Were I to have run this race in a costume, I’d have dressed as the Tin Man.  I just had no heart on this run… and when you run with no heart, it’s a rough, rough day. It was a peaceful, quiet race in the beautiful Austrian countryside.  Normally I enjoy these kinds of races, […]

I’m tired. And not just physically but emotionally and spiritually.  I haven’t slept much though which isn’t helping and is contributing to all three facets of exhaustion. In my early 20s I stayed in a hostel in Paris.  To use the shower, you had to push a button, a kind of automatic faucet button, that […]

Schönbrunn Palace is the former imperial summer home situated in Vienna.  Since then it’s served as Allied Command headquarters in WWII and held a famed summit between JFK and Nikita Khruschev.  It also has been featured on the Amazing Race.  Supposedly there’s 1,441 rooms in this place.  I was too cheap to buy a ticket […]

Maybe it was because I am reading Great Expectations, and Pip had just been handed his titular titles.  Mr. Jaggers told him to prepare to head to London by buying some new clothes; Pip must dress the part of the gentleman now.  Class matters, status matters, money matters.  The townspeople became obsequious, none more so […]

I wandered out to the Belvedere Palace this morning. It is not surprisingly UNaffiliated with the ABC sitcom about a butler. And I balked at paying the admission fee to go into the museum — yes, there are masterworks in there. But there are images of what I should see inside rendered on their promo […]

It’s a long ride from Berlin to Vienna.  When I booked this ticket, I just wanted to get into the city, wander about and get to my AirBNB for a late dinner.  But complications have ensued.  The Wachau Marathon needs me to pick up my bib tonight as I need it for the train ride […]

I have this lingering cold thing that doesn’t know if it wants to get worse or better.  Instead, it’s just sorta… there.  An annoyingly dry, scratchy throat with some cruddy drainage… a stuffy nose that’s not really stuffy so much as just… off.  Ya know that NyQuil ad, the one that promises it’s “the nighttime, […]

Yesterday I made my own cheese.  This is my review I posted onto AirBNB about it: I planned on detailing Klara’s Albanian family recipe here but then thought, “No!  It’s a family recipe!  You don’t just slap that up on the internet like some sort of solution to how David Copperfield made the Statue of […]

I’ve got the Berlin Blues. Post run endorphins have worn off fast, indicative of my running addiction problem. It takes more and more to get that high and it’s getting harder and harder to get my fix. On top of that, it’s the end of summer camp vibe as the tour with Travelling Fit draws […]

I’m tired and sore and for the first time in forever I’m going to take a nap after a race. My muscles will seize up but that’s a price I’m willing to pay at this moment. Meanwhile, here’s a bunch of photos posted (mostly) without commentary.