Final Lakes Run

Originally we had planned to make our last run in the Lakes back up into the hills.  But after two long days and tough weather, we took it easy and headed out on the rail path. The rail path is a long stretch where there used to be train tracks.  It was flat!  But still had some great scenery that we were not expecting.

 

 

Altogether we covered 26 miles over the three day weekend.  Pretty good for me since I've taken off most of the summer from running and training!  Mostly, it was a great time with friends.  Can't wait to go back next year!

Run around Derwentwater

Our second run of the weekend was around Derwentwater, the lake in Keswick. 

The day started out really nice!  We even had aspirations of coming back in the afternoon for some kayaking.

Unfortunately, this was the last time I was dry.  The rain came in and was a solid downpour that didn't let up for an hour. 

We ran about 10 miles again around the lake.  Despite the rain, it was a fantastic run!  Not as majestic as the first day, but also not as much straight uphill!  Some sections were through the trees along the lakeside and other parts were on raised platforms through the marsh at the far end of the lake.  We found a lovely tea shop when we finished for some warm drinks and toasty sandwiches.  Another successful day!

Keswick in the Lakes

During our visit to Keswick, we stayed in a tiny bed & breakfast.  Our hosts cooked breakfast every day and it was delicious!  Just what we needed to get through our big running adventures.  Here I am, getting stretched out before our first days run!

Laura and I chilling in the B&B.

View from my bedroom window at the B&B...

After we'd had a rest and a little shopping in the village, we settled ourselves into a comfy pub for the evening.

Where we made friends!  There were dogs everywhere in Keswick!! Almost every table in the pub had a dog under it and it was clear that they were allowed all over the town.  Many places even had dog bowls of water set out for our canine friends.  No wonder I loved it here!

We made friends with other people in the pub too.  These guys had spent a week camping all over the Lakes!

We ended the night with some dancing at the one club in Keswick.  It was quite a scene but we had a great time!!

Lakes District Running Weekend

If 2013 was my year to visit significant historical sites (the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, Stonehenge in the UK, Angkor Wat in Cambodia), then 2014 is the year of natural beauty.  In the last two months, I have been to three of the most beautiful places. 

 

Starting with the Lakes District in northern England.  A group of ladies from my running club planned a weekend away.  The start of the trip was a big rough, as the train did not have enough seats (even though we booked in advance) and we were sitting on the floor between carriages for the first 20 minutes or so. Thankfully they opened up the first class seating that was available soon after this was taken and we went from the floor to very posh seating!

The first morning we headed into the hills near the town of Keswick to run.  There isn't much commentary I can add to this...

There were sheep, lots of sheep!

Purple heather on the hilltops!  Can you see it on the hill to my right in the picture?

Some of our "trails" took us through open fields and over stone walls.

We were never FULLY lost, but did spend several breaks studying the map to get our bearings.  I just like our "lost" photo!

We covered about 10 miles the first day.  This was the STUNNING view as we came back down from the hills.  The lake in the middle of the photo is Derwentwater and the village is Keswick, where we stayed.  Most on both to come...

Misc from the last few months..,

I was digging through my photo files to work on some of these posts and realized I have a variety of photos over several months from random events. Here are a few...

This was a concert at Somerset House in Westminster.  Somerset has a large open courtyard that is used for concerts and movie nights in the summer and an ice-skating rink in the winter.  It was featured in the movie The Duchess when Keira Knightly first arrives in the courtyard of her new home.  The band playing in the concert was Bastille and it was really good!

Who doesn't love finding their name on a Coke bottle?  I don't even drink Coke, but it still brightened my day to find mine!

For those who may have missed it, August 10th was S'mores Day!  We celebrated by introducing some of our British friends to the American camping staple that is a s'more.  A fire was involved, along with importing real Kraft marshmallows, Hershey's chocolate and graham crackers from the US (via Erin, who conveniently had a work visit a couple weeks before).  Everyone loved it!!

I'm sure you know it rains all the time here but its rare to have very hard rain or even a thunderstorm.  We had several in August and I happened upon this beautiful double rainbow on my way home from work.  I should have also taken a picture of all the people on the street with their phones out taking pictures of it!

Buckingham Palace is a working palace and the Queen lives here when she is in London. Because of this, it is only open for visitors for a brief period of about 6-8 weeks each summer.  This summer I went! We weren't allowed to take photos inside, but if you ever get the chance, go - it's really beautiful.  This is the view of the back from the gardens.  You know, where Prince Charles would have learned to ride a bike!

I did some cleaning out in my apartment several weeks ago and had a pile of birthday and Christmas cards on my table from last year.  (Don't judge me) I discovered that both my parents gave me the same birthday card, completely independent of each other.  I didn't even catch it at the time because they arrived separately!  Clearly they have the same feelings about me. 

And last but not least, this was taken on a recent Friday night out with friends. I had just convinced two more people to sign up for the lottery draw to get a spot in the Berlin Marathon for 2015. Somehow that snow-balled into a week-long adventure that includes 6-8 people, some even coming from the US to visit Berlin, run the marathon and then make a trip to Munich for Oktoberfest.  Can you sense my excitement even a full year away?!  Lederhosen. Braids in my hair. Beer. I already cannot wait.

Remember Sweden with love...

After the busy day of sight-seeing, we enjoyed a leisurely dinner and evening in Stockholm.  The sunset over the water was beautiful!

We sampled the local beer...

Sunday morning we took a boat tour of the archipelago.

There are about a million (I'm estimating, I have no idea how many really) small islands in the archipelago. 

Many Swedes live out on the islands or at least have summer vacation homes there.  The water was clear and clean and the houses were wooden and often brightly painted.

We loved the 2 hour boat trip and had a great tour guide on this as well, who gave commentary over the ferry speakers in both English and Swedish. 

 

Unfortunately, this is where the weekend took a bad turn. In the form of a thunderstorm! During the last 15 minutes of the tour, the sky became very dark and ominous. There was lightning behind us and we hoped to get off the boat and into a restaurant before the rain came.  We were too late. It started pouring just as our boat docked.  Everyone stayed on board for a bit hoping to ride it out.  But the boat staff kicked everyone off after 10 minutes because they had another tour beginning soon and needed to get the next group loaded. 

 

As we exited the boat, I started to put up my umbrella and our lovely tour guide - an older Swedish woman - told me "no no, don't bother with that, just run."  She was right, my umbrella wouldn't have mattered one bit in this torrential rain.  Behind me, the guide told my friend Jessice the catch-phrase for the weekend "remember Sweden with love" - just before pushing her out in to the rain!

 

There was so much rain that the streets were in a bit of a flash flood and to cross them we walked through water that varied from ankle to knee depth.  And we were soaked within moments of leaving the boat. 

 

Here I am, after the rain has let up a bit, showing my lovely condition and the flooding in the streets.  Remember Sweden with love. 

Stockholm - the Vasa Museum

We planned the day well because the afternoon was hot and we spent it in the air conditioning at the Vasa Museum.  Vasa was a Swedish war ship from the 1600s.  It sank on it's maiden voyage just barely outside the harbor in Stockholm.  

Vasa was one of the largest ships built in the Swedish fleet.  This was during the age of pirates and naval warfare between many of the super-powers in Europe.  Sweden expanded their fleet of ships to protect the large coastline of the country from other countries along the North Sea, in particular Russia and Poland. The ship could hold a full crew of 450 including 300 soldiers and 64 guns.  

The museum offered free tours each hour in English and our guide is pictured below.  He was a hairy fellow, but very good!  Vasa sank because of engineering flaws.  It was too narrow to accomodate the tall height. As soon as the sails filled, it tilted one direction very far, then compensated by tipping the other direction.  At that point, the many openings for guns along the side filled with water and the entire ship went down. There were estimated to be 150 on board and about 30 died. It was a great failure for the Swedish navy.

Vasa sat at the bottom of the Stockholm archipelago for over 300 years.  In 1961 it was lifted via cables and pullies back to the surface.  The ship was remarkably well preserved in the cold waters of Stockholm.  A team of engineers, scientists and historians set about the reconstruction and preservation of the ship to its present state.  The majority of the ship is original, although the larger masts and ropes are all reconstructions. 

In addition to seeing the ship, the museum holds a large collection of artifacts that were recovered from the wreckage.  There are also multi-media presentations about the reconstruction and salvage of the ship.  And a model of some of the quarters on board.  It was a really interesting museum and very different from anything else I've seen in Europe. A must-see in Stockholm!

After the Vasa Museum, we stopped for some well-earned ice cream!

And we walked by the Abba Museum!  We didn't visit but definintely got a picture - a Swedish icon if there ever was one!

Stockholm - Skansen

Our second day in Stockholm dawned bright and beautiful!!  I could not get enough of this summer weather.  After a delicious breakfast at our hotel, we headed across town to see some of the sights.  This is the Nordic Museum, which we did not visit but still needed a photo because it was such a gorgeous building!

Stockholm is in an archipelego of islands on the eastern side of Sweden.  There are TONS of boats and waterfront cafes, boardwalks, etc.  The water is clearly a part of life here. 

Our first stop was Skansen.  Skansen is an outdoor museum/park.  There are traditional buildings relocated from all over Sweden into the park.  They also have "actors" who play the parts of running these small homesteads.

They even have a section of the park with zoo of animals native to Sweden, like reindeer!  It was the height of summer though and the reindeer clearly aren't into the heat and sunshine like I am.

At the recommendation of a park employee, we went to another free concert!  This one was outdoors at Skansen and was a Swedish folk singer.  Apparently she was quite well known and there was a nice crowd gathered to listen. 

We didn't eat lunch here, but I still wanted to photograph the menu at this food stand at Skansen.  Moose, elk and reindeer were the standard meat offerings!

Stockholm Summer Weekend

In late spring, I was thinking ahead to my travel plans through the summer.  I had a BIG trip planned in May and a medium sized one at the end of August.  But nothing in the middle.  So I made a list of a dozen cities I'd like to visit, started research on Kayak and found a cheap plane ticket to Stockholm in July - done!!  It was a fabulous little city break and the weather could not have been better.  HOT, just like it should be in July!

 

Upon arrival, I went out for a wander around the city. The first place I stumbled upon was a concert hall just outside my hotel window.  There was also a market in the square. While walking, a young man came out of the concert hall and announced on a loudspeaker that there would be a free concert in the lobby for about 30 minutes.  Since I had no other agenda, I went.  It was a string trio of college-aged Swedish guys.  They were really good!  Between each song, they took turns making a small speech about the piece and composer - in both Swedish and English.  Such a great start to my afternoon!

 

I walked through the city center and next came upon the Opera House...

This was inside the opera house lobby - stunning!!  Just as beautiful as the one in Paris, in my humble opinion. 

A lovely church in the Kungsgaten ("Kings Garden").  I happened to walk by here just as an organ concert was beginning, so I sat down and listened for about 15 minutes.  What a cultured afternoon I had and really relaxing after a long hot walk!

I couldn't stay for the entire organ concert because I had to get back to the hotel.  I convinced two friends from London to accompany me on the weekend, so Laura was arriving in early evening. We had a nice dinner (Swedish meatballs!  Lingonberries!) and then walked around the Old Town.

The main street through the Old Town was full of shops, cafes and...ice cream.  Ice cream everywhere.  I LOVE it.

So of course we had two scoops!  The salted caramel changed my life.  I could go back to Stockholm just for more of that ice cream.  See how happy we look!!