Saturday, March 26, 2011

Same Same, But Different

You knew it might happen eventually.  I'm a teacher after all.  POP QUIZ!

1.  During which month is my (Katie's) birthday?
a)  August     b)  September     c)  October     d)  November

2.  Where did Tom and I travel this year on my birthday weekend?
a)  Jordan     b)  Dahab     c) Black and White Desert     d) Uganda

3.  Why are you taking a pop quiz on your free time?
a) Boredom   b) Curiosity    c) I don't want Mrs. Katie to scold me     d) I want to get a gold star

If you answered 1c) and 2b) you are correct!  All answers are acceptable for #3.  (I wanted to make sure that everyone achieved some level of success!)

You may or may not recall that Tom and I traveled to Dahab for my birthday weekend in October.  The related blog was named "An Egyptian Chill" and described meals along the water sitting on pillows and our amazing trip to Mount Sinai.  We traveled back to Dahab last week, for a "make up for missing March break", 3-day weekend.  It was just as (if not more) relaxing than last time! 

We came this time with a bigger crowd, 15 of us in total, mostly colleagues, with a few of their friends visiting from Canada and one awesome girlfriend who also teaches in Cairo.  Our first full day in Dahab was St. Patty's day.  Nonetheless, I started the day healthy with a yoga session in the morning and a run in the late afternoon.  The class was actually in a windowed room just next to where I'm posing in this picture, but the waterfront view from inside the yoga room was just as beautiful.

I joined Tom's St. Patty's day celebration around 6pm, about 8 hours late, and headed out to dinner with everyone and for a night out dancing.  Understandably, Tom didn't bring the camera for this portion of the trip.  Just picture a bunch of teachers, all dressed in green, all smiling, dancing, and having a good time.  Come on, it's not that hard to picture teachers smiling is it?!

The following day was extremely relaxing.  I spent the bulk of the day laying around the pool, laying in lounge chairs on the Red Sea, and reading.  The one thing on the "to do list" for the day was to find the ugliest outfit for 50 Egyptian pounds (about $8.50) or less.  During the previous night's festivities I came up with the "brilliant" idea of having an ugly outfit contest the following night.  The main strip in Dahab is lined with stores selling some nice, and some terrible clothing and souvenir items, all at very affordable prices.  All (the girls anyway) agreed that it would be hilarious for us to find the worst clothing possible and wear it out to dinner.  There's still disagreement on whether I won with my pink Cleopatra dress and orange head beads, or whether the guy wearing a black dress with metallic hieroglyphs should take top prize.  Either way, it was most certainly hilarious.  You wouldn't believe the reactions we got from Egyptians.  They guy who sold me my dress yelled "Very ugly!" at me as I walked past his store.  I wasn't too upset, since he was in on the competition.


Our final day in Dahab was to be a short one, as we had the 8-hour bus ride back to Cairo to look forward to.  Tom and I headed out fairly early to enjoy the main strip before it got too busy.  The interlocking brick strip, stretching about 2km, has mostly restaurants on the water side, making for awesome dining, and mostly stores on the other side, making for some fun shopping (refer to last paragraph).  The mountains surrounding the water really do make for a beautiful backdrop as you walk down the strip, eat along the water, or relax on a lounge chair on the beach.  By the time we climbed into our bus on Saturday afternoon (yes, the long weekend here was Thursday, Friday, Saturday), we had certainly experienced an "Egyptian Chill" once again.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Barcelona Tourist Blog

Upon checking in to our Alitalia flight in Cairo on the Thursday before the marathon we discovered that our return flight had been cancelled and the only way for us to reschedule was to lose a day in Barcelona.  Needless to say, this is not the most pleasant way to begin a trip where you only have five days to travel.  The interesting thing is that the airline did not provide us with this information until I specifically asked about it.  I just had a hunch that our flight may be changed due to the ongoing curfew in Cairo.  What would have happened if we didn’t ask?  Anyway, combining this disappointment with the fact that Alitalia served us the worst food we’ve ever had on an airplane, and none of their flights had any entertainment, we decided that we would pay more for a flight in the future to avoid flying with them again.

We arrived in Barcelona around midnight, transferred to our hotel, and hit the sack.  The next morning we headed down for the hotel’s complimentary buffet breakfast before heading out to explore the city.  Unfortunately, one of the biggest pieces of advice that we received about running marathons was to stay off your feet for the days preceding the race.  The question is, how do you explore an amazing city like Barcelona while staying off your feet?  In the end we decided to take the metro as much as possible on the Friday and take a double-decker tour on the Saturday.  This is not the way we normally explore a city but we don’t normally run marathons either.
                                                                                                  
Inside Sagrada Família
Our first stop was the famous Sagrada Família.  This was by far the most interesting church that I have ever entered.  The entire main section of the basilica is open space with clear windows and impressive pillars.  It really felt like being in an indoor park.  I’ve never been into a church that wasn’t full of pews.  The exterior façade of the building is also super-interesting with the modern Passion Façade contrasting with the more organic Nativity Façade.













Part of the Passion Façade
Part of the Nativity Façade










After leaving the church, we headed to the marathon expo to pick up our race kits before taking a walk down the famous La Rambla to soak up the atmosphere.  We didn’t find it particularly warm but there were still enough people eating and drinking in the open air cafés.  I think Katie’s favourite part of the walk was the street performer, who was dressed in white and covered in white makeup, sitting on a toilet on a platform alternating between various comical facial expressions (unfortunately I didn’t take a photo).  We had a dinner of vegetable paella in a tourist restaurant before ending the day at the Musical Fountain at Plaça d'Espanya.  The fountain was very cool and the “show” was set to a variety of extremely cheesy music but we enjoyed standing on the bridge watching the changing patterns and colours.

Musical Fountain

Saturday began with the Breakfast Run organized by the Marathon Committee (our “Marato Barcelona” blog entry contains the details of this event).  After the run we took a double-decker bus tour around the city.  There were a few minor hiccups with the tour but we were generally quite satisfied with the experience.  We ended our day with a pasta dinner with the other members of our running group.  It was Carnival in Barcelona while we were there and there was a children’s parade on the street we walked down to get to the restaurant.  It was quite the spectacle.  I stopped to take some photos and got separated from our group for quite some time before I finally found the restaurant.  I will spare you the details of that frustration.  Anyway, it was early to bed on Saturday night so that we could be well rested for the marathon the next morning.

 

Sunday was the day of the marathon and Katie has summarized it in our “Marato Barcelona” blog entry.

Catedral de Barcelona
Arc de Triomf
Monday was our last day in Barcelona (stupid Alitalia) and we took advantage of the fact that we were now “allowed” to walk around (although it may have looked more like we were waddling around).  We explored the Gothic Quarter and went into the Catedral de Barcelona.  We walked around the Palau de la Musica Catalana and the Arc de Triomf.  We had a picnic in Gaudi’s Parc Güell before heading to see the exterior of La Pedrera and then going into La Casa Batlló.  We found Gaudi’s work to be extremely interesting and really enjoyed the audio guide at La Casa Batlló.  As the day was drawing to an end, we rushed to the Museu de la Xocolata where we heard that the entrance ticket is a chocolate bar and the café serves an unforgettable chocolate drink.  Both rumours proved to be true.  The ticket was a delicious dark chocolate chocolate bar and the drink was so thick that it was almost like drinking warm chocolate pudding.  We also learned that the Aztecs used cacao beans as currency and the price of a rabbit was the same as the price for “the favours of a prostitute”.  Who comes up with these things?!?  Anyway, we ended our day with a much tastier paella in a more authentic Spanish restaurant.

Tuesday morning we headed to the airport bright and early for our return trip to Cairo.  Our Barcelona adventure was a little too short but we will definitely head there again when we get an opportunity to explore Spain.

Parc Güell

La Casa Batlló
La Pedrera













What a ticket!?!

Friday, March 11, 2011

Marato Barcelona

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.  There is Barcelona. That is the marathon.  You can see the t-shirt for yourself.  A blog entry to do justice to both Barcelona and running a marathon would be of marathon-length, so I'm going to split the topics into two blog entries.  Despite the fact that reading about marathon running may be as interesting to some of you as watching paint dry, it's super interesting and exciting to me, so it's first in line.   Tune in soon for our Barcelona tourist blog. 


It took 4 short hours and 13 very long minutes for Tom and I to officially become marathoners, or as our running group would say, to "lose our marathon virginity".  The experience extended well beyond those hours and minutes though.  The marathon experience began Friday afternoon when we headed to the race expo get our race bibs, timing chips, shirts, and goodie bags.  The expo was quiet when we arrived, so we quickly moved from table to table to get our stuff.  The vibrant t-shirts made up for the sub-par goodie bags, which did not have much for goodies in them, unless you consider advertisements for other European marathons to be treats.  We were told later that night by an experienced marathoner that we were supposed to take pictures of one another getting our race numbers and checking our timing chips at our very first full marathon.  You'll just have to picture it in your mind.  If it doesn't look very exciting, you're probably picturing it correctly.

The real marathon hype began Saturday morning.  Some runners believe that you should go for a short run the day before a marathon, although none could tell me why.  Nonetheless, so many runners believe this that there was an organized breakfast run the day before the marathon.  The atmosphere was fantastic.  It started at the same place as the marathon would start, with fun music playing over the loud speakers, that was good enough to get of the race volunteers dancing. there were about 2000 runners, many carrying their national flags, all in very high spirits.  It was a 4km run, following the last 4km of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic marathon route.  It was so cool to finish a run on the track in the Olympic stadium.  

 We stayed off our feet for most of the day Saturday, and headed out for a pasta dinner with about 40 runners from our Egyptian running club.  The pasta may or may not help your running, but it's a tradition.

Marathon morning was an early one, 6:00am alarm to be precise.  We had breakfast at the hotel at 6:30am and headed to the race.  The morning was a little cold for shorts and a running t-shirt, but we knew that we wouldn't want to have more clothing on us later.  Luckily we were surrounded by about 12 000 people to warm us up before the start. The elites (no, that does not include us) started at 8:30am, and we made it through the starting gate about nine minutes later.  We were finally running the marathon.

The course was great, taking us past most of Barcelona's big attractions.  There were signs at each kilometer, which seemed to by flying by in the early parts of the race.  We were running comfortably, trying to follow everyone's advice to start slow and speed up if you feel good towards the end.  I must have been "in the zone", because around the 18km I mentioned to Tom that I thought we were supposed to be running by Sagrada Famila (the biggest cathedral you can imagine) somewhere between 16-18km.  It turns out that we had run past it, but I somehow did not notice it.  We got to the half-marathon mark (21.1km) with a time of about 2:03, and were feeling great.  At 30km, we were feeling great.  At 32km (only 10km left!), we were feeling great.  It's really too bad that it wasn't a 32km race.  Something changed by kilometer 34.  My legs were feeling tired, and I really needed to use the little girls room.  I was fortunate to find an empty port-a-potty on the course to minimize time loss.  What I did not count on was that if my legs stopped running, even for a short short time, that they would boycott running again.  Tom walked until I caught up with him, and reported the same leg discomfort when he started running again.  Was this the infamous "wall"?!


The last ~5km were quite a struggle, as my calves begged me stop running.  I didn't give in.  Tom was ultra supportive and encouraging, and even ran ahead to get me water when I was feeling really dehydrated.  He may have been a little more tired than he thought, since "running his hardest to get me water quickly" did not get him more than about 10m ahead of me over a minute or two of running.  I still appreciated the gesture.

I wish I could have "turned it on" for the last 2km, but it took everything I could do to prevent "turning off" altogether.  Tom certainly could have finished faster, but he's a wonderful husband, and stuck with a very sore and slightly whiny me right through the finish line.  We held hands as we crossed the finish line, and had one of the best hugs we've ever had.  We did it!  We trained together.  We ran together.  We would soon celebrate together!  Many people have asked us how we felt after the race.  I can't speak for Tom, but the things that come to mind for me are overjoyed, exhausted, and hungry.


Our running group met for champagne and snacks later in the afternoon.  Despite the terribly disrupted training schedules that resulted from the Egyptian revolution, everyone in our group finished, so spirits were really high.  We may have had a serious party if we weren't all so tired.

A few runners believe that you should run the day after a marathon in order to help your legs deal with the lactic acid buildup.  Not that many runners follow this one.  Monday morning Tom and I headed out for our last run in Barcelona, with only 3 other runners.  My legs were still feeling tired, but they got better and better as the run went on.  I was able to walk pretty normally the rest of the day, and my legs haven't been sore this week.  I'm not entirely convinced that it was the run that lead to my speedy recovery, but I'll probably do it again if I ever run another marathon.  So no, I'm not searching for my next marathon as of now.  I'm enjoying having a weekend during which I don't have to get to bed early on the busiest party night of the week to get up and run for 2-3 hours the following morning.  That being said, I'm not discounting more marathons.  I may need to find out how fast I could run a marathon with uninterrupted training.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Cairo Sweet Cairo (by Tom)

As much as our parents don’t like to hear this, right now Cairo is our home.  We live in an affluent suburb called Maadi where many expats live.  The streets are narrow, often one-way, and usually with cars usually parked on both sides.  There are very few sidewalks.  To find our apartment you need to know our road number, building number, floor number, and apartment number.  Most of the streets in our neighbourhood have numbers instead of names.  To confuse the matter, our building is “9G” on the Arabic sign and “9C” on the English sign.  In addition, the apartment number is not an indication of which floor it is on.



Now that I am unemployed, I have been spending A LOT of time in our apartment.  We have two bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, an office, kitchen, living room, dining room, and balcony.  When we first saw the apartment we were happy about the size, the balcony, the hardwood in the bedrooms, and the condition of the bathrooms.  When we actually moved in, we were not particularly happy with the gold pillows, fake flowers, ugly rugs, and bare bulbs hanging in every room.  We also find the walls to be a little on the scuzzy side.  One of our bathrooms is blue, and the other is green.  Seriously, the floors are coloured, the walls are coloured, the toilets and sinks are coloured, even the light is coloured.  Who really wants that much green in a bathroom?!?!  However, in spite of all this, we have managed to turn this apartment into our home.  We put away the gold pillows, ugly rugs, and fake flowers, and put up a wedding picture of us.  We also bought live plants (some of which we have already killed) and re-arranged the furniture to our liking.  The apartment is not quite “us” but it is as close as we’re gonna get knowing that this is only a temporary dwelling.
 
Master Bedroom
Guest Room


Dining Room

Living Room

Office


Kitchen


Blue Bathroom
Green Bathroom














Now I spend enough of my days cooking and cleaning.  Cairo is a dusty city.  Most of our windows don’t shut tight so there is always a stream of dust entering the apartment.  There is no clothes dryer so every load of laundry needs to be air dried.  We also cook just about everything from scratch (we use little, if any, canned and pre-packaged foods).  These are the things that keep me busy during the day.  I’ve also been sorting photos and e-mails, but there are only so many hours that you can spend staring at your computer screen before you start to get antsy.  With that in mind, I will end this entry.  We are heading to Barcelona tomorrow night and we will update the blog again when we get back next week.