April 4 - Richmond, IN, Earlham College

I'm coming home.

I'm staying with Alex, my academic dad, right now in London.

Rather, he lives in Ilford. When we got off the train the first thing he said was "This is an interesting neighbourhood at night." The random man who very nicely helped me carry my suitcase up the station's stairs at 5 pm on a Sunday was drunk. Today I saw a woman soliciting at the train station. She wore a pink cut-off top which was probably a bra, capri pants and dark high heeled boots. A bruise was visible in the centimeter between her pants and boots.

It's really not that bad.

I was here for a night and then I flew off to Holland for a few days, and now I'm back. Holland was wonderful. Derk's family surprised me by singing Happy Birthday at dinner.

Today I took the Tube over to Camden to wander around, but I did not buy some funky records with that old motown sound.

Tonight I saw the opening of The Merry Wives of Windsor at The Globe with Alex and Charlotte. It was phenomenal.



In anticipation of Frightening Things To Come (AKA graduation) I've started the online bookmark folder "What am I doing with my life? (AHH)." It's comforting that the first thing in the folder is www.marathonguide.com.

It will probably be either Frederickton Marathon in Maryland or the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon on the May 3 weekend. At Frederickton I've got a chance of winning cash if I run well. Last year's 5th woman ran 3.16. Either way it'll be nice to race with Amber again.

Maybe my running will start paying for itself. That would be great.

3:19:03. Quite pleased.

Splits:
15:46 (2 miles)
7:16 (downhill)
7:27
7:26
7:36 (into the wind)
7:34 (into the wind)
14:42 (2 miles)
7:39 (into the wind)
7:18
14:56 (2 miles)
7:41
7:29
7:32
7:36
7:58 (suspected to be long)
7:15 (suspected to be short)
7:24
7:35
15:16 (2 miles)
6:58 (definitely short)
8:54 (definitely long; still the slowest mile)
7:55
1:37

1:37:46 first half; 1:40:40 second half. Pretty solid, I thought.

My summer looks like this, I think:

Now-June 1: St Andrews
June 1-2: London (England)
June 2-7: Holland with Derk
June 7-11: London (England)
June 11-June 22: Barcelona and maybe Madrid with Derk and mother
June 22-July 23: Durango, Basque land
July 23ish-August 1ish: Richmond
August 1ish-?: Kingston


Just wrote my first exam. It went surprisingly well.

Edinburgh marathon in 8 days!

In late June I'll move in with my Spanish host family for a month of Basque- and Spanish-learning, English-teaching madness.

I was offered a job teaching English in the Basque region of Spain!

So.

I went to career services to learn whom to contact to get a work visa. Career services sent me to Student Support Services.

Student Support Services told me to contact the Spanish Embassy in London.

The Spanish Embassy in London told me to contact the UK's Scotland office.

The Scotland office told me to contact the Spanish consulate in Chicago because my student visa expires in less than three months.

The Spanish consulate in Chicago told me I would have to apply in person, which I can't afford to do.

I tried the Spanish consulate in Toronto, who also told me I would have to apply in person. I explained my predicament and they suggested I try the Spanish Embassy in London.

So.

I called the British consulate in Chicago to see if I could get my student visa extended so that I could apply through a Spanish embassy in the UK. The consulate charged me $12 for calling, then told me I had to call the UK immigration office.

All of this took so long that the UK immigration office was closed, and I get to try this madness again tomorrow.

Oh, joy.

I've had quite a few long runs, including three 20 or longer. I feel like my training was better before I went to France, but I might be wrong. I haven't done much speed. But I'm 13 days away, healthy, and my training's been good enough. My shoes get here on Thursday (which I'm a bit angry about, actually. They got here last Friday, but UPS seems to go to St Andrews only once a week.): I'm looking forward to breaking them in pre-marathon.

It should be fun, anyway.

I'm learning Dutch.

Derk has taught me the odd word, of which I only remember how to say "varken," pig.
Meanwhile, my running partner Rachel is teaching me handy phrases to surprise Derk with.

I'm dating Derk and that is nice.

Pictures from the St Andrews XC weekend trip to Glen Nevis and the Queen's XC France road trip are here.

Exciting things happened: the company was excellent; the Notre Dame was "IMMENSE. MAGNIFICENT. TERRIBLE."; Leslie was the first Canadian at University Worlds.



To be more specific, Derk and I arrived on the 2nd, met Caitlin and chilled out in the Louvre. Art is exciting. The next morning we wandered around because the Catacombs were closed, ate lunch in a suburban park, and picked up her Paris marathon packet at the expo. Four Quebec marathon buttons and one hat later, we left the delightful expo. Then we toured the eiffel and walked home which was beautiful.

The next day it was off to the arc de triomphe. Derk and I had camera wars (chronicled at the above link), moved our stuff to a hostel for a bit, then went Montmarte-ing. We attempted to cook pasta without a dish in the hostel's microwave, which proved unsuccessful, so baguettes turned into dinner.

The next morning we took a train to Rouen, where we spent two hours looking for a way to get to Mauquenchy for the race the next day. No trains, no busses, no bicycles for rent, no cars for rent, no representative from the local running store driving to the race. Called Brett: he said he could pick us up.

We toured around some churches in the evening and in the morning. Get a call from Brett: he's late; he's going to miss the women's race. Call a cab. 83 Euros later we arrive just in time to chase Leslie around the muddy course and yell at her to run quick! And she does!

Had a nice dinner with Brett: it was Derk's last night, and I suspect he left with no regrets.

Next day we took the train to Paris and Derk caught another one home. I returned to Caitlin's, where we caught the Olympic protests. Then we ran into Brett and Rob--what are the chances? So we planned our road trip.

Next morning we drove to Tours via Versailles. At Versailles I saw a group of those guys who sell fake Eiffel Towers run, throw their bags into dumpsters, and hide. I was amused. We arrived in Tours, ate at an adventurous restaurant--I had a salad which included raw beef and apples--slept. Next morning we drove around to chateaux.

(Leslie and I are buying one. It costs just shy of a million Euros. Two bedrooms. Our guests can sleep in the dungeon. We're using the extensive grounds to make a couple of cross country courses. We'll charge people to use them: it'll pay for the house's & grounds' maintenance.)

Tasted some wine, tasty tasty wine. Had some swell pate on some swell bread.

Back to Paris went Leslie and I, leaving Caitlin, Brett and Rob for their future road tripping. Did Paris-in-an-evening, because Leslie hadn't seen most of it yet. Whirlwind. Almost missed the last Metro back. Montmartre at 3, run at 4, Notre Dame at 6, Shakespeare & Co bookstore (first to publish Ulysses) at 7, Arc de Triomphe at 8, Eiffel tower at 9. We went up and didn't get down until 11:30. Then we ate dinner. We were supposed to switch Metro lines twice, but I took us in the wrong direction initially; we corrected ourselves; but we missed the last train for our last connection. We saw it pull out of the station. Walked back: we were lucky: it was short, along the water, lovely.

And that was France.

I love those rare people who not only define what friendship is, but re-define who I am as well.