as the saying goes...

all good things must come to an end.

i believe there is some truth to that saying in all kinds of ways.

for now, vacation is over. taking a break from packing to *shock!* blog...cuz i can.

i've been pretty melancholy the past day or so, even though i am anxions and ready to see my pets, home, bed, familiar faces, even work, and bacon again. (or a waffle would work too...with real syrup (like there is any other kind, right?)

i never knew how protein dependent for breakfast foods i was until these past two weeks occurred, hence the big want for breakfast meat. hmmmmm.... seriously, wed morning, there will be a hearty breakfast for the dietrichs before i hit work...

i can't imagine there will be much to blog about until after grandma's weekend (in which i just read an article on the duluth tribune site that if any runner is caught taking care of nature's call *outside* of a porta potty they can be banned from future races?!...um, most folks just don't go in the wilds for the hey of it, but whatever...) so until i have more things to talk to the keyboard about, arrivederci, be well, and thanks for reading *8-/ ~jd

the past & the future...

this is another shot from the other day in lago maggiore.

it sounds like many others who didn't tour it 3 days ago are going to go tomorrow (friday).

i am heading off in a similar direction....i will take an all day trip with ian....he is ginna's husband (and ginna is the vielle player in Rose)

ian and i are heading on this excursion ( http://www.lagomaggioreexpress.com/Inglese/index.html )

so a glorified version of tuesday's trip but with a new stamp in my pass-a-port to switzerland ~

due to the ensemble's schedule of singing every night, no one else can join ian and i, so that is the bummer of the deal, but i am looking forward to a beautiful ride through the alps and a gorgeous ferry ride back down lago maggiore. let's hope it doesn't rain much....(no idea what the forecast is. it is what it is)

other news of late:
*spent 2 hours today shamelessly shopping for couture. something i never in a kazillion years thought i would do. i mean i do consider myself a girly-girl but i don't have the budget for spendy clothes. (and i'm just as quick to get down and dirty in the mud of the outdoors...)

heard there was a dolce & gabbana factory store near here. there is. *completely* unmarked. no sign. nothing. in da hood actually. but the inside of the store is beautiful, and yes, bought a pair of jeans. for about double what i'd pay at the Gap or elsewhere, but i did it as one splurge. and i have to say they are hot...(even if i never would refer to my own self this way; the JEANS are hot). so that was my girly moment of the trip....(was wishing my fashion lovin' friends were here with me!)

*it is thundering away again as i type. but it *has* been beautiful for the past 3 days so we were due for some rain.

*windowblinds in europe overall ROCK. if you want to nap (one of the big perks of vacation if one is not out running or touring around) you can and the entire window becomes covered in these roller shade things that admittedly aren't pretty to look at from the outside but are stellar for good dreaming environments within.

*i (and the rest of the group here) are 10000% sick and tired of eating pasta. if anyone suggests we hit any kind of italian resteraunt within 3 weeks of me coming home i will so pretend i can't hear what you are saying. lalalalalalalalalalalalalala....

*i am not, however, sick of wine. :)

*i am seriously starved for some really good eggs & bacon. breakfast here consists of the following choices: cocoa krispies, corn flakes, rolls, butter, jam, croissants stuff with jelly & 3 canned fruits (pineapple, prunes or peaches). that's. it. oh, and yes, the all important coffee. i am in italy, i will eat what they tell me too, but MAN i miss bacon & eggs and waffles and the rest of the breakfast kingdom that is missing here.

*for my coach and runner girls, i am totally back on track for training. 9 miles in the past 2 days. no running friday, but will not forget my 6-7 mile LSD on the weekend. my left hip flexor hurts. no idea what i did. i want it to feel better.....any suggestions (besides advil)? ally, i don't have stumpy with me to help :( eeegads, one flippin week til i leave for duluth.

*travel home tues from milan, work some on wednesday & thursday, drive to duluth on friday, run Grandma's on saturday. that is quite a week coming up. the time has flown by but in all honesty, it's getting to be time to be back with my furry critters and to the piles o work and projects a-waitin for me. time for wine...peace and love, ~jd

today looked like this...

went to lake maggiore. which is close to lake como but different. many little islands to ferry too, which lake como does not have.

saw a lear jet flying around.

was convinced it was george clooney looking for me.

bad news of the day?

well, first that a friend at home was briefly hospitalized over the weekend, (bigger deal than what follows; this is a shout out to her if she hears about my blog) and thankfully is gonna be okay, hopefully soon!

other disappointing news is that i did not get my workout in.

that is two days in a row with no running.

sorry coach.
sorry 'angie'.
sorry team roseville.
bad bad vacationing jennifer.

i have to get back in the saddle.

i have a RACE to train for.

a race that is by LOTTERY only that i was deemed worthy enough to get into

a race where someone with my exact name from rochester tried to get into, but nope, *I* was the chosen one.

in 10 days.

time to get myself moving tomorrow morning first thing.

you know what that means.

no vino tonight.

:(

but the day our group had was unbelieveably beautiful and for that, i'll sans the wine for tonight and run in the early early am.

pictures from today are to the right.

ciao, amigos...~jd

one fav pic so far..

this is linda. taking a photo of a church at night in the rain. she looks very mary-poppins-esque.

it rains every afternoon here it seems. hot & humid in the early part of the day...sunny around 1pm, thunder around 5 with downpours. every day but one so far. so apparently italy weather is very tropical. another new thing i wouldn't have expected ~

i am going to hope and try to upload some photos to my flickr acct and add them to the blog. we'll see if that works.

today's topics:

*10.6 miles this morning. Coach Rudi & Gals, I did my LSD in a foreign place with no directions, 200% humidity (i have never sweated so much in my life....Karen you would have positiviely melted!) and yes, i caved and took the iPod. I couldn't do it without....esp after sleeping like ass last night. got maybe 3 hours of sleep. my brain just would *not* turn off...stupid brain.

*after the run ended (about 10am), i showered and supercalifragilisticexpealodocious!!! I DID shave my legs in the teeny tiny shower! hallelujah! (i know, i know, the things i'll blog about and that you care to read....it's my blog, i'll say what i want ;P

*towel sizes in italy rock. they are like bath sheets and the hotel towels here are actually pretty decent! most past european countries we've visited have had pretty scratchy-sans-fabric-softener feels to them and are not very big. here they actually can almost wrap around me twice and go below my knees! (so on someone like my boss they'd be almost as long as a formal gown ;)

*older men (ie those that have outgrown cat calling women) in their 60s and above walk often very slowly and with their hands behind their backs. not sure why but almost every man i have spied walks like this....and they politely nod if you make eye contact. (not that i'm trying to pic up seniors in italy)

*the group is performing twelve, yep, *twelve* nights in a row while here. tonight's performance is the first one i am going to forgo on and do some reading and wandering (if it stops pouring). last night's show was the last of the 'sampler' shows. all 5 groups, all doing 30 min sets. The first 3 nights of concerts were like that with different repetoire each night. Tonight Rose is performing in a little town i ran through earlier today called Castellanza (i think that's the name) and they're doing a 70 minute rep of early Hawaiian and American music. concerts end around 11:30 and the group thing has to been go 'celebrate' of course after that. due to this morning's run i decided against the boozin' it up pre-workout. after not sleeping i might as well have part taken in limoncello shots.....

glad to hear through KCF that the kickoff went well. Strib said the weather cooperated, so there's a bonus! I hope to hear more about it....

and as i close i just watched my first television commercial in English, featuring, George Clooney hawking an espresso machine..and speaking of coffee, latte macchiatos are my drink of choice here. they're pretty much just a latte from home but go by 'macchiato' here in italy.

so off to flickr-land now....~jd

pssst, pssst....

that's how men cat call a woman running down the street. seriously, still have not seen ONE woman runner. anywhere. how weird is that? today was my first solo run. 3 words. hot. humid. smoggy. ish. (okay my math has always sucked; that's four words.) granted i went this afternoon, so it wasn't the best timing but it was what fit into today's schedule. kinda weird to run out the front door and literally not know where you're going. but kinda wild too....so i got a few of those lovely cat calls and just thought they were pretting fitting...coming from men who acted like snakes. whatever.

here's a few more tidbits from the past day or so...

*we have hungarians, norwegians & latvians here in the hotel so it really *is* a small world after all :)

*there are mystery cords in all showers. no one knows what they do. apparently they don't call for help, they don't make the water hotter and they don't turn on a fan. got me.

*the shower is about 4 feet long by 2 feet wide by about 7 feet high. not kidding. there is hardly any room to do anything useful. shaving legs sometime soon is going to be a freaking magic trick...

*today is the first day the sun has been out & it's lovely. about 78 degrees, tho still a little humid

*80s pop music still reigns supreme in Europe. Every time we've been we get a lot of Wham!, Michael Jackson & Whitney Houston. thank god for iPods!

*store hours. Whenever the hell they want to be open. I guess that's the beauty of owning your own place. However with lots of folks in town for this festival you'd think they want to make more money. hmmmmm....

well, the next person is awaiting online time so i must go.....hope things back in the States are well....ciao, amigos ;)

ps those working at RCL, good luck this weekend with the start of SRP. yes i do feel guilty for not being around....and yes i still am thinking somewhat about 'real life' even when i'm on vacation. it's what i do.

day 2...

i'm borrowing one of the singer's laptops while they are off to do a sound check for tonight's show. Internet cafes around these parts actually don't seem to exist, and the hotel has a PC avail for use but the rates are pretty steep so i guess i'm going to be more limited in online time. perhaps there are worse things than being off-line ;)

weather is still pretty dreary...very humid, in the upper 60s, kinda off & on rainy, but still got in my first run of the trip today with Kim (who happens to be just about 5 feet tall and of Hawaiian/Japanese American lineage, so the 2 of us running the streets of Italy together is almost comical in our height difference :) Did 4.5 miles around town (having the Garmin is a godsend!), just to learn some of the parts of Legnano. Found an old castle; found some amazing ducks near a pond that were very high fashion with amazing colors and plumage! And some ginormous birds that look like ravens in size but have a lot of white on their wings and front. I know American birds pretty well, but European birds i have no idea about....We also saw a good handful of male runners on our jaunt, but haven'ts seen a single girl runner yet. No idea why. Maybe they're too into fashion & smoking here to run...

hotel is good...the Norwegians showed up a little while ago....so we have more folks on our wing now that are not Rose Ensemble singers. The group from Norway is an Oslo Chamber Choir....The choral festival is apparently a big thing here, and the group's first gig is tonight.

All of our meals are paid for (well the singers are; I'll have to reimburse the group at the end of the trip for my meal tickets) and i have managed twice now to screw up taking too much food in the buffet line and end up owing some euro. we're allowed 1 first course item, 1 second course item, & 1 vegetable. I manage to keep picking TWO vegetables. Which is fine but you gotta pay a little. I think I finally have it down now...and the problem has been the fries. who thinks of french fries as *vegetables* anyway??? (but they're damn good and one luxury i'm part taking in so far)....

The men here really do ooggle at women often, everyone seems to be wearing skinny jeans (well everyone is skinny and smokes it appears), and high fashion really does seem everywhere. the man purse here is a big deal. the coffee is good but not as good as in spain. the wine is as good as i expected, and yep, cheap! gelato too is a must at least now and then. last night my flavor of choice was limoncello/puffo. (puffo was the blue stuff that looked and tasted like a mild cotton candy flavor :) and speaking of blue, Smurfs are in here. They're called "Puffi".

I believe tomorrow we get to go to another town for the performance in the evening, so we'll get to see more of this part of the country then. Lisa & Carol, I'm still looking for George Clooney and hoping we can hit Lake Como by sometime early next week. Rumor has it it's not that far from here....

so have a great weekend everyone, and next time i can score a laptop, i'll check in with more from Italia...~jd

first day....

long travel to get here, but no problems (ie delays, lost luggage, etc)...always a good thing to have travel actually go as planned!

so far i have been very mute, except for a few polite grazis here and there (can not find the apostorphe on this keyboard, so sorry!)

food had been good at the place they are feeding us as a group...buffet style but comforting. wine has been cheap but tasty (yes, yes, better than romanian wine that some of you know about!)

slept for 4 solid hours all afternoon after arriving at the hotel around 11am and then finding lunch (i was soooooo tired, almost felt drunk and passed out quick...i dont sleep on planes sadly) so i will likely be in for a rough night in terms of messed up sleep, but i am hoping some advil pm and wine will help! otherwise i have a book to read and a booklight that will hopefully allow dh to sleep...and an ipod to rock out to in the dark if need be :)

so far havent scoped out many places to run, but hear there is a park not too far. the thing is i have heard men are not really the most chivalrous here and i want to be safe so while i would rather not run alone, we will have to see what i can come up with for training. a few singers run but they have their things to do to...

so i will be back in a few days to tell of how the first real days have been adventure-wise :) i already miss my friends and pets but have another stamp in the pass-a-port ;) be well, take care and write me stories from home if you have any :) -jd

ciao, bella!

update: 9:40am. just about to leave

that run at 6am? ROCKED IT. that's the word for Coach Rudi & my girls. I did almost 5 miles in about 43 minutes. just felt damn good. guess i was due for a smokin run! anyway....

6:08am.

gonna head out for a 3-4 mile run. stretch the legs and up the heart rate while i can, as it'll be a really solid 18-24 hours of travel to Milan, and then a short ride to our final destination of Legnano, Italy.

thankfully only 2 legs to get there. Here to Atlanta at noon, then Atlanta to Milan around 5pm today.

jet lag usually hits me hard going over, so i'm pretty much useless when we land in another country. soooo soooo tired....and i sleep for diddly on planes. combine that with ADD Girl that i am and long rides aren't my strong point, but i brought some good books (i hope) and a trusty iPod with some podcasts & tunage to get me through...

so far, all i know of where we'll be is this. and that rose is singing as part of this.

weather looks good...70s-80s, a lil rainy maybe these first few days.

lisa, i will try to make it to lake como to scout george clooney. for you *and* for me and woman-kind ~ i hear he's single again ;)

be well and i'll write more once i explore my new 'hometown' for 2 weeks....ciao! ~jd

treasures & itinerary news...

first, i'd like to share some treasures from fargo. i've had many inquires near & far as to how it went (like even mary in oslo asked!) if you haven't read the entire blog, the answer to how it went is there. & my answer is still the same. it went. i am proud but look to improve in endurance. grandma's is 1 month from tomorrow...

so here's the medal, and the shirt that of course i had to have, with ellie-who's-everywhere masking the 'w'. i try to take one picture and of course the cat walks into the frame last second. (god i love this cat even if her timing is poor ;) i'll do about anything to get wine...fly across oceans, drive to the store, run a race. hell, who needs a reason? ;)

italy. here's what i know. (again much asking as it's getting closer. 'where are you going?' 'can i go too?' 'when do you leave?') so here it is. absolutely none of these towns mean anything to me. like grandma's, ask me one month from today and i'll tell you which was my fav. but for now, if anyone has any idea about any of these, find me and tell me what you know. (what a lovely coincidence that italy is known for wine & pasta, 2 top things that runner girl adores consuming...)

6/5-17 La Fabbrica del Canto Choral Festival, Legnano, Italy
June 5 Chiesa Parrocchiale, Legnano, Italy
June 6 Teatro Galleria, Legnano, Italy
June 7 Chiesa Parrocchiale Santa Teresa, Legnano, Italy
June 8 Teatro Di Via Dante, Catellanaza, Italy
June 9 TBD
June 10 Cinema Teatro San Pio, Uboldo, Italy
June 11 Basilica di Santa Maria Nuova, Abbiategrasso, Italy
June 12 Chiesa Gesu' Crocifisso, Parabiago, Italy
June 13 Auditorium Palazzo Terragni, Lissone, Italy
June 14 Auditorium Della Casa Del Arti, Cernusco Sul Naviglio, Italy
June 15 Chiesa Del Convento, Azzio, Italy
June 16 Sala Della Musica, Legnano, Italy

so there it is. not much else is super new. ran both yesterday and today. went swimmingly. well of course. i saved a crapload of energy somewhere on saturday during the half, so of course i'd feel this week is strong and great. OY.

anyway, to end this post, i know i have a europe trip to gear up for, but honestly, i'm really craving hard some solid woods/camping/fire/hiking trip. lake superior and i have not bonded in 3 months. that is too long. as is hiking/woods/campfire time. it's been way longer for that. must get something on the calendar...shameless plug? you betcha! ~jd

Thing 13. online productivity....irony to me...

considering i'm feeling very underproductive about the 23 things lately. okay, diving in now.....all focused with a goal to finish 13 & 14 by tomorrow...

chapter one: webpages and widgets~ my dh at home has his own webpage as our start page, therefore, I'm not really seeing that I need one of my own. They were fun to play aroud with however. iGoogle was easy to use, as are most of the Google-Land products. But I felt that PageFlakes was just a bit more organized and more to my style of page layout. I really never have been much of a fan of Yahoo! Not for any really valid 'bad' reasons, just that I am a Gmail girl, I have almost always preferred Google products and Yahoo! (at least back in the day) was full of spam and advertising, neither of which are my cups of tea. So after playing around with this part of 13, if i was to have a web page of my own, I've found a few sites worth bookmarking for later..

the widget part of this thing took me *eons*. sad but true. the one recommended through the fine 23 Things folk wouldn't work. no idea what I was doing wrong, but it wouldn't count down. So I went with a good ol' Google search and found this site...ps i apologize for the spelling error in buongiorno. it's not super simple to edit at this point :( But now I know exactly how long until I jet off to Italy with my dh and his singing posse in June ~ And seeing as Lake Como in St Paul is about a mile from my house, I felt it worthy to post the other, bigger, grander Lake Como on my counter.....oh, and thanks, LibraryGuy, for helping me navigate that whole HTML thing. good to know for future posts....you're a stellar teacher...

chapter two of Thing 13: Calendars~ okay here's where i'm going to sound rather aged. I really really *really* like my paper calendar. (for work *and* play bookings/meetings/events) the one that i tote around with no problem. the one that is this whole planner thing that weighs a solid few pounds. the one that if i want to leave it at home and go away for four days, i can and i don't care that i can't access it from some remote location on my cell or on my laptop (both of which are at home as well i might add if i leave town; I mean for real....WHY do some folks just feel the absolute need to bring work with them on holiday?? if i'm trying to enjoy the quiet of a great little coffee shop in a small town, the last thing I need is some yahoo in his best Ralph Lauren vacation wear yakking away about how impt this meeting is he's missing while he's out of town >:-( The world is NOT all about you dude! You're polluting my solace!) whoops! sorry for the soap box moment....

Did i do this part of Thing 13? well, sort of. I did monkey around with Google Calendar, Scrybe, iCal (which is on my Macbook at home) and 30 Boxes. All four worked similarly. As with many other comparitive studies I've done for these Things. Google was grand. Scrybe was okay. iCal is something I would only access from home, and 30 Boxes had a nice clean layout that was appealing.

As with other Things, I really am tired of signing up for free accounts, that at this juncture, I'm just not going to use all that much. And as stated, I really am not wanting to give up the paper calendar yet, so while it was educational to play around with different calendar tools, I prefer my colored pens and big clunky wonderfully archaic sprial planner in front of me. I should admit at this point that 2 years ago I basically asked for a Palm organizer for Christmas from dh. Who was wonderfully nice and did get me one. the Palm rode around with me for about 6 months, I sort of used it now and again, but still pined for my paper calender. Remember Trapper Keepers? I think I just got really sucked in to having a planner all the time as a student. And that carried over somehow to my grown up years. So do I think the calendar tools would be handy in the library field of work? yes, if all staff had access to the same one. yes, if you really don't like paper calendars. will i use one anytime soon? doubtful.

Next, this whole notion of to-do lists, including Backpack. Again, post-it notes were invented here in St Paul at 3M years ago and for good reason. They work. They don't need plugging in. I don't need to be logged on to anything, and my inexperience with having something like and iPhone or a Blackberry or any other techno-toy to keep track of my life on that lights up and sings and does all other amazing things is showing more and more as I type up this Thing. I *did* try Backpack for a little while, and it seems like a really quality product. Yet another thing to tuck into some small crevice of my brain in case I want to ever go back to it to try out for more than a little while. I will admit I use the Post-Its on our Mac often (a built in software option that yes, is handy).

So off into the wild blue yonder I go with my paper calendar, that doesn't need plugging in or turning on, my colored fine point Sharpies and my post it notes full of things I need to do in the coming days ~ jd