musings of the weekend...

well let's see. above is lucarno, switzerland.

yep. seriously. am i in hawaii??

palm trees?!!?

moutains i expected, but palm trees, about 85 degrees and no snow on the mountains was a little surprising.

as was the following:
*no stamp in my pass-a-port :( nobody checked us for anything.
*switzerland doesn't use the euro. they still us swiss francs. hmmm. go figure. (but they DO take visa ;) sweet!)
*when we got to lucarno, we heard 4 major languages right away....french, deutsch, italian & spanish. well, and just a hint of english now and again. so at first we were saying common things like 'hello' and 'excuse me' in any one of those depending on who we just bumped in to or bought something from.

the day was stunning. the entire day stayed sunny and warm. ian and i traveled really well together for having basically just met days ago. good times for over 15 hours.

we left the hotel at 6:40am and returned through the doors again just before 10pm. so yes, a *solid* day trip, but completely worth it.

i did the noble thing and bought swiss chocolate for some gifts to bring home. and even bought a few things to wear to work.... yep, even on vacation i'm practical about the real world i'll be returning to shortly...

so the tour went like this:
4 hours of train travel (5 different train rides...)

3 hours riding a ferry, at the bow...(only got doused by a wake one time, which was rather cooling!

3 hours or walking & eating/shopping in 2 countries...yes a technicality but still a fun one :)

this is what my demeanor visually looked like on friday the 13th...(me + mountains + lake + summer = :D )


3 more days and we zoom on home.

one week from right now i will likely be a little bit partying after finishing grandma's 13.1. and my 5 teammates who are running the full shebang will be likely a partying as well, noodley legs or not :)

and i *finally* saw 2 women running together. in the same outfit no less! it'll show up in flickr....

7 miler at 7am so no vino for me tonight. did have gelato though, just because.

thanks to the devoted few who have emailed and let me know about life back home. the greetings have made my days when they hit the inbox. the post-vacation hangover is coming, i can feel it, but it *is* time to reposition back to 'normal' (whatever the H that is, right?)

arrivederci, ~jd