America's Friendliest Marathon

Two years ago I started training for the Richmond, Virginia marathon. Any marathon that has the word friendly in the title, and junk food stations on the course is my kind of race. Sadly, my training was cut short with the jabbing pain of a knife in my foot, which led to surgery on both feet. It was two very long years. However, I promised myself that I would run again, and that someday I would complete the marathon that I started so very long ago.
And so as soon as I could run again, I started training. In my excitement, I overlooked my timing of things. I was teaching school all day, going to school for my master's at night, training for a marathon and trying to have a social life? Hmmmm. . . . Life was a little crazy, and yeah, I was a little crazy. Stumbling out of bed on Saturdays for 20 mile runs, running home from school for a 10 mile run while little flakes of snow fell. Yeah, a lot crazy. Many people told me not to do the marathon; life was too crazy right now, I didn't have anything to prove they said. On cold, dark mornings and evenings during long runs, I agreed with them heartily. However, in the end I knew this wasn't about anyone else. It was about me. It was something I needed to prove to myself; that I could run again, that I could beat this marathon, and in the end I knew that I could do it.
And so I ran on, and we flew into Virginia. We were welcomed by Hurricane Ida who blew in torrential rain and wind for the occasion. I couldn't help laughing, what were the odds? We ran from museum to museum with our umbrellas flipping upside down, crossing lakes of water in parking lots, as the governor announced a state of emergency for the state. Miraculously, the rain and winds calmed down in the upcoming days and by Saturday it was simply cloudy and cool. Perfect weather for the race.
The course was beautiful. It ran in and out of the city from funky downtown stores, through Monument Ave, along the James River, and then down tree lined streets in their fall glory. Then there were the spectators. It isn't called the friendliest marathon for nothing. The spectators were amazing. They lined the streets clapping and urging us on. They brought oranges, grapes, doughnuts, and cookies for the runners. There was even a group handing out beer, and while I don't drink, the runners in front of me sure enjoyed it. At mile 22, I gratefully took some gummy bears that propelled me to the finish line.
Signs lined the streets full of encouragement. Two signs stuck out to me. The first was at mile 20. It said, "Every wall has a door. Break through." Of course, this made me a little emotional. Because, for me the wall is in your head. It is what stops you from trying and accomplishing your goals. It is what tells you it is not possible, and I realized as I stared at that sign that I had already broken through the wall long ago. I broke through it signing up for the race, I broke through it training every day when it was hard, I broke through it starting the marathon, and so at mile 20 I wasn't worried about a wall, because I knew that I had found the door long ago.
The last sign said, "Explaining why you are running a marathon to someone who has never run one is like describing color to someone who was born blind." It's true, I can't explain to you why you would ever want to run that far and long, and put in so many hours of training, but if you have ever run a marathon you know why, because at the end of the race the feeling is indescribable.



St. John's church, on our second day in Richmond. None of the pictures from the torrential rain shower turned out, but you can still see what it continued to do to our umbrellas. This is the church where Patrick Henry gave his famous, Give me liberty or give me death speech.


We went to so many amazing historical sites. I learned so much about the Civil War. It made me want to teach fifth grade. This is at the National Park Service Battlefield Monument with President Lincoln. It says, "To bind up the Nation's wounds."


Here are my parents ready for the 8k. Yeah! They were such a huge support to me.


It was still chilly that morning, and I had an hour wait from the 8k till the marathon. I wisely stayed bundled up.


"Say Hey ( I'm in Love with You.)" The Ipod gave some good tunes of inspiration, and while my little nano died, and I had to lug around this huge guy. It helped build ginormous muscles in my arm.


Pizza at the end of the race! Who are these people, the friendliest people in the country?


Here I am attempting to ease the pain. Yeah, pretty much couldn't walk very well the rest of the day.


Here we are all posing in triumph with our medals at the end of our races. Yeah!



Sunday we went to church and then went for a stroll on the Canal Walk. Amazingly, I could walk pretty well. The sun was shinning. It was a beautiful 70 degrees. A perfect ending to our trip.

The Tootsie Roll

For years, I have done all that I can to sell the gloriousness of The Tootsie Roll. I even made a game for my students where one team is the Tootsies and the other is the Rolls. Of course, the winning sides gets Tootsie Rolls. I do this for the very reason that Tootsie Rolls are tasty, they come in huge bags, they are cheap, and they last for a long time. I have personally congratulated myself for bringing back the popularity of the Tootsie. My classes love them so much that one year our class theme was 'The Year of the Tootsie Rolls.'

Knowing of my students love for this tasty treat, my Halloween costume wasn't a hard choice. I knew it would be a big hit with my class. However, I did not know how big of a hit it would be. Of course, my class loved my costume, but I soon found out that the Tootsie Roll's popularity extends to all grades. Marching along the school parade route, I learned what it was like to be a celebrity. Parents would hold their children up to get a glimpse of me, as they would whisper, "Look it's a Tootsie Roll." Then as we tromped down the hallways, I was met with claps and cheers. "Tootsie Roll we love you." "You look good enough to eat." they yelled and screeched with excitement. Once I got to the fifth grade hall, I was met with the rumbling of screams, "Yeah, it's Miss Tootsie Roll!" They threw their hands in the air and whooped and hollered. It was then I realized I didn't need to spend all those years vigorously trying to increase Tootsie Roll's popularity, because wow, the Tootsie is loved by children everywhere.

Flight of the Navigator

I know some people were worried I would never finish these posts, but have no fear this is the last installment.

One of the best parts of our trip was our cruise. Our ship's name was The Royal Caribbean Navigator. (Which every time I heard made me think of The Flight of the Navigator, which I haven't seen in forever but loved as a child.)


The first day aboard we went down for our safety training, and I secretly nominated myself line leader of B7.


As you can see, I took my secretly nominated postion seriously and located the life preserver right away.


One of the delights of the cruise was the yummy meals and great company from our dinning guests from Wales. They were lovely.



The ship had a million things to do. We swam, read books at the library, and went to a lot of amazing shows. The first day we started the fun by playing some minature golf.


Then we did a little ice skating.


Next we played a little shuffle board.


However, my favorite recreational activity was laying on the deck just staring out into the beautiful water.


Of course, the wind was a little intense sometimes. There were a few nights that it had us wobbling around, and lucky for me it was a great little resistance trainer running on the track. However, most of the time when we felt the wind, we just had to throw up our arms and say, "Ahhhhhh."



After all of our adventures, we came back to our room to find delightful towel creatures. We liked them so much, we even took a class on how to make our own.


Then we would collapse onto our beds in exhaustion. As you can see we had a great room, but with no windows you'd be surprised at how long your body will just keep on sleeping.


In the end, we had nothing but smiles for The Navigator.

The Labyrinth

Legend says (although it depends on which legend you read) that King Minos built the Palace of Knossos as a labyrinth to house the Minotaur. He even imprisoned his architect Daedalus, so no one would find the way out of the labyrinth. Every nine years, he sent for seven Athenian boys and girls to be sacrificed to the Minotaur. Finally, the Athenian king Aegean sent his son Theseus to slay the Minotaur. Theseus succeeded in killing the Minotaur and found his way out of the labyrinth with the ball of string given to him by Minos's daughter, who had fallen madly in love with him. (This is the part where my students either start to giggle or roll their eyes.) He hurriedly sailed home to tell his father of his victory. However, in his haste he forgot to change the sails on his ship. They were to remain black if he had been killed but changed to white if he succeed. King Aegean waited outside his towers scouring the sea for any sign of his son's ship. Unfortunately, when he saw the black sails, he was so grief stricken he flung himself into the sea. Legend says that sea is named after him-Aegean. Isn't mythology so fascinating?




Well with a legend like that how could we not visit the Palace. And so on a cloudy day, we hopped on a bus to the great Palace of Knossos. Just after purchasing our tickets, the rain began to pitter patter. We decided not to let it get our spirits down and began to explore.



The Palace of Knossos is on the island of Crete. It spans 5 acres and was reconstructed by Arthur Evans. These people were so amazing they had aqueducts to bring in water and pipes to take out the sewer. You may have noticed all of the bull pictures. Archaeologists believe they worshipped the bull, or perhaps the legend of the Minotaur really is true.



The Palace is huge and looking down in it, you can picture it being a maze.



The throne room of King Minos. Amazing frescoes on the walls.



If you look closely you can see a lady working on restoring the frescoes. Patience.



The young prince with lilies, or is it someone else? Unfortunately, much of the palace is a mystery, and we can only guess. However, I imagined royalty in this picture.

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We were wet, we were soaking, and we were having a wonderful time.



I don't know if you can tell how thoroughly soaked we truly were at this point. Every step was a squish of water pouring out of our shoes. However, as we waited for the bus back to the ship, we just couldn't help singing in the rain. This of course made quite a few of the umbrella carrying, poncho wearing passengers stare at us in wonder and craziness. However, nothing could dampen our spirits, because how many times in your life do you get to actually sing in the rain on the island of Crete? Unforgettable

Ephesus

Our journey in Turkey began in Ephesus. Ephesus is mind boggling. Only 15-20% of Ephesus has been excavated. I was stunned as we toured the ancient ruins, there were so many. It is suppose to be the largest collection of Roman ruins in the Mediterranean. I loved it.



They say this is where Nike got its swoosh.


The Library of Celsius once held over 12,000 scrolls. I would definitely go there to read.


The public toilets, awkward, yet amazing.


The road where Cleopatra and Mark Anthony came into Ephesus.
They say the people poured wine on the road, the very first red carpet.



The Great Theater where Paul preached. Wow! The theater seats 24,000 and is said to be the largest theater in the ancient world.


Out of nowhere came the gladiators. Just watching the show made me cringe. I don't know how people watched the real events


Next stop the town of Didyma (which means twin, referring to Apollo and Artems.) These are the ruins of the Temple of Apollo. Medusa helped keep evil away.



The Temple of Apollo was amazing. I don't know if you can see how huge these columns are, but they were humongous. 166 columns were built. They were 60 feet tall and 6 feet wide. People made the pilgrimage to the temple to receive guidance from the oracle.


The last part of the tour was a light lunch of authentic Turkish cuisine. When I say authentic, I mean authentic. I am doing my best to smile, but really my insides are churning. How does one eat a fish that is staring at them? I could not, and so at the urging of my friend, I put the lettuce over his little head. Then I dug in, the best you can dig in, knowing that the fish's eyes are under a piece of lettuce.
However, besides the fish situation I found Turkey delightful, and so I bought two boxes of Turkish delight for the kids hoping to bring some of that delight home.

It's All Greek to Me

Somehow this phrase never ceased to grow old in Greece. Every time we read a receipt, a street sign, or a billboard, it was always fun to say, "It's all Greek to me."

I must admit that Greek blood runs in my veins. My great grandfather came over from Greece. I grew up eating baklava, greek soup, writing to my greek cousin, and hearing stories about the wonderful Greeks. I had huge expectations for Athens, and it did not disappoint. In fact, I am already planning my return.



We visited the Panathenaic stadium built to honor the goddess Athena. It was built in 566 B.C. and redone in marble in 329 B.C. It is the only major stadium in the world built entirely of white marble. So cool! It also hosted the return to Olympic games in 1896. I once read about two runners who jumped over a fence to run at the Olympic Stadium in Greece. I'm not sure if it was in Olympia, or at the new stadium, but the thought of jumping did cross my mind. Can you imagine running where the ancient Greeks ran? So amazing. However, I was much to short to hop this fence, and those runners, well they were arrested.



Oh how I would have loved to see the old time Greek theatre with their elaborate masks and men playing all the parts. This theatre, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, was just down from the parthenon built in 161 A.D. seating 5,000 people. Amazingly, they still have events there. When I go back, I will definitely be attending.



Here I am holding the whole porch of madiens, from the Erechtheum in my little hand. The most fascinating and horrifying fact I learned was that they kept a snake in the temple and felt that it was an essential for the safety of the city. They fed it honey cakes, and if it refused to eat the cakes it was a bad omen. I think it was a bad omen to have a snake in there in the first place.



The beautiful view from the acropolis.



Finally, my favorite the Parthenon. It clearly states on my life list that the Parthenon is a must and it was well worth it. The temple of the goddess Athena is magnificent and an amazing symbol of the ancient Greek life.




Last of all I have to share the great Greek food. Gyros, real Greek salad and baklava. My mouth waters just thinking about it. Greece was definitely amazing!

Never go in Against a Sicilian When Death is on the Line

I never knew a lot about Sicily or Sicilians, except maybe a reference from The Princess Bride or that my grandfather charged up a hill there during WWII. However, I must tell I now know my life was missing something and that something was Sicily. Sicily was absolutely beautiful and those Sicilians, let me tell you, they have a lot of pride. They refer to themselves as Sicilians, before being Italians. (Kind of reminds me of Texans. :)

Our trip in Sicily began with a beautiful drive up the mountain to the quaint town of Taormina.


An amazing view from the town.


If there is one thing that I love, it is a good slushy. And let me tell you those Sicilians had the best slushies around. Delightful Granite, a yummy, lemon slushy.


Besides having a beautiful view and delicious treats, Sicily had a little spunk. We couldn't resist a photo with this guy.


Taormina also had a beautiful public garden donated from an English lady when she passed away. I would have loved to have spent a few days just strolling around here.


Looking down at this beautiful view made us want to experience the water below, and so we hopped on a cable car to the beach.


After wading in the water, I decided to carry my shoes to let my feet dry off. As I sat down to put on my shoes, I noticed tar all over my foot. (Okay, I know from the picture it doesn't look like much, but if you have ever had tar on you, you know any amount is too much. ) Somehow this didn't completely register to me and I tried wiping it off with my hand, which led to my hand filled with tar. I had not even a paper in my purse to get it off, so I walked along the street barefooted, until I found a bathroom. I rushed in (I know kinda gross with bare feet, but what do you do?) I got in there and found that this bathroom must have decided to go paperless, because there was not a single tissue paper or paper towel in sight. I finally gave up, pumped water out of the sink and just wiped the tar on my shoe, pants and sock. However, being filled with tar couldn't dampen my spirits, as you can see from our little cheerleading picture. Go Sicily!

Next stop: The land of my ancestors, Greece.