so bad it hysterical.

March 26, 2006
Sunday
Carcassonne - Venice

Sad day. Gorgeous weather, but we spent the morning packing our stuff up. At lunchtime, with a full contingent of aunties, we went into Carcassonne and with a round of cuddles and a chorus of “see you next month!” we set off for Lyon, then Dijon, then Venice.

Nothing much to note about all this – There were no lions in Lyon, and Dijon did not smell of mustard. Our final train to Venice was one of those alarming trains where six people sleep in flap-down bunkbeds in a space smaller than some closets I’ve seen. My compartment was filled with French people and we chatted merrily along (yes, in French) as we got ourselves assorted into our various slots. My bag was deemed way too heavy and they just left it on the floor. The fellas who’d tried to hoist it up to the luggage rack expressed disbelief that I could carry it around and I assured them that I did, and that carried my other two (smaller) bags at the same time too. After having been cautioned not to fall out of my bunk by the fella below me (ne tombez pas! Ne tombez pas!) I was lulled to sleep by the creaky squeaks of the old train, and the creaky squeaks of the people in my compartment. Tee hee.

March 27, 2006
Monday

Woke up on the train with misty contact lenses (oops), cotton mouth, and icky hair. Eww. Luckily, everyone else was in the same situation and we sat around chatting until we got into the Venice train station.

I surprised the fellas by successfully hoisting up my bags (comme l’escargot apparently) and set off to find Sandra who’d slept in a compartment with a bunch of traveling Mississippians.
We bustled through the train station and set off for our first look at Venice. Luckily, our instincts proved good and we did not end up in the touristy end of town – we stopped for a coffee and a bite to eat, then decided to stumble our way back to the train station over the charming bridges to leave our bags in the left luggage office.

Back out into Venice, more wandering, and then lunch. We met up with the rest of our group, then got our apartments.

I’m rooming with Lynn, Hannah, and Sandra, and our apartment is great. Two women in each bedroom, separate beds, two bathrooms, living area, kitchen, and balcony over a canal. It’s awesome! Were just east of the Rialto bridge, so we’re central to most things, and if I lean out my window I can chat with gondoliers as they go by. Yes, they sing.

This is much more charming than the morning serenade. We’re the closest neighbors to the clang thump and grind of the garbage barges (garbarges?) that start their lulling song at 6:30 in morning. What joy.

March 28, 2006
Tuesday

Today was the first day of studio, and we had but a mere dot on a map to guide us into getting there. It’s on the south side of the Giudecca, the island that makes up the entire southern side of Venice. You must take some form of boat to get there, so we headed down to St Marks and got the traghetto from there.

Venice is as pretty as they say. We were up before most of the tourists, so were able to do the twisty turny thing to get to the traghetto stop with a minimum of fuss. The urine smell is stronger in the morning, and the pooper scoopers and garbage people hadn’t done their jobs yet, so Venice looked much more like a city that people live in than just an elaborate living museum.
The traghetto is awesome and I think I grinned the whole way over to the Giudecca. We found the studio with a minimum of fuss, but we were a bit early so Sandra and I wandered off down the waterfront to find a coffee. Our studio is in the Venice Rowing club (they’re going to teach us Venetian rowing!)

Shortly thereafter we spent the morning filling in paperwork in order to become official Venetian citizens (with all of the appropriate discounts – instead of costing 5 Euros per ride, citizens can buy a pass for a month for just 30 Euros). After the faffing about that is the result of 32 people filling out a form in a language they don’t speak, we were cut loose for the day.
Ran a few errands – arranged my account with an ISP on the Giudecca so that I can check the internet as much as I want during some unfortunately inconvenient hours. However, for a mere 24 Euros for a month, I’m going for it – near the apartment it runs about 6 Euros an hour. Therefore, please forgive me if I’m a little slow responding to emails.

March 29, 2006
Wednesday

Today we walked the length and breadth of the Giudecca, taking pictures and notes the whole time. The Giudecca is almost completely non touristy in the middle, the western corner is the Molino Stucky Hilton – an old flour milling compound that is mid renovation. It’s pretty cool and we got a good tour, including the elite rooftop suite that will cost an estimated 12,000 Euros a night.

At the other end of the Giudecca is one of the posh hotels – so posh that they’ve got a permanent fleet of boats at the beck and call of their guests at all times.
The center of the Giudecca is working class – filled with comparatively modern arpartments, some green space, some shipyards, and just a couple of relic villas back from its agricultural heyday.

Rumor has it that “back in the day” wealthy Venetians would come to the Giudecca for their summer holidays. Hm… Not far, eh? Honestly, it would take a while but I could certainly swim the distance. Not that I’d want to – Venetian septic systems process the waste then send most of it straight into the canals. Luckily the tide totally flushes (har har har) the Venetian basin twice each day.

During one part of the tour, when we were in the shipyard directly next to our site, a woman came out and handed out black mirrors to a few of us so that we could watch the partial eclipse of the sun. It was extremely cool, and almost entirely unphotographable – ah well.

After the tours we wandered around the Giudecca (admittedly – we were cold and bored and didn’t want to spend the Euros on heading back to the old town for a mere hour and a half) until the time came to return to the rowing club for our welcome dinner.

The event was lovely – we started with spritz on the patio (wine, juice, bitters) with some curious nibbly crackery things. Then we adjourned inside for dinner – first course was pasta (with ham and tomato), second course was pasta (with zucchini and peas), third course was bizarre meats (bologna, a salami-ish thing, prosciutto, and a cod-and-cream-on-toast). Washed down with local plonk, we all ended the night with satisfying burps. Unfortunately, all the wheat is doing a number on my digestive system and and at least the side effects are amusing as well as embarrassing.

Late that night (about 11:00) we took the boat back to St Marks to come home. As we entered the plaza (piazza, Charlie, piazza) it soon became apparent that there was a mild aqua alta. As I’m sure you’re all aware, Venice is in a lagoon right between the sea and the land. Venice itself is subsiding, and sea level is rising. I’m sure you can all spot the problem here – Venice floods all the time and it is called “aqua alta” or high water. It has flooded very deeply (over a meter), but usually it’s not that bad. They’ve got elevated walkways set up throughout the city to help people walk above the water level, and they’re working like mad things to protect the architecture and infrastructure from the water.

So it was with some guilty delight that we saw a mild aqua alta coming into the plaza. The drains were gurgling and water was coming up through them – it was an inch deep in some places. The good news is that the piazza is the lowest part of Venice – so the rest of the city was fine.

March 30, 2006
Thursday

Lynn and I had heard rumors of a swimming pool close to our apartment, so we set off to find it in the morning. We had no such luck, but thoroughly enjoyed the walk across Venice and back. Looks like we’ll have to use the pool over on the Giudecca.

We had to head over to the studio after that, and after watching the boat we wanted to take go sailing by, we realized that it only stops at that particular spot at times that we are not likely to be there. So, we caught another traghetto up to the railway, then caught the wrong one back down the Giudecca. Ooops. Oh well, we were only five minutes late and since the lectures started on Mediterranean time, we were actually ten minutes early.

The lectures were quite interesting, talking about the history and recent development of the Giudecca. One of the most famous residents of the Giudecca (no, not Elton John, though he has an apartment there too) was in attendance, a Mrs. Nuria Schoenberg-Nono. She’s the daughter of Schoenberg the famous music guy and widow of Nono, another famous music guy (sorry Megan – I’ll try and get more details for you). She was charming and affable – German by birth, American upbringing, and as Venetian as they come, as she had lived there for about the last 30 years. She was a member of the Venetian literati in the 1960’s and we saw some great pictures of her at dinner with Mr. Nono, Benjamin Britten, and Carlo Scarpa (famous architecture guy).

We all decided not to go to a party we’d been invited to (we hadn’t know it was formal, or that we would have had to sign a waiver to get in because it was being filmed), so we headed home, ate some artichokes, then went to bed.

March 31, 2006
Friday

we met up with the group bright and early and climbed into a good sized boat for a tour of the lagoon. After a brief stop over at the Giudecca to pick up the folks who live over there, we set of for the famous island of Murano.

Murano is fairly close to Venice – perhaps 45 minutes by boat. The lagoon is mostly very shallow – less than a meter deep. When the water is low, great soggy acres of vegetation appear. When the water is high, unsuspecting boats beach themselves. To prevent this, the natural channels that were formed during the lagoon’s daily flushing were formalized with great wooden pilings, and the channels have been maintained by dredging. This also provides some excellent defense to Venice – just about the only non-walled medieval city anywhere. When they thought someone was coming over for a bit of an invasion, they scooted around the lagoon pulling up the pilings so that the unsuspecting bad guys would get stuck miles from the city. As Julie would say “That’s what you get.”

Murano is cool – much quieter and less touristy than the old city, and filled with excellent glass shops and a nifty museum. Back in the somethingoranother century, all of the glassworks were moved here from the old city for fear of fire. We just saw the museum today though, we’re coming back later for a glassworking demonstration, and there have been rumors of glassblowing lessons.

After Murano, we headed over to the Lazaretto, the ancient quarantine island that protected Venice from the rats and diseases of the world. Incoming cargo and sailors had to stay here for 40 days (like Jesus in the desert) and if they survived they were allowed into Venice itself. As they laid around all day, not doing much, this gives us the word “lazy”. The island is really cool – very rural, full of archaeological digs, and a particularly masculine feral cat. The cat had improved on the one-leg-up self-cleaning technique by going whole hog and having both legs up for the same cleaning. Half of the class was in quiet crying hysterics, unable to explain to the rest of the class why they were laughing.

After our wander around, we had a very Venetian lunch in their dining hall. Pasta with sardine and onion sauce, fresh sardines gutted then fried whole (down in one, baby), polenta with cuttlefish in its own ink sauce (not a great fan of this one, but will try it again – very unusual flavor, actually tasted inky), followed by espresso and the unremarkable biscuits that get served at all catered meals.

So, with bellies groaning with fruits de mer, we set off for the island of Burano. Burano is notable for two major things – first of all, most of the houses are painted in eye poppingly saturated colors. Fuschia, hot pink, aqua, ultramarine, crimson, yellow. I have to admit I like the effect, and part of me wants to go home and paint the house scarlet. Burano is also famous for lace making, both needlepoint lace and bobbin lace. We got a tour of the excellent museum, squinted at some exquisite lace that was impressive, if not to my taste, then were shephereded quickly back on to the boat.

Next stop, Torcello. The first inhabited Venetian island. It’s extreme swampiness, cruddy soil, and bad location means that it was quickly abandoned and is now a comparative rural paradise with gorgeous churches, and a couple of very posh hotels (having catered to, among others, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana). The archaeology museum there is excellent, and the church is a good one – very old, very Byzantine, and filled with creepy imagery. I’ll post some pictures. It’s also one of those charming churches that has bodies on display – saint somebodyoranother in one case, and a couple of other notables in another.
After that, a long boat ride home to a quiet meal in our graceful apartment. Never mind that the clothes washer broke on the day before it was my turn to use it and that now one of our locks has broken too. Ah well.

Buon Giorno!

2006-03-28T05:12:00.000-06:00

Hello all!

Venice is lovely! Have got a great apartment right next to the Rialto Bridge, right about here http://maps.google.com/?ll=45.436636,12.337142&spn=0.001754,0.003616&t=h

Love you all, miss you all, have to go do homework now :(

xxoo

Joannie

South of France

2006-03-26T03:35:00.000-06:00

The south of France is marvelous - have had a great time here!

Will post a full update soon, with all the tales of home-cured bacon, adventuring Staffies, and carnival.

Am off to Venice this afternoon - Sandra and I must endure over 16 hours on the train to do this - yikes. I can get home to Minnesota in less time than that.

Wish us luck!

Barthelona

2006-03-16T14:50:00.000-06:00

March 14, 2006
Barcelona

Well, Barcelona is growing on me. It’s a cool city, but at the end of the week I think I will be done with it when the week is over.

Today we walked down to the beachfront and walked along it for a few miles to see how the city changes as it meets the sea. Some areas are excellent, and some are not.

All in all the day was good – it went from drizzly to sunny and we ended the day with farting about in a playground (yes, I went arse over teakettle while there) and then some well deserved beer. Yum.

Once we got back to town (we were so far out from the city center that we took the Metro back) we found a restaurant of astounding cheapness and excellence. I had one of the better meals of my life – white beans and Catalan sausage. Yum! It was simple and subtle and rich and bold and I’m crying inside at the thought that I might never have it again. We might go back tomorrow night – but the restaurant is the oldest one in the city (from 17hmmhmphhmph) and doesn’t open until 9pm in the dodgy bit of town.

March 15, 2006
Barcelona

Today was an easier day, and we took our aching legs down to wander in the Barrio Gotic (the dodgy bit isn’t dodgy during the day) and have a look at the old cathedral and wander around a bit. Work work work. ;)

Then we went to the market – full of all sorts of things you don’t see in supermarkets. Heads. Carcasses. Fresh seafood. Live seafood. Ostrich eggs. Massive cheeses. Mucky vegetables.

After that delightful and diverting experience, we metroed it up to the end of town that is remarkable for only two things. One is a rather nice little urban park that we roamed around for a bit. The other is a building. An amusing building. A building of such stunning anthropomorphic suggestion that I can’t look at it without giggling, and Sandra is just about helpless. Please excuse the crudeness, but as you all know me very well, you’ll know that I could be much cruder. Imagine a suppository. Now, make a building that shape. The lack of subtletly is astonishing and reminds me to remind *you* to run all building designs by a seven year old boy for the giggle-check before building them.

March 16, 2006
Barcelona
Thursday

Again we had a comparatively easy day. We set off from the hotel of plastic – ah, I haven’t told you about the hotel yet. This hotel is outstanding in many ways, excellently situated on La Rambla, free beer and soda and water, free breakfast and snacky items, free internet, lots of plugs. However, it is filthy, the shower curtain requires macgyvering to prevent midshower molestations, the shower itself required some macgyvering (by yours truly, of course) to help it function normally, and we’re pretty sure they haven’t vacuumed in a couple of months. To top it all off, the room is pink. The chairs are lawn chairs with slipcovers. The drawers are the plastic slide out ones that most people keep in garages. It is a perplexing mix of all the things we’ve been craving, and all the things that we’ve been dreading.

However, accommodations aside, we set off across the city this morning to go to one of Gaudi’s masterpieces, Parc Guell. It’s set on a pretty high hill on the outskirts, so the views are excellent, and the rest of it was Gaudi at his wacky whimsical best. This has been my favorite thing about Barcelona (except the wifi in the hotel room) and gets a big thumbs up.

Unfortunately we had a small crisis of spare change when the time came to get on the city bus back into town, so we had to buy ice creams to break down our larger bills. Unavoidable, you see.

Back across the city to an apartment building by the eminent Mr. Gaudi – again, it was excellent, but we were famished by the time we finished up there. Back to the restaurant in the Barri Gotic that we had eaten at a couple of days ago, and we ate an excellent and early dinner. I had the exact same thing again – catalan sausage and white beans. Yum yum yum.

Then, back to the hotel room for errands etc. and planning for our trip tomorrow.

I learned it from a book.

2006-03-13T16:17:00.000-06:00

March 6, 2006
Monday
Lisbon

Nothing too much to report today. Woke, and ate a suitably bland breakfast with the usual crew of suspects. We set off across the city in a volley of taxis, to find our way to the studio space they showed us on Saturday. First we had a lecture, then they changed the assignment on us a couple of times, reassigned the groups we’d arranged ourselves into (we didn’t have enough local students).

We spent the rest of the day brainstorming and pretending we were in school. Since they close the campus down at 8, we were able to get our butts home in time to go to the internet café to check email again.

A bit of snoring, and then…

March 7, 2006
Tuesday

Thrilling. Up. Bread. Taxi. Studio. Lecture. Lunch (mystery meat in the cafeteria again for a mere 2.3 Euro). Studio. Bus. Hotel. Restaurant (Pork with clams, Alantejana style). Hotel. Snoring, and then…

March 8, 2006
Lisbon
Wednesday

Same as yesterday. Substitute Indian food for Pork with Clams.

Ain’t travel thrilling?

Our final presentations for the charrette are tomorrow and we’re in good stead – we’re getting more sleep than some groups tonight.

Note: I’ve made a brand new knitter – Jen actually bought wool today. Mwahahaha… my evil plan is complete.

Off to snore a bit.

March 9, 2006
Lisbon
Thursday

Today is/was our last day in Lisbon. Went through the normal morning routine, and went into the studio to finish up our projects that we were to present in the afternoon. I’ll save you all the gory details. I was voted by my group to be the presenter, and I’m sure that the glass of Port I had just before the presentation helped.

While we were presenting, various members of the audience were getting loaded on Port, in preparation for our going away party. We finished the presentations shortly before the last bus came, and we ended up in flat out sprints to catch the damn thing so we could get back to the city center in time for our reservations. Luckily, I recognized the address of the place and we got there with a minimum of fuss. The restaurant was located up in the Bairro Alto, the twisty windy part of town directly adjacent to the hotel. It’s a bit dodgy up there, so I won’t go alone. When we were up there a couple of nights ago, one of our group got their bum grabbed, and we all were privy to a variety of lewd suggestions.

Tonight’s treat was the dude doing heroine. Charming.

So we wound our way to the dinner party and had a marvelous meal of steak frites. It was outstanding – some of the best beef I’ve ever had (in a restaurant, of course, Roman). Unfortunately, the wine was flowing rather freely, and I discovered part way through the evening that people were doing to me what I had been doing to them (refilling glasses when backs were turned, hehehe).

Consequently, we spilled back out onto the street in a raucous and drunk bunch when we were done with the meal. A rather bewildered looking fellow followed us out and was interested to know what in the heck we were doing there. Well, it turns out that he’s a German architect – so it was a bit of luck to run into him with about a dozen local architects and students, and 33 of us on the trip. He ended up being rather insistent that we join him in a jazz club and we deftly avoided it with the skill brought of many years of being female. Some people staggered down the hill to go to a nightclub, and the rest of us staggered up the hill in an unsteady line so that we could go check email.

Some of you, regrettably, know this.

I replied to a few emails, but the kicker is that this is an internet *bar*. You buy a beer, you get internet. You want more internet? Well, you buy more beer. Very simple. Doesn’t make typing so easy though.

So I plunked down enough for a round of large beers, and went to check my email. Various of our party couldn’t finish there beers, so not wanting to waste that valuable liquid, I had to help. Was only polite, you see.

We had a great time though – it was good to do some decompression. The trip is great fun, but it is stressful. Every single interaction that you take for granted – buying groceries, getting directions, reading a sign, suddenly takes about four times as much energy as it used to. Add in moderate malnutrition from all the bread and potatoes, throw in a disease or two, and all of a sudden this trip seems like a lot of work. Just as we were getting the hang of it, and the diseases started to fade somewhat, we got thrown into a studio situation where we had to work with people who were non-native English speakers, trying to solve an impossible problem on a short time frame, with no supplies.

So we eventually staggered on jelly legs back home for our final night’s rest at the eminent Hotel Borges.

March 10, 2006
Friday
Lisbon to Seville

Barfwatch

Woke early with a slight hangover and had a very welcome shower. Packed our bags (well, crammed them is more like it) and set off in a large and swaying bus for Spain.

There were a lot of hungover heads on the bus, and a lot of people were eyeing one suspiciously droopy fellow quite suspiciously. Barfwatch had begun. Names have been changed to protect the guilty, but *someone* had made themself a bit ill. All of us were popping up with our own personal urp-remedies, and we nearly had to pull the bus over at one point. Granted, the bus was very hot (about 22 degrees outside – you fahrenheiters can double that and add 30 to approximate the temperate) and it was very very sunny outside. However, all ended up fine in the end and an urp cascade down the bus was successfully avoided.

We drove southeast from Lisbon, back through the very beautiful Alentejo region (now officially my favorite part of Portugal) and headed into Spain.

I love Spain!

Granted, I’ve only been here for about 12 hours, but it is like a glammed up version of the pretty bits of west Texas. Cork oak savannahs, vineyards, orchards, haciendas, and medieval villages stretching away into the horizon. Absolutely charming.

We landed in Seville, threw our stuff into our hotel rooms, and ran hell-bent across the medieval core of the city (very pretty too, if only in passing) over to the cathedral. It was spectacular in a very normal way for cathedrals, and we did climb up to the top of the belltower for the astonishingly great view.

On our way back to the hotel Alcatraz (not really the name of the hotel, but it’s close. I cracked the joke once and now I can’t remember the real name of the hotel to save my life [EDIT - Alcozar]) we stopped for dinner and had some excellent sangria and gazpacho and lemon sorbet, but some rather mediocre paella. The paella that Sandra and I shared had only *two* clams in it, no saffron, and random chunks of organ meat (we identified liver and tripe). Y’all know how well I do with organ meat. Bleah. Actually, I must admit that the tripe bits weren’t bad. They were tender, and pleasantly tasteless. Do *not* take this as permission to serve me tripe. Sandra got majorly squicked out when I mentioned that I thought the “calamari” was maybe something else – and then she continued eating it pronouncing it “really not bad”.

Important note in the Sandra vs. Pastries battle: Yesterday was a bad day for the pastries, with multiple of their troops falling valiantly at the front lines. However, today had some surprising developments and no pastries were harmed in the line of duty.

March 11, 2006
Saturday
Seville (suh-veeyuh) to Toledo (toe-lay-doe)

Well, Spain just continues to get more and more awesome. Today we drove the five or so hours it takes to cross from Seville to Toledo.

We stopped in Cordoba, and it was instantly upgraded to my favorite city (Seville was my favorite until then). Now, my favorite is Toledo. It is amazing here – it’s really touristy, really charming, and has a good church.

However, I’m jumping ahead a bit. People behaved a bit better last night so there was no barfwatch on the bus. There was a moderate snotwatch – but we think those people have allergies and not anything communicable.

Just in case you were wondering, to get from Seville to Toledo, you have to drive through west Texas, a bit of Colorado, bit of Oklahoma, and just a touch of Nebraska. It was great – it was all of the landscapes of America that I love without the crushingly long distances. We also played a great game of “bull”. I have 1.5 points, Jen has 1 point, Mike has 2 points, Lynn has 1 point, and Pedro leads the pack with 3.5 points.

Here’s how to play: Drive across Spain, when you see a large bull silhouette (anatomically correct, I might add) yell “BULL”. You get half a point if you yell it at the same time as someone else. When Pedro told us about the game, a lot of us rolled our eyes with a “yeah sure – silly game”, that is… until the first bull popped up.

So we drove across the stunning center of Spain – past a Texas with olives and grapevines, with the occasional almond orchard and charming little village. I’m having a hard time to remember to say “gra thee arse” for thank you rather than “obrigada.” Ah well, at least I’m not saying “avocado” rather than “obrigada”.

Now, on to the best bit. Toledo. Probably the prettiest city I’ve ever ever been to. It’s a cross between a canyon, a medieval village, a tourist haven, and the renaissance festival. It’s completely charming, quite expensive, and perfectly done – Disneyland for grownups if I ever saw one.

My mother will never forgive me though. We went to the cathedral of Seville and I found my way into the El Greco room (El Greco is one of the greatest oil painters of all time). Mum, you have to come here. Next time you fly in to see Auntie Gilli, you two must either drive down here, or you should fly into Madrid, train it over here and see the damn thing. They’ve also got the El Greco museum here, but the good paintings (or so they say) are in the Cathedral. It’s not just El Greco though, they had Titian, Tintoretto, Raphael, and there was a Rubens rather crudely jammed in a corner. I was with a couple of friends, and one said that she didn’t quite see what the big deal was about the El Greco of Christ in the Red Dress Having a Bad Day (can’t quite remember the name of it). I soon set her straight - and admitted that despite the wonky hands, the other paintings were largely excellent too. I could have stayed there all night.

Afterwards, we wandered round and did some shopping in the excellent shops in the area (I bought a plate as a present and promptly broke the damn thing – grr) then had a nice meal. Again, however, I biffed my meal choice. We started with the local cheese (manchego, very good), and moved onto our entrees. I had the lamb ribs and I’m not quite sure that they were ribs, and not quite sure that they were lamb. It was perfectly tasteless meat. Bleah. The other people at the table (eating venison and veal) thought theirs was excellent, which gives me hope for Spain. For pudding we shared the local specialty – Almond soup. Yumyumyum. Very nice indeed.

So, have to say a big “thumbs up” for Toledo.

March 12, 2006
Sunday
Toledo to Barcelona

It’s a long way from Toledo to Barcelona. A very long way. We drove it today. In a large bus where we all desperately need to do laundry. Hm.

Luckily, it was an extraordinarily pretty drive – we drove through the very arid regions of Spain, and all I know is that I want to come back. It was like Big Bend with olive trees and vineyards. Spain has won my heart, and I have a deep and abiding desire to learn Spanish or Catalan right now. However, progress on that front is slow – I can ask/state (in Castilian) the following : Where is the bathroom? Do you have international telephone cards? Coffee please. Milky coffee. How long is the wait for a table? How long is it now? You said “two minutes” the last three times. Fine, we’re going somewhere else. How much is the bacon and cheese sandwich? Water please. Do you have the lemon water? Check please. No, I don’t want to go on a date with you (this one sounds surprisingly like “bugger off you twat”).

The bus ride was made surprisingly eventful by our own international man of mystery, the infamous Francois. Francois dragged out his little ipod stereo and proceeded to play a mix of songs off various Ipods on the bus (we had at least four in active circulation, but we suspect that we may have had as many of 18 on the bus). Since the little stereo didn’t have the juice to be quite loud enough, “volunteers” had to hold the microphone for the bus’ PA system up to one of the speakers. This made it
a: impossible to listen to anything other than the music whims of the Ipod owners
b: especially when you are holding the damn thing
c: even more so when you are completely non musical
I was victim one, and Sandra was victim two. Luckily, music breaks were demanded by the bus in general, so I got some nice books-on-tape time in, and even managed a bit of a nap after wedging myself in a somewhat elegant position using a variety of spare clothings and backpacks.

Later on, there was much bus dancing, and some alcohol may have been passed around. Wonder what the laws are here, James? Anything like Utah? ;)

So, party bus issues aside, we did visit a city right in the middle of the windplains of Spain. We wandered around a bit, and clumsily ordered a bit of lunch. Then we decided to go for a walk along the river which had reminded us quite profoundly of Minneapoils. The wind was astonishing in the river valley – it was actually kicking up spray from the whitecaps formed by the flood-stage waters raging around the bridge we were on. A bit alarming really, but the locals seemed to be out and about as usual, so it looks like this isn’t anything unusual for them.

At sundown we stopped by a cemetery about an hour outside of Barcelona that had been designed by a former colleague of the infamous and amusing Pedro. It was moderately cool, and interestingly situated in a little tuff canyon. Bit spooky at night, and since it was closed we had to break in. Marvelous.

March 13, 2006
Monday
Barcelona

I learned it from a book.

So we woke fairly early, had a surprisingly good breakfast (Alpen and coffee – but not mixed), then set off for the location where we were supposed to meet our professor, Kristine. She had told us to meet her at the Montjuic Olympic Plaza – site of the 19xx Olympics.

We decided to walk up there. A fine choice, I believe, it was beautiful walking and a very gentle way to climb a bloody tall hill. We got there a bit late since the location to meet Christine was a bit fuzzy. The major injury along the way wasn't too bad - I jauntily waved my hand directly into a prickly pear cactus. Grr. Still stings a bit.

After a brief lecture and discussion, we walked back down the hill (arrg) and visited the infamous Barcelona Pavilion – designed by the infamous Mies Van Der Rohe. Minnesotans – he’s the famous German architect whose name is immortalized in the town of Miesville, south of the Twin Cities.

The pavilion was cool – had some good rocks in it (travertine, marble, and serpentinite, to name a few).

Afterwards, we wandered off into the city to track down an excellent bit of lunch. Eight of us paid 9 euros each for a three course meal with two bottles of wine. Hellyeah, baby! I ended up having a macaroni gratin, pork chop, and orange slice brulee. This was a complete surprise to me as I had ordered with the patented point-and-hope method.

This was approximately where injury two was sustained - I stumbled on clear pavement and managed to jam my thumb in a way that thumbs don't like to be jammed. Still hurts, but initial estimates indicate that I will probably live, though cursing will probably be on the upswing for a few days.

Sandra and I then found the train station on the map and hiked up there to get our tickets to France for Spring break (Sandra is coming with me to stay at my Aunt’s house). We zigzagged across the city back to the hotel, shopping in dribs and drabs along the way.

Dinner was a simple affair – we ate some provisions that Lynn had procured at one of the excellent city markets – Manchego cheese, bread, strawberries, and some wine left over from our lunch at Meta dos Leitoes in Portugal.

Since they fixed the hotel internet access overnight, we headed back to the hotel rooms to do some long overdue catching up on blogging. Image uploads will have to wait until tomorrow as this took a bloody long time to write.

The disease fades, spreads, and takes more victims.

2006-03-06T15:49:00.000-06:00

March 2, 2003
Woke, breakfasted, and climbed on the bus as usual. The tour guide today was to be taking us over to the side of Lisbon not normally seen by tourists. We went on a tour of housing developments – public housing. Some of them had some quite good design principles, but had deteriorated depressingly over the years. They are still expensive to live in, and this is not a rich country.
We also toured a facility that is a school/rehab center for the disabled. It was interesting to see what you can get away with here in terms of building codes. There are a lot of two inch steps in the pavement that we all trip over with alarming regularity. This is even a problem at a place designed for people with some quite alarming physical disabilities. Astonishing.
After that we went to the site of the 1998 world expo, where there is an excellent mall and some interesting gardens. Walked around for about three hours, then took the bus home. Finally made it to the market and stocked up on such essentials as shelf-stable milk and alpen (no more breadfast for me – I feel ill if I even smell bread now), some oranges, a chocolate bar, lots of cheese, and of course – digestive biscuits. Tummy rumblies were consequently much reduced today, along with the other (much more amusing) flatulent side effects.
Had a great picnic in the hotel room (Sandra was briefly feeling better, but then lived up to her last name – Rolph – and tossed her cookies later.
I then went to a local internet bar with my friend Mike – a prince of a guy who promised to show me where this place is. It is a place that you must be taken, verbal descriptions just don’t work. “Go right out of the hotel and follow the tram line up into the largo, take the second right in the largo (is that including the one after the hotel? Hm, damn, can’t remember), take the first left (but you’ll get lost if you took the wrong right) and head up into the Bairro Alto past the drunks, all the polite gypsies, past the man peeing, up to the end of the road and it’s right there. Knock three times and ask for Antonio”. Well, not quite, but I’d never have got the critical first right turn correct without the excellent help of the charming Mike (whom we shall graciously forgive for briefly introducing us as the wrong person;)
Checked email, sent email, as a shockingly small number of you know. Where are the comments people? At least let me know if you’re reading this damn thing.

March 3, 2006
Lisbon
Today, we slept in, Yay! A free day at last! No stodgy staying back to do homework. Bah and humbug! No silly staying “home” and “relaxing”. “Errands”? What are those?
After a delightful and fibery breakfast of muesli and warm leite gordo (whole milk) served out of a glass and eaten with a pilfered plastic fork, Lynn, Jen and I collected the healing but wobbly Sandra and our most excellent Hannah and Molly to head back out to the expo. It’s a long way away, but shockingly easy to get to. Literally, walk fifty feet out of the hotel to the metro, take the blue line to the red line, and get off at the end. Voila, you’re there. We wanted to do a bit of shopping (bad luck – there are no size 42 shoes to be found. ) and check out the aquarium (largest in Europe, I hear).
So we went and Sandra wobbled around the aquarium and it was outstanding. There were otters and penguins and tuna and sharks and all manner of glowy jellyfish and anemones. My favorite was a dude that was really big, really ugly, and the largest bony fish in the world. Well, not the dude in particular, but his species. Or so they say. Google him “ocean sunfish”. Whoah. I called him “dude” because every time he came weirdly floating by we said “duuude! Check out that ugly fish!” He was awesome.
Then we went for lunch. We went to the “Mexican” place in the mall and everyone had a bit of an odd meal. For instance, Hannah’s fajitas had been steamed in soy sauce before being thrown on a sizzle plate. Weeeird. I ordered the enchiladas Rosita. They warned me that it was the spiciest thing on the menu no less than four times before they served it. They offered to bring me more water (I already had an untouched glass of water and a full glass of sangria). I declined. They loudly and verbally expressed their assertion that I would not be able to eat the meal, and offered to start making me something else straight away.
So I ate the enchiladas, much to the waitstaff’s astonishment. Well, they were spicy, but not insane. I’d classify them as a strong medium on the Joanne spiciness scale. Maybe a bit spicier than I would have preferred, but certainly quite tasty and enjoyable. Pleasant change after all the bland local food as of late. Plus, I had to clean my plate – matter of pride, you know. Once I finished, the waiter came over and took away my plate in astonishment and I was told that I was the first person *EVER* to come into the restaurant, order the enchiladas Rosita, and finish them. I don’t know if that’s just a line that he feeds to blonde tourists who he doesn’t think could eat spicy food, but he certainly seemed impressed. (note: the girls each had a bite of the enchiladas and said they were excellent, and like me they thought they were a ‘bit spicy but not too much’).
A bit more shopping, then we metroed it home, put some makeup on Hannah, then watched a chick flick on Sandra’s laptop. The movie was good, and Sandra didn’t barf again, so all is good in the world.
Sandra vs Pastries : Sandra continues to eat pastries, despite her assertion that she’s “gone off them”. The pastries must be congratulated for then excellent comeback? Comeuppance? Yesterday evening when a valiant duo of meat pastries made a last minute bid for freedom when Sandra got sick midevening. The fight is still strongly in Sandra’s favor, and we must commend her excellent performance today with the vanilla ice cream, banana cream filled thingy, and chocolate croissant.

March 4, 2006 (Saturday)
Lisbon
Today we woke up to rain. Lots and lots of rain. We got ready as usual (muesli out of a glass for moi) and then met up as a group at 11:30 in the lobby to go to the local university. The plan was to go out there, see the place, meet a couple of the professors, and get an idea of what the project is that we’ll be working on this week with local students.
Lynn and I made the mistake of wandering outside and got ourselves hustled rather unceremoniously into a taxi by Pedro (our local guide) with another couple of charming fellows on the trip. Pedro gave the driver some unintelligible instructions, and off we went – to places unknown.
About fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the university and waited for the rest of the class to show up. We then got ushered into an auditorium and after a brief introduction we were give the problem statement for the week. They’re building a new campus on some previously underused ground north of Belem (remember? We visited the Mosteiro do Jeronimos there on the first day and Sandra got addicted to the Pasteis de Belem). The problem is that they’ve build some buildings, and a big road, but there are no connections between the buildings – it’s a bit like Eden Prairie. Our problem statement is to try and fix that by designing a building on another disconnected part of the site. Garr. We’ll have to see how it pans out, but they seem to have forgotten that they have landscape architecture students working on this too – the thing that we are trained to do is to do things like campus master plans. Within the framework of a good master plan, it’s easy to insert a functioning building that can help solve connection issues. It’s like they’ve given us a car that they want to convert for offroad use. They’re asking us to make a really good wheel, when we really need to look at the whole car. We’ll see how it goes…
So we wandered up the hill to look at the site – it’s a lovely site with good views, right next to the road that has become the local drag racing strip. There’s an amphitheatre buried in the woods behind the site, and other amenities as well.
Having exhausted ourselves looking at the site, we set off to walk down to the bank of the river to have a late lunch, then catch the tram back to the hotel. It was a bit of a dodgy neighborhood (Hannah actually got harassed there as she came through on her own in the late afternoon – she’s fine, and nothing was stolen, but she was a bit shaken up) so we picked our way through in groups and landed at a variety of restaurants. Sandra and I had an excellent lunch (salmon for me, lamb chops for her) then went to meet some friends to share a tube of pasties de belem and a bica. The pasties are, if you recall, scrumptious little custard tarts that they stack up in a tube for sale. Yummy. Bica is just the local term for espresso.
By this time I had a crushing headache and was looking particularly round faced as I had consumed a massive quantity of liquids, but hadn’t really peed yet that day. More on this later.
Back at the hotel, Lynn told us all about the awesome place they had lunch, and suggested we go back for Fado (the local music – rather good actually) that evening as it was supposed to be excellent. Well I just didn’t have it in me, I was still pounding down liquids and resolutely not peeing, and my headache promised to split my head in two. Especially if I ended up drinking wine and eating yet again in another smoky establishment. After brief naps, Sandra and Lynn set off for the fado night, and Jen and I stayed in the hotel room reading and sleeping. Hannah went off clubbing with the people who think that is fun – some of them stayed out until 6 AM. I’m glad I got that out of my system years ago.

March 5, 2006
Sunday
We have the day off today, so we slept in and had breadfast as usual. Around noontime we went for a walk around thmy headache, and am still retaining fluids like a sinking submarine. We took pictures as notes for one e neighborhoods adjacent to the hotel (Chiado, Baixa, Bairro Alto). We went gently, as I still have of the assignments we have to do, and ended up at the excellent Café Nicola in the Rossio Placa for lunch/dinner. I had Sopa Alentejana, or Alentejo Soup (delicious – garlic cilantro soup, with an egg floating in it).
Back to the hotel room to drink more fluids as am still all bloaty and to do some homework.

The pastry thing gets a bit out of hand

2006-03-02T13:56:00.000-06:00

First, link to Mike´s blog: http://mmaegen.blogspot.com/

February 23, 2006
Coimbra
Well, the diseased one woke early today to have an unsatisfying breadfast, then we all climbed in the bus for the long haul up north for our tour of Northern Portugal. Lynn and I sat together, as we were quite obviously infected with the disease, though there are pockets of infection elsewhere in the group and we are by no means the only diseased ones.
The trip was fairly uneventful – we stopped along the way at two monasteries and a convent to view a grand selection of 10 cloisters (the less architecturally of you can say ‘courtyard’).
The cloisters were all lovely, and interesting, but we were getting a bit slap happy towards the end. I was walking around making helpful comments when looking at people’s notebooks “you missed a cloister” and “hm, you look a bit cloisterphobic to me” seemed to be the comments that people found the most amusing – that is to say, I didn’t get chased out of the convent cackling wildly. Other people started displaying bizarre symptoms of cloisterphobia – Sandra and Francois had an impromptu yet lively skipping race, this random French guy near us started singing down a well, some people in the group made quite a show out of popping out of hidden tunnels and semi-bricked in windows, and all and sundry made wild predictions about how many cloisters we had left to visit “I heard we missed three of them” and “I thought we’d already been to this one” (yes, we had).
So I wheezed, sneezed, and snuffled my way all the way around this most diverting of entertainments, then we found ourselves at a generic but comfortable hotel in Coimbra. We’re off for a walking tour of the city tomorrow, so I’d best get myself to bed to hopefully rid myself of the disease.
Note to self – need to buy vitamins. A diet of Nutella and Digestive’s does not promote good health.
February 24, 2006
The disease continues.
We packed up early, and after an unremarkable breakfast that was again based on bread *urggg* however, with excellent coffee, we set off an put all of our stuff on the bus. Our fate was not to climb on the bus (and perhaps continue sleeping) but to take our collective diseased selves climbing up the hill to the old university.
Note: By collective diseased selves, I mean that out of 32 people, we have five colds, one allergy attack, and three cases of digestive discomfort. We’re all a little ragged around the edges since the MLA students haven’t had a day off yet. We also have homework for other classes to do, but haven’t had time. Arrrg.
They say that Coimbra makes strong thighs, and they weren’t kidding. We’ve done some impressive hill climbing while we’ve been over here (the climb to Sao Jorge in Lisbon sticks particularly in my mind), but this is the first one I’ve had trouble with. Hard to climb with a nose that needs blowing every minute.
Well, we emerged chilled and sweaty from the tangle of streets up into the sunnier and warmer plaza adjacent to the old University. We took a left turn to go back down the hill a bit to have a look at the botanical garden.
It was gorgeous! We had a whirlwind tour of the formal gardens, test plots, and arboretum. We MLA students were not keen on going to the university after this so after a bit of carefully orchestrated negotiations (we didn’t quite resort to pouty lips and misty eyes) we agreed to be locked into the arboretum for three hours. Whee! The architecture students were jealous, and I don’t blame them. We romped, we frolicked, we ran up hills with glee with the sheer delight of being free in the woods after the density and peoplyness of Portuguese cities. We took delight in taking silly photos of Bret , we fenced with four foot long spiny pinecones. All of a sudden, my cold felt much better, and the weather warmed up.
After we romped around the garden with giddiness and freedom, we settled down to do some sketching, so that we could have tangible evidence of work and possibly secure these freedoms for ourselves again.
My favorite part of the arboretum was the bamboo grove – it was groovy!
Hot, thirsty, and giddy, we snuck ourselves out of the arboretum in twos and threes to meet the bus to be taken to lunch to Meta des Leitoes (I think).
Lunch was a splendid affair that consisted of the following:
Bread (urrrrg)
Homemade Potato Chips
Salad with lettuce and onions
Roast Suckling Pig (yum!)
Local white fizzy whine that is some of the best wine of any sort I’ve ever had
Weird dessert of “sugar and eggs” and “sugar, cheese, and eggs” that looked sort of like an orange pecan pie without pecans. It was very very weird, too sweet, and I can’t say I liked it very much.
Back on the bus, where singalongs and drunken karaoke helped us while away the time to our next destination, the University at Aveiro. It’s a new university, just recently built, and it’s pretty cool. I let Snoopy out for a run and took his picture at a famous water tower.
Back to the buses (it is now 6:15 PM) and on to Porto. Pity I don’t like Port much. *sigh*. We stopped at an overlook and climbed up another large hill *puff* *puff* to have a look at the city of Porto (north side of the river) and the city of Gaia (south side of the river, where we are staying). Pretty view at night, took some pictures.
Then, back to the hotel, and sleep and sneezing.
February 25, 2006
Porto
The disease continues. It’s bad enough that Lynn stayed home for the day. I didn’t think that I felt *that* bad, so I went on the tours. Ugh.
First stop was Casa Da Musica – a funhouse of irregular rooms, sloping floors, and perception manipulation. Do *not* go here if you have a cold – my inner ear thought I was on a rollercoaster. The undulating travertine plaza was pretty cool though.
Afterwards, we drove up the coast to go to a teahouse designed by a famous guy. Sandra frogmarched me in there and made me drink a café con leite (café au lait) while she sketched. I sat there blowing my nose as elegantly as possible. It was a neat location – built right on the edge of a rocky beach, with excellent views of the Atlantic. It made Snoopy wistful for home.
Then, we walked a mile or so down the coast to a spot where the same famous dude had converted some tidepools to swimming pools. Interesting solution to the problem of people swimming on a rocky beach, but a little moot since there was an excellent sand beach 100 meters further down the coast.
We stopped for lunch in a “Mexican” restaurant. Some of us ordered the “burrito” and really got an unseasoned chimichanga. Arroz were actually served as refritos, and poor Hannah had the worst of it. She ordered “ensalata” or salad, was charged for an “enchilada” but was served a fried taco. All in all, the food wasn’t bad, and we were soon on the buses to head back into town.
We got back to Porto and went to an Architecture school designed by the same famous dude. The architecture itself was not that interesting to me, but there was a neat mechanism for opening windows and doors. I took pictures for you James. There was also a lovely 19th century garden.
Afterwards, we went to Serralves – a beautifully landscaped Museum. Sandra again frogmarched me upstairs to the café for a refreshing coffee. I was a sight – a little sunburned, sweaty with disease, snuffling, mad hair, bags under eyes, and a general lack of posture. The waiter was a gorgeous piece of Portuguese man, and Sandra even blushed when she saw him. I myself was a bit oblivious until he winked very obviously at me when I asked for the bill. I got two more winks or goo-goo eyes as we were leaving. I guess they like ‘em puffy and sweaty over here! To be fair, we were the only blondes in the vicinity. Sandra swears that I got “the look” from no less than three security guards on the way out. Hmmm…
So we went for a walk around the semi-excellent gardens, then back to the hotel for an omelette and early bedtime.
February 26, 2006
Sunday
Porto
Sandra’s Pastry Fetish Gets Out of Hand
Today was a long day, again. Set off early in the morning to drive out to the small town of Marco De Canavesez. I was still feeling like something the cat dragged in, but since I’d done the research for today, I really wanted to see the sites.
We drove up through the lurrvly vineyards and orange groves, past the terraced hillsides and long misty mountain views until we hit the little city of Marco. The church is a very modern catholic church, designed by a very very famous Portuguese architect. This guy has designed most of the modern stuff we’ve seen. The church was moderately cool, in a spectacular setting, and just about to be populated by the local populace for mass – so we got kicked out rather unceremoniously by a grumpy old dude.
Back to the bus and we set off for the town of Braga. Braga is very devout, and is considered to be the ecclesiastical center of Portugal – the Rome, as it were. We wandered around looking longingly in the shops that were not open. Prices here are very good, and the quality is quite reasonable for clothing, etc. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just not a shopper. The only stuff here that I like costs the same as it does in the US, so I’m not inclined to buy something just for the honor of humping it across Europe as some sort of bizarre souvenir. Well, that is unless I find the perfect shoes – but I’m sure you understand. I’m sure Roman is doing backflips right now out of joy that I’m not making this trip much more expensive than it has to be. Bad news honey – I am going to have to buy some new shirts at some point – the ones I have are going raggy quickly and my pants are too big.
Anyway, I’m jumping ahead a bit in the story. Let’s backtrack a bit to our arrival in Braga. Our impressive bus driver (seriously, he’s so good that we’ve applauded him on multiple occasions – the first was a three point turn of a full sized bus on a narrow rural road t-intersection and deep ditches at the sides of the roads) drove us to the cultural market first. This was designed by a dude of moderate famousness, fell into massive disrepair, then was partially remodeled to a state of post-apocalyptic anti-chic. Feh. Nasty loo too. Just one sheet of paper tucked in there to make it look like there was a full roll.
On the way back to the bus, I ducked into a café behind Francois to get a Frize Limao – the best fizzy water I’ve ever had. Francois got some kind of luscious pastry, and we headed to the bus. As he climbed on the bus, there was some commotion that took some time to clear. The aftermath revealed that he had cruelly taunted Sandra with his pastry, and Sandra –in a manner not unlike that of a shark- dove in and attacked. She took away a huge bite of the pastry and much to the bus’ horror, left behind a long goobery stringer of drool as she snapped back from the attack. Francois ate the rest of the pastry anyway, and we’ve all been guarding our food ever since.
This pastry thing has really gotten out of hand.
Fast forward by half an hour and Sandra, Lynn, and I are walking through the quietest city we’ve ever seen. Duh, everyone’s at church. We found a coffeeshop and Lynn and I got meringues and caffe con leite (for the record, I’m averaging a couple of pastries a week). Sandra got some sort of fruit napoleon sort of thing with a bica (espresso).
We then decide we couldn’t do the rest of the day on pastries, so we went off in search of some lunch. We ended up at one of the few places that was open and got a burger. Or rather, I got a burger. Sandra got a burger with a fried egg in it.
Back to the bus, and we set off to look at a fancy hotel up in the hills. It was astoundingly gorgeous (Roman, we have to go stay there), and we passed a lovely couple of hours being pests and flitting around with cameras.
Back to the bus and we set off for the chapel of Jesus’ bum on the mountain. Um, not exactly… really it was called Bom Jesus do Monte. It’s a big staircase on a mountain, and since I was feeling pretty rough again by this point, I punted and took the bus to the top. We took many pretty pictures, romped a bit, got frightened by a ghost* then went back to Porto for our final night (no dinner again – just Digestive biscuits then bed. Everyone’s addicted to Digestives now!). Us four girls (Sandra, Lynn, Hannah, and I) tucked into bed, watched a movie called Chocolat, ate digestives, and drank three bottles of champagne.
*Sandra and I were walking down one of the many staircases at Bom Jesus and I felt a firm shove behind my knees, as I turned around expecting to see a classmate fooling with us I saw nothing, except Sandra turning around too. She had also felt the knee shove.
February 29, 2006
Porto to Viseu
Still diseased, but much less than I had been. Went for an uninspiring walk around Porto while we killed time waiting for the bus. The best part of this was the awesome pair of 35 euro sunglasses I scored.
Brief stop by a gungy and smoky internet café, and we were back on the buses to head to Viseu for the night. The drive was very pretty – mountains, snow capped peaks, oranges, and vines.
At one point, desperate for entertainment, someone let Francois get ahold of the microphone for the PA system on the bus. He went around and gathered questions and interviewed our professor in the style of James Lipton. It was hilarious all round but the most outstanding moment was when we asked the professor “Boxers or briefs?” and he replied “I think Olive Oil is best” Hm, I’ll let your imagination fill in the gaps on that one.
Our hotel in Viseu is charming in the extreme and we wandered off in a roving pack of students in search of a meal. Ended up in a 10 seat restaurant, up a back stairway, in an alley. After the owner kicked out a group of his friends so we could sit down, we ordered an assortment of grilled meats (we is Joanne, Sandra, Lynn, Meredith, Samantha, and Matt), random vegetables, and excellent chips. The wine, however, was awful in the extreme.
We declined all offers to go to the largest nightclub in Portugal due to my healing disease, and Sandras impeding one, so we went back to the hotel and swapped fart stories into the wee small hours.
Note of point, Sandra had no pastries yesterday. She may be hoarding them, must check luggage.
February 28, 2006
Tuesday
Woke in Viseu, went to bed in Lisbon
We slept in a bit, until about 8:00 AM. I showered, then woke my roommates. Much to my surprise, Hannah popped right awake. Hannah, having discovered her inner party animal, had been out until 5:15 in the morning. That’s my girl.
So, we went for our breakfast (guess what? It was bread! Oh yay, my favorite. Yum yum yum.) then went next door to the internet.
No, I’m serious. The internet. There was a sign and everything. Downstairs was pinball, upstairs was an awesome LAN party setup. Checked email and comments, was sad to have received none, 
After this, off for a walk around town – it was a very attractive town, full of big rocks that they just built stuff into and around. We stopped for coffees frequently, of course, especially since the disease has not yet disappeared.
We then toured a cool museum – worth a visit if you’re ever in Viseu (just across from the Se), then back down to the buses to go home.
A couple of things to note here:
Portugal is a very Catholic country.
February 28 is a religious holiday in Portugal, being Mardi Gras and all (they call it Carnavale).
Shops aren’t open on religious holidays.
I desperately needed to buy feminine supplies.
March 1, 2006
Lisbon
Up early, and confirmed that Sandra now has the disease. When you tell people that other people have the disease, you now have to specify. Sotto voce “intestinal?” We’ve got people dropping like flies – apart from hangovers and other self inflicted woes, there’s an intestinal bug (amusing poofles, screaming runs, the whole bit) and the plague/cold/flu bug. I got the plague/cold/flu one var.Joanne.1 (sneezing, runny nose, fatigue transitioning into fatigue/sore throat/cough). Var.Lynn.1 is sneezing, runny nose, fatigue transitioning into fatigue/cough). Var.Sandra.1 is proving to be the worst so far, with symptoms of the intestinal bug surfacing also. I’m jumping ahead though.
Sandra decided that she wanted McDonald’s for breakfast – we know that there is one nearby, she’s sick, so Jen and I indulged her. For me also it would be a welcome change – I hate eating this much bread, I can feel it sucking the health and wellness right out of me. So, we took Sandra and her disease over to the Rossio Placa only to discover that this McDonald’s in Portugal doesn’t serve breakfast. Oh bugger.
Since the previous day had been a holiday, and I needed to score some feminine supplies, we decided to stop by the market on our way back to the hotel to catch the bus at 9. Well, the market doesn’t even open until 9. Oh bugger.
Back to the hotel, breadackfest, and Sandra decided to stay home for the day and be sick in private. I begged some interim feminine supplies off a very very very very very good friend (thanks Lynn!), and we set off for a very long day.
First stop was the house of the Marquis do Fronteira or similar. Neat stately home – used to be the summer palace of the dude, but became the main residence when their home in Lisbon fell down during the earthquake of 1755. Bummer, dude. Least you had an offsite backup though. Got a tour from an Englishman, then back on the buses to the next stop.
Next stop is the palace of Queluz. Queluz is what happens when the King of Portugal decides to build a minor Versailles. Hm – I don’t think I buy it. The details were all nice and all (maintenance issues aside) but on a more philosophical scale, Versailles doesn’t work unless it *is* Versailles. This is *not* Versailles.
Next stop, back to Sintra (remember, we were there last week to visit Montserrate) for a bit of lunch (Italian this time*). Then we took the bus up to the palace that the King had built at the top of the highest mountain in the area. Remember the mad prince in Bavaria who built the huge palace on top of the mountain –Leuchtilsillyenstein or something like that. Well, this guy was the less insane Portuguese equivalent. It was built on the remains of a medieval monastery (run! It’s a cloister!), and I liked it very much. It was whimsical and delightful – if a bit OTT.
*Note: Portugeuse food is really nice – good seafood, everything so far has been beautifully prepared, and has excellent flavor. However, with the exception of the Alantejan cuisine, it seems to be very very very lightly seasoned. Thus, we have been craving spicy food – steak all sparkly with pepper, soup bright with chile, that kind of thing.
We then walked along the mountain ridge (getting a bit footsore by this point, I don’t mind telling you) to the slightly reconstructed Moorish castle ruin on the next high bit over. This Moorish ruin was abandoned when the Crusaders took Lisbon back from the Moors – these guys saw their neighbor’s castle on fire and ran for the hills. Consequently this castle never had to withstand a siege, and is in rather good shape. We climbed all the cobbly and ankletwisty way to the top, took pictures, then congratulated ourselves on our fitness and good luck to be there.
Back down to Sintra – we decided to hike (we could have taken the bus, but none of us were that wimpy). Not far laterally. Long way vertically.
*sigh*
With thighs cracking from the climb up, and knees cracking from the precipitous descent, Lynn and I set off for town. Luckily, we ran into our handsome and helpful Portuguese guide Carlos, and he walked with us into town, merrily chattering the whole way. All the girls were jealous – Carlos is one good looking fella. Nice too.
So, we yet again all piled into the bus and drove in a merry circle. Seriously – we drove right back to where we met the bus before we went to our next destination. Please don’t interpret this as a slight against our bus driver – this guy, as I have mentioned, is a genius. He takes the bus up and down hairpin switchbacks with such finesse and awe inspiring speed that we spontaneously applaud him. He’s that good.
We eventually ended up at a nearby hotel for a Port wine tasting. Yum. I finally had Port that I liked – but bad news too. I’ve got very expensive tastes, as it turns out. *sigh*
We also had a drawing competition to draw the site plan for the hotel and gardens that we had only briefly seen on our merry way in.
A couple of things to note for this competition:
I’d had three glasses of port
I didn’t want to win – the prize was a ticket to a thing that I didn’t want to go to
I didn’t go back outside to see what the grounds were like, I just made up stuff that seemed to make sense with what I remembered.
Well, I was one of the four winners.  Heh.
Gave away my ticket to someone who was just gagging to go to this thing, then we all loaded back on the bus to come back to Lisbon. Well, we just kept getting delayed, and people randomly asked to get dropped off in odd corners of the city for various errands. This means that we arrived at the hotel shortly before 8:00. if you remember, I still have to visit the market. Carlos tells us of one that’s close to the hotel, not the one we’re used to, so we set off and arrive at 8:01. They closed at 8. Damn.
Tromp tromp tromp back to our familiar market. We arrive at 8:31. Posted hours indicate that they should be open until 9:00. Nope, they closed at 8:30. Double damn.
So, I still need to go buy feminine supplies. Greeeat.
We eventually get back to the hotel to find that Sandra is very very ill. Jen takes her next door for soup, and it proves to so completely overwhelm her that she had to come running back to the hotel. I go and bail out Jen, finish Sandra’s dinner (it was excellent), and come back upstairs to write all this down.
Tired now, off to bed.

2006-02-28T05:10:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the silence guys... the internet is a little thin on the ground here in Portugal. Internet cafes don´t let you upload files, so no pictures and no real blog entries until I can get wifi. It´s even a bit of a pain in the arse in Lisbon - to get wifi I´ve got to haul the laptop across the city. :(

Right now I´m in the beautiful small city of Viseu, and we return to Lisbon this evening. I´ll be there for the next couple of weeks - one more week of site touring, then a weeklong charrette where we are doing a project with some local students.

Love you all, miss you all,
Joannie

Sandra eats more pastries.

2006-02-23T14:47:00.000-06:00

February 19, 2006
Back to Lisbon

Woke up late in the morning and had a quick bit of Muesli for breakfast with the girls. Some went off to do sketching for classes I’m not taking, so Sandra and I braved the rainy weather (fortified by roast chestnuts that we bought on the way) to go see the legendary Capella dos Ossos. As we walked through town, we collected other PortCitians (in this case, Francois and Brady) to go see this chapel. It’s attached to the church of Sao Francisco and is a meditation space to help people go beyond materiality etc. etc. etc. In modern terms, imagine a room with an exquisite painted ceiling, and walls papered in bones. The bones of 5000 monks, to be exact. It is morbid, grotesque, and wonderful. It is beautifully constructed, and apart from the desiccated body nailed to the wall, isn’t disgusting in the slightest. There’s even a charming saying “We bones who are here await yours”.

After that uplifting experience we walked back through town to find the aquaduct and ran into more PortCitians (Lynn this time, we’d left the boys behind after the bone adventure). It promptly started raining dats and cogs, so we stopped into a coffee shop for sustenance.

We wandered off (picking up more PortCitians on the way, this time it was Teresa and Teigen) and took some more pictures of the aquaduct after we traced it through town.

Shortly thereafter we had a cobbly walk back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and head off to the bus to return to Lisbon. On the way back to Lisbon we stopped at a vineyard for a bit of a tour and a mini tasting. Very yum and very pretty indeed.

Back to town, laundry, and a meal in an Indian restaurant.

Funny thing – this was the first full Sunday that we’d been in Portugal, and it was rather fun to watch all the people scrambling because they discovered the shops weren’t open. I’d been expecting it all along and was surprised at how many shops were indeed open. Hehe. Welcome to Europe, kids.

February 20, 2006

Woke, had breadfast, yadda yadda yadda. We were supposed to tour a black box theater on the other side of Lisbon but it got cancelled since they didn’t have the insurance necessary to let groups in yet. Hm. Interesting.

Instead, our landscape architecture Prof (Lance) took those of us who were interested (basically, all the landscape students) to a nearby city via the metro and the train. The city is called Sintra and is the hilly town where the wealthy Lisboans and royalty had their summer homes. It is hilly and gorgeous, and I liked it even more than Evora. There are picturesque Moorish castles on the hill, and tons of hilly gardens. We got to tour one of them called Monserrate that was mainly built by a series of homesick and worldly Englishmen with more money than sense. It was wonderful, and the tour was led by Gerald, a nice expat who works there as a Landscape Architect. We tossed around the idea of doing a series of projects to help reclaim the site and protect the ecology that has sprung up since the site was abandoned in the 1974 revolution. I’m considering rolling this into my final project for my degree, but we’d have to see how the logistics pan out. ;)

February 21, 2006

Breadfast as usual, then we went to some lectures over at the literary center. Afterwards, we were to meet in front of the hotel at 2:30 to get the tram over to the other side of town to look at the aquaduct’s terminus at the ‘mother of waters’ building. Lance took the MLA students early (whoops, missed lunch) and we walked up there instead, stopping by the most excellent botanical gardens. When we finally ended up at the mother of waters, it was a really cool room. Big, and vaulted, with a massive and very deep, very clear pool in it. It was being used as a gallery, with lots of wall hangings. There was a dock in the pool that you could walk out onto, and the light coming in through the very small windows made these awesome tubes of light in the water – luckily they photographed well. There’s a fountain that originally carried the aquaduct water into the space at one end, and it has been completely covered by mineral deposits so that it’s starting to develop into a massive rock of its own right – similar to those at Yellowstone.

Sandra and I took off a little early to walk back to the hotel and had a great time navigating our way through town. We had a little hilarity too, and she’s gonna kill me for telling you. We walked by one of the city’s many excellent liquor stores that had a large display of port in the window. Sandra must always stop and look at the these since she loves the vile stuff and even researched it as part of our pre departure study. One of the things that she found out was that only 23 or so years of port production have been designated ‘vintage’ for their excellence. Thus, the word on the street is that vintage port is very very expensive, and very very rare. Well… it turns out from our survey of liquor stores, that vintage port is in almost every store, and is not that expensive (though certainly not cheap). Hm, this is an awful lot of setup for a bad joke, oh well. Sandra and I walk on by the shop, and she remarks in a rather flustered way “Hm, they seem to have a lot of Vinto Portage around here.” Well I just about died laughing, and she dived rather unexpectedly up a side street. Apparently she got all tongue twisted and rattled by a man soiling himself right in front of us. Bleach. Glad I didn’t see that.

Dinner was a simple affair – we drank a bottle of the wine we got in the Alentejo region up in Sandra’s room with various friends and colleagues stopping by. Then we headed down to the Baixa district for a bite to eat, avoiding the rowdy and inebriated Liverpool United fans who were thronging the city and trying to pickle themselves.

My meal was charcoal grilled sardines, and it was excellent – but the were large and gave me four of the damn things. Only managed to wind my way through two of them before we gave up the good fight and picked our way through the meandering throngs to the hotel for some well deserved rest.

February 22, 2006
Lisbon

Ugh. I have a disease. Seems to be a cold. Lynn, Bret, and Erica all have it too. We’re taking the bus up north tomorrow for a five day trip, so I imagine we’ll all sit in a row and infect the rest of the bus. Charming. Aren’t we going to be popular?

Also, in other bad news, I have to announce the untimely demise of a faithful yet short lived power adapter. It is impressively melted, and has blown a series of fuses – indicating that it is ready for the big dump truck in the sky. Luckily, the only thing I need it for is my camera charger, and many other people on the trip are happy enough to tuck my batteries in with theirs for their nightly rejuvenation. This is also made easier by the fact that we are all taking a lot fewer pictures these days – we’re down from averaging 400 pictures a day, to about 40. I can’t imagine doing this trip with film.

So, today, we went with our diseases on the metro up to the Lisbon City Museum, that tracks the development of the city from the original Phoenecian settlement close to Sao Jorge all the way through the Romans, Moors, Christians, etc. It was very very good and when you all come to Lisbon, it’s well worth a visit (take the Metro Blue Line to Campo Grande and it’s about a five minute walk).

After that we went with our diseases, plus some less infectious friends too, to walk to the next site. Since we had about two hours to kill, and we figured it was about an hour’s walk to the next stop, we walked it. Lynn and I just about died with our snuffling, sneezing, and itchy noses, but we did finally make it. After a brief and satisfactory repast (I had bacalhau do casa – or salt cod of the house, imagine fish and chips where the chips are crisp shaped, the fish is rehydrated salt cod, and it all has an odd onion sauce over it) we went on to the Gulbenkian Foundation.

The Gulbenkian is a large and wealthy foundation supporting the arts and sciences, and they have a really nice building that was designed and built in the sixties. There’s a great garden around it, and we got to meet the original landscape architect as he led us on a tour. It was marvelous, and they just did a rehabilitiation/rejuvenation of the garden. It was so good that at the end of it we all applauded the guy (we couldn’t talk to him as he spoke about as much English as we speak Portuguese).

I’ve learnt enough of the language and local sign language to be able to order in restaurants, get the kind of coffee I want (sometimes bica/espresso, sometimes café dupplo, sometimes café con leite) and the particular fizzy water that I love (agua con limao … agua frize). I’m good at the sign language for “just looking thanks” as well as “please bring the bill” “how much is that” “do you have this shoe in a 42?” “no I won’t give you a Euro for juggling fire”. Well, actually I can say the last one in English because the dude is from Manchester.

Most people do speak a bit of English, and politely suffer through a few minutes of painful Portuguese before they break down and start speaking English to us.

Yesterday, I was dying for a loo and couldn’t face the long climb to our hotel at the top of the hill. Sandra and I ducked into a café that had a WC prominently displayed at the back (well, the *door* was prominently displayed). Since it was such a small place, we felt we should order something in return for my desecration of their loo. As we walked in I said to Sandra “order something” and told her to buy me an orange as they had a large display of them handy. If the display had been of squid beaks, I’m sure that’s what I would have told her to get for me. As I made a beeline through the little café to the back, I locked eyes with the owner, pointed to the loo, and raised my eyebrows. It must have been pretty obvious that I was desperate because he gave me the tiniest of nods, as if to say “go ahead love”. I dove in, did my business, and left much refreshed to find Sandra rolling with laughter sitting down eating a pastry (man, can that girl pack away the pastries!). She did not, however, have an orange near her. Apparently, when she asked where the orange was (that she had ordered by pointing at the pile of oranges and saing ‘una’) they had made a sort of squeezing twisting motion with their hands. Aha, the oranges are for juice! They brought the juice through, and I had to have Sandra help me with it because I’m turning into my father and am having more trouble eating fruit as I get older – no matter how sweet it is, it’s often painfully sour. I’m not kidding about the ‘painfully’ bit either – pineapple eats through my skin and my lips flake right off. Well, we gave the hand-on-heart thank-you bow as we left chanting a little chorus of “obrigada”. Dude said “your welcome”. Rrg. We could have spoken English! Heh.

Evora and surrounding area

2006-02-18T14:39:00.000-06:00

February 17, Friday
Evora

Today was a bit rough – lack of sleep and a burgeoning cold made the day’s activities more taxing than expected.

We started with breakfast – thankfully there was more selection than bread here, though the coffee is not as good. We’re staying at the Solar Monafalim in the medieval walled city of Evora.

We staggered down to the buses and set off for Monseraz (monserazh), a rustic medieval walled village on a hilltop about 5km from Spain. We only spent an hour there, but it was windy and cold so we were happy to get back to the buses. Monseraz is right by a reservoir that was dammed up about 4 years ago – it is about 60% full so far, so it makes an interesting landscape of little islands with old abandoned structures and roads on them. The reservoir only flooded out one town, called Luz.

We visited Luz (loozh) next. It was redesigned by a notorious architect about 2km from the old flooded town and it completely lacks charm and warmth. It’s very modern, and photographs well, but I did not care for it. There were excellent views of the Alentejo countryside, full of cows, sheep, and wildflowers.

After that we went to Moura for lunch where we ended up in a restaurant that served rustic soups. We had the choice between Stone Soup (mixed meats, bones, garbanzo beans, and broth), Chorizo and beans (my choice, and excellent fart food), and shark soup.

On our way back to Evora, we stopped by a place whose name escapes me at the moment. It used to be a bishop’s holding, and had an interesting combination of terraces, reservoirs, aquaducts, and gardens.

On our way home, we stopped by a grocery store (Mercado – mercadoo) for provisions (wine, the regional ewe cheese, and cream crackers) so we could picnic at the hotel. After the picnic, by the fireplace in the parlor, off to bed. I’m sleeping in a trundle bed which is a pull-out drawer with similar proportions to a sleeping bag. It’s a very firm bed and I’m sleeping very well in it. Romey – I think the reason I can’t sleep at home is because our bed is too soft :( I’ve been sleeping like a champ here on beds of alarming firmness and lumpitude.

February 18, 2006
Evora

Woke, breakfasted, and set off for the day feeling much better than yesterday.

First stop was yet another hilltop medieval town called Estremoz (estremoozh). Charming as usual, excellent views as usual, chilly and windy as usual. *yawn* Well… it wasn’t boring at all, but it’s amazing to me how quickly it becomes normal.

Next stop was Villa Vicosa, where the dude who became the king of Portugal lived back in the day. The villa had an unremarkable, yet elegant renaissance façade and a clunky plaza out front. We were sneaky when we went in to go to the loo and got a look around the cloister gardens – they were excellent. There are lots of orange trees and lemon trees all over the place – I could certainly get used to this! One of our number has been known to pilfer the occasional orange off a public tree (names have been changed to protect the guilty).

We drove around a bit after that, admiring the spectacular countryside and ended up in *another* medieval walled city. Here, we had the first of our “drunk lunches” catered by a local restaurant for all of us. Here is a rundown of what we ate – hope you’re not hungry! All of this was consumed with generous lashings of the local Alentejo wine (it’s apparently an excellent year – the drought has been good for the wine). When I say “generous lashings” I mean that our table of 8 people had 5 bottles. I’m finding that the wine here doesn’t poison me the way wine in America does. In the U.S., after two glasses I’m anybody’s – here, well, it seems like I can just keep on glugging the stuff down with nary an ill effect.

Appetizers:
Bread
Stinky runny local ewe’s cheese – you’re always served this first in the restaurant, but this is the first time it has been runny. It’s outstanding, and I will miss it when we leave.
Shredded braised Rabbit in a vinegar and cilantro dressing
Fried pigs ears – Good, but very rich
Braised pig skin, I think. It was rubbery, and gray, like very chewy calamari. I didn’t eat much, but it was mild, fishy, and in a vinegar and cilantro dressing.
Roasted red peppers
Head Cheese (pork brain and bits terrine - quite good actually)

First course:
Shark soup with bread in the soup

Second course:
Pork loin? In a spicy orange sauce
Pork trotters – I couldn’t bring myself to try these, it was all bone, skin, fat, and gristle. Smelled nice though.
Pork ribs in an Alentejo barbecue dressing
Bread stuffing that tasted of chorizo and smoke.
Homemade potato crisps

Dessert:
A sort of rolled sopapilla – fried thin dough with Alentejo honey
Orange colored pie
Cream colored pie with local plums
Green melon

2nd Dessert:
Coffee – like espresso, but stronger.

3rd Dessert:
Grappa

This was all family style, so they’d bring out large dishes and we’d divvy it all up. We kept asking Pedro, our guide, what things were. When we asked him what the orange and cream colored pies were he pointed to one and said “Eggs and sugar”, then pointed to the other and said “Sugar and eggs”. The man’s a born comedian. Roman would like the food here, a large part of the cuisine is based on eggs.

After a stiff legged stagger back to the bus, we drove off to our next destination. We were all loaded so we were carrying on in rare form. Our professors promptly started snoring away at the front of the bus, much to our liquid hilarity.

The last stop was something called a Pasouda called Arraiolos. They’re a chain of very ritzy hotels through Portugal who consider it their duty to celebrate and uphold Portuguese cuisine and culture. This place was outstanding – in a beautiful valley of cork trees and sheep and pigs and cows (they alternate grazing them beneath the corks), below a medieval fortification on the hill. The hotel was recently redone with a very well done modern additions Details are here: http://www.pousadasofportugal.com/portugal/arraiolos.html Note that it’s pretty affordable in the off season (this *is* a five-star hotel after all).

Now, we’re back at the hotel having a light picnic of the food people have been ferreting away in their hotel rooms. Love you all, miss you all!

Xxoo J.

2006-02-17T16:30:00.000-06:00

Hello all!

I finally got connected - get ready to be bored out of your sculls. As part of the project over here, I'm keeping a journal thing. Rather than write up two summaries of what is happening, I'm just posting the journal thing directly for you. Please excuse the typos and awful grammar - I blame the wine.

You'll notice that we're missing today's entry. I'll probably get to that tomorrow - battery is dead tonight, and only have limited time. So we begin...

February 13, 2006
Lisbon, Portugal

Well, this has been one helluva long day. Woke up in Minnesota, what seems like years ago, and am just getting ready for bed in Lisbon. Estimates differ, but we are fairly sure that it took 26 hours of travel to get from our homes to the hotel here. Once we arrived here we were dragged (yes, dragged) on a 4 hour walking tour of this very hilly (seven of them to be exact) city.

All of you. Right now. Drop what you are doing and come to Lisbon. It is wonderful! It is charming and seedy, elegant and decrepit, cosmopolitan and naïve. It is gorgeous. Imagine West Texas, Bombay, New Orleans, and San Francisco all whirled together then get the natives to speak a language that sounds like a thoroughly chewed Russian/Spanish/French patois. It is simply charming, and you must all come here for a visit. Stay in the Hotel Borges (google it) in the Chiado district. Nice hotel – not fancy, but excellently situated near very good restaurants, and is clean and comfortable.

During the tour (and the brief adventure where I and three of my comrades got separated from the group for a highly enjoyable hour) we roamed all over the oldest parts of Lisbon – parts that burned down in the 1980’s only to be rebuilt by the famous Portuguese architect Silva. We saw the parts of the city that survived (or shortly followed) the big earthquake of hmhmmhmhmph (it’s also a vitamin) [Edit – turns out the earthquake was in 1755], and other bits that are 2000 years old.

For tomorrow, we are challenged with having to find our way across the city (keep the water on the left) on the 15 tram line, to the something or another after the Geronimos (zhayronimoosh) that is purported to be interesting.

February 14, 2006
Lisbon

Today was fun. The weather has been amazing – about 55 degrees and sunny. We were expecting 45 degrees and drizzly – all in all I think we won the weather lottery. I’m even just a little bit sunburned (don’t tell my dad).

We woke up at 6:30 (thank you, jet lag) and headed down to the continental breakfast that the hotel provides. Basically it’s bread and jam, and coffee. The bread was really quite good (if weird to eat for breakfast), however the amazing thing was the coffee. It’s a totally automated espresso machine and it is amazing. Hit a button, get an espresso in your cup, hit another and you get a doppio, or a cappuccino (with weird shelf-stable milk), or milky coffee, or tea, or chai, or chocolate, or chocolate-coffee, or hot milk. Mmm… I was quite restrained and only had three coffees (doppio, espresso, and cappuccino). Hannah had four.

Suitable refreshed, we set off for the other side of town. We were to head three miles up the river (chanting the mantra “keep the water on the left”) on the 15 tram line. We trundled along and got off at the Maritime Museum. After a bit of wandering around and snapping photos we headed on into the dusty depths and saw all manner of sextants, astrolabes (why do both of those sound naughty?), and statues. Many of these items were reproductions, and many of the originals were still in Goa (pity we didn’t go there, dad). Mum, there were lots of good oil paintings too, but their murky brownness did not photo well in the gloomy museum – I’ll keep trying.

After that we wandered around outside admiring the mosaic plaza. Everthing here is mosaic – tiled buildings, chert mosaic sidewalks and plazas in all manner of creative designs.

Then, on to Jeronimos (zhayronimoosh), the monastery. We saw the large church (hope to have pictures posted soon). It is large, damp, and at the same time crudely chiseled and delicately detailed. It is a monumental space. My two favorite things were the piped in Gregorian chant, and the faint traces on the walls that were used as patterns for the church as it was being built so the stone masons could check their work.

We went on in to the cloister too – there are no words to describe it. It was less than an acre in size, and was made of this yellow stone lace-froth. Again, too amazing to describe – must see pictures.

After that, we wandered over to the cultural center for lunch (veggie quiche) and gelato (I had nocciolato – hazelnut chocolate). Yum.

Much more wandering around later (to the discovery monument, and through a Moorish garden) we stopped by a famous spot for a hot custard tart called a Pesteis de Beleim (payshtaysh dey belaym). Imagine custard meets crème brulee.

We then hiked up the hill puff-puff-puff to look at the tropical botanical gardens, were briefly stalked by weird ducks, then headed back on into the Chiado (shee-ah-doo) on the infamous and stinky (urine?) tram.

We ran a couple of errands (getting cash, and a cell phone) then gathered a group of people to go for a meal. You don’t eat dinner until 9:00 here, so we had to wait a bit (hiking up and down hills, again) for the restaurants to open. A plate of grilled calamari and two glasses of white wine later and we headed back to the hotel.

On of my friends has an excellent room here that has windows that open up onto the Rua Garrett – the pedestrian only street in front of the hotel. We hung out the window for half an hour chatting and yelling down to people we knew, then headed on to bed and writing out the notes for the day.

I do apologize if you find the details in this tedious – these are my notes for the day and I’m being exceedingly lazy by just cut-and-pasting them here for you.

Tomorrow, we have two pretty high priorities – find an internet café so I can upload this and hopefully some pictures, and buy me some sunglasses.

February 15, 2006
Quick entry tonight I’m afraid – it is late and tomorrow we go to Evora, in southern Portugal. Not that far actually, since Portugal is approximately the size of Indiana.

Today, we started with breakfast as usual (bread, urgh…) and went for a walk up and down the steepest hills we could find. Well, that wasn’t the goal, but that certainly was the result. We were looking for internet cafes, and sunglass shops, but got too easily distracted and ended up just wandering.

We then went to a couple of lectures by the local faculty in the Literary Club – cool old building with felt wallpaper. We were served coffee – the coffee here in Lisbon is usually espresso, and always excellent.

Afterwards, we wandered back to the hotel to grab a sandwich then we walked over to Castelo Sao Jorge. It is the old fortress/castle/thingummy and consequently is at the top of a large hill. Our hotel is also at the top of a hill, but unfortunately – a different one. We walked to the castelo down and up tremendous hills and through very interesting neighborhoods. The castelo is very cool – a big old ruin with awesome nooks and crannies.

After a few hours, we took the tram back, ran a couple of errands (laundry, reading homework, etc.) and then went for a group dinner at a restaurant just off the Placa Rossio. We were served a local small shark in onions, and something called Black Pig (a local breed, I believe). It was delicious, as always.

Off to sleep now – been a long long day – we climbed half the hills of Lisbon today, and definitely the tallest one. ;) View was worth it though.

Oops.. still haven’t managed to upload this – will do this soon.

February 16, 2006
Thursday

Have got to make this quick again – it looks like running on no sleep will become the norm. I already feel behind in homework, such is life.

Woke up bleary and early, went down for breadfast (that’s getting old, rapidly) and climbed on a bus to go to Evora in southern Portugal. Along the way, we made some stops and had hilarious commentary from Pedro, our token Portuguese faculty.

We had a brief stop for espresso, to revive ourselves, and I had a tast of a local pastry that is a soft eggy cake wrapped around an almond cream. It was delicious, but I was glad that I only had a couple of small mouthfuls – it was very sweet.

First stop was Cape Espichel, a church where someone built it as a monument to a vision of Mary. It had some attached dormitories, and was charming and semi ruined. The weather was wuthering wonderfully – blowing fog (it was very very windy) and drizzling. The church is set high up on a promontory, and if you get brave enough to peek a nose over the cliff you can get impressive views of the sea, and cars that have gone over the edge. Yikes.

Next stop was a convent and church (in the Manueline style) in Setubal. We met with an archeaologist who’s restoring it to conventyness from hospitalyness.

Lunch was eaten in a little place on the main strip by the sea again. Guess what I had! Calamari again. I had to this time, it was the specialty of the house. Yum.

Bus bus bus again over to Evora (named Ebora by the Romans, like Eboracum – later York) where we checked into a charming hotel. Don’t actually know the name of it – Solar something or another. It’s a very very very nice hotel, and is inside the medieval walled city.

We went for a walk around, because the restaurants don’t open for dinner until about 8 or 8:30. We saw the aqueduct, the Roman temple, countless churches to this that and the other saint, and a few feral dogs. The dogs decided we were a pack too, and joined us on our tour. One in particular walked with us for a long time, so I named him Cujo. Others in the class called him Siza, after a Portuguese architect.

Sandra, Hannah, Lynn and I ducked into a little place for dinner only on the recommendation of the marvelous aroma out in the street. We were a bit worried since some of the tables were reserved, but they let us in and asked if we wanted Fado (the Portuguese folk blues music). We said yes please, and were seated to an excellent meal. Cheese, olives, ceviche for an appetizer, Black Pork for dinner (the pigs fed on cork oak acorns – Portugal produces 90% of the world’s cork and the trees are everywhere down here with olives, oranges, lemons, almonds, vines, and umbrella pines). It was followed by chocolate mousse (naughty naughty) with a shot of whiskey on top. Mmm.

All this, plus three other dinners for the other ladies, plus two bottles of wine, for less than 80 Euros. Very very good!

Then came the Fado – the band (two guitars and a singer) set up right next to us and started singing. This continued, with brief breaks for wine (wine that was made by the owner of the restaurant called the Café Alentejo) and to swap singers. It was an amazing concert and as time went by they made more and more of a fuss of us. There were maybe 40 people in the room, and we were the only tourist types. The businessmen at the next table kept up a lively banter with us, and even gave us phone numbers (whoo!). Then, the band came over to say hi, so we chatted with them, then the owner sent over four shots of a minty liquor. Needless to say, we were having a marvelous time, and I highly recommend you find some Fado music and listen to it. Since we were trapped in the back, we stayed a bit longer than we had planned, but well worth it. The assembled company was fascinated with Sandra’s sketchbook, and much fuss was made – to our delight.

When we finally got our giddy and overfed selves back to the hotel (bit of a lucky find, if you ask me) we ran into one of our professors. He knew the restaurant well and approved highly of our evening’s entertainment.

2006-02-16T18:54:00.000-06:00

Hello all!

Am fine and having a wonderful time! Having a bit of trouble finding the time to visit internet kiosks to upload the daily blog entry. Will hopefully get to it soon.

If you want to Google Earth me, I´m in Evora, south of Lisbon.

Will try and upload tomorrow... love you all!

xxoo Joannie

Arrr...

2005-12-23T10:23:00.000-06:00

Here be the blog.

Here be the test post to the blog.

Arrr.