I Love Sheep . . . Part III

The final installment . . .

So after going to sleep around 1AM Friday night/Saturday morning, we woke up at 4:30AM to catch our 6:15 train out of Kings Cross Station.  Ugg . . . I think this was the beginning of the end of my health : )

This was our “home” station-Paddington-at 5:15 in the morning . . . this is my sleepy husband. I think he slept at least half of the 8 hour trip to Aviemore, Scotland. I wanted to sleep (really badly) but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the scenery.  It was amazing . . . and there were SHEEP.

Okay . . . I took better pictures going home.  The views were well worth all sixteen hours of being trapped in a train (we had a fun table though).

People from the wedding kept asking us where we were staying . . . Hotel Henny was my answer.  That’s right, we were mooching.  The place was great, though.  It was a huge log cabin, ski chalet place.  Denis and I took over Kristin’s room because she and Kevin were leaving for there honeymoon at 3AM, so she wouldn’t have much need for it that night . . . especially as their wedding reception officially ended at 12:30.  Mrs. Henny offered to bring in a cot for me and Denis because there was only a twin bed in the room.  If you don’t know the Henny’s, they are all about eight feet tall, where as Denis and I are about three feet . . . we would be just fine in the twin bed.  You have to remember that we woke up at 4:30 in the morning on Saturday, and by the time we said goodbye to Kristin and Kevin, we went to sleep at 4 in the morning on Sunday . . . as soon as our heads hit the pillows, we were dead at the time.  (This is a link to Eddie Izzard’s Dressed to Kill–if you want to see the “dead at the time part” go to minute nine.)

Now to fill in the big gap I have created . . . Kristin and Kevin had a wonderful wedding.  It was certainly an odd grouping of people, but they all came ready to celebrate.  The ceremony and reception were both at Cairngorm Mountain, a national park in Scotland.  It was incredible there; what an amazing place to have a wedding.  There was a prediction of snow for the wedding day, but instead it just rained on and off and was INSANELY cold.  All of Kristin’s male relatives rented kilts–I must say, they looked pretty good.  I would have loved to see Denis in one (and he was willing) but it was too much money . . . it was the kilt or eating for one day.  While it was a tough decision, in the end, we went for food (Denis and I always do : )

While driving from the lodge to ceremony, we saw this sign:

The ceremony was quick and to the point, and I would have had better pictures but the officiant asked everyone not to take pictures . . . but then everyone ignored her, so at the end, I started snapping away, too.

It is good to see two people so genuinely happy : )  So good that it makes you want to go to a cocktail hour . . . 

Talking to Mr. and Mrs. Henny again was great.  It’s kind of funny to think that they have known me since I was in elementary school . . . that was quite some time ago : ) After some reminiscing (and a lot of sausage eating for Denis) we rode the furnicular up to the top of the mountain where the reception was being held.

And then the craziness began . . . the reception went from 6:00 to 12:30.  We were wondering how all of that time was going to be filled up; we soon found out–hardcore, all-out Scottish dancing.  The entire wedding was memorable.  Katherine’s speech was short, but it was so sweet.  Kristin’s dad made a great one, and Kevin’s words to Kristin were a nice touch.  The traditional Scottish dinner was amusing in and of itself.  I don’t think I will be going back for seconds on the haggis, though.  But the dancing made that wedding what it was . . . 

Denis took an awesome video, but I am too lazy to make it work on my computer . . . so go to his blog if you want to see it (it is hysterical).

We did the first hour of dancing . . . and then we crashed.  Remember, we hadn’t slept at all, and on top of that, the dancing was so, what do you call it, athletic, that it actually irritated our injuries from the marathon, WHICH WAS IN OCTOBER!  I also don’t think that it helped when I impaled Denis’s leg with my heel . . . oops.  I don’t think I have a career in Scottish dancing : )

The trip home the next day was beautiful (and crazy cold):

Needless to say . . . we slept like babies that night.

We had our last full day packed full of things to do . . . until we woke up.  Tower of London and a walk through Regent’s Park was good enough for us.

We thoroughly enjoyed the Tower of London.  We took one of the Yeoman or “Beefeater” tours–the guy was great, really funny.  It was interesting to learn that they actually live within the walls of the Tower.  The picture next to the guy is actually of their living quarters . . . crazy.  The last three pictures have to do with shitters : )  The last one is a 1500s toilet–the one before that is of the explanation of the toilet (how it just falls into a ditch) and the one before that is me in the toilet room (you couldn’t sit on it, don’t worry : )

Regent’s Park was a great way to end the day.  We must have walked thorough it for about two or three hours.

 

And we ended the evening with a fish and chips dinner . . . I think it gave us both food poisoning.  Not so good.

And on our last morning in London, we managed to meet up with Eric Linden.  It was truly great getting to see an old friend–a nice way to end our trip.

I Love Sheep . . . Part II

What would Denis and I do our first night in London (I’ll give you a second to guess . . . come on, this shouldn’t be too hard to figure out).

We went to Borders!

Now you need to remember that Denis spent about four years of his life working at Borders (and the fact that going to bookstores is one of our favorite activities), and then maybe you can appreciate how much we enjoy going to bookstores in other countries (okay, no matter how I twist this, we still sound like the losers we are : )  It was fun seeing how different the covers were on some of our favorite books . . . Denis claimed those pictures though, so you will have to look at his blog if you care enough to see a visual.

It’s kind of funny . . . today (Thursday) we had to take the bus into Port Authority so we could walk to the Chinese Consulate to apply for our visas, and as we were sitting on the bus, I realized that there was a Jamba Juice inside the station.  I couldn’t contain my excitement (strawberry surf rider, extra strawberries instead of lime sherbert, no boost–so good), and then I started thinking how it would be really fun to come here as a tourist and have so many cheap food options available in one place . . . and then I made the jump back to London.  Every morning we had breakfast at Paddington Station:

Mark and Spencer’s turned out to be our favorite place . . . we would pick up some food and then sit down on the chairs that were meant for people waiting for the trains . . . oh well, the waiting people could deal; we were too poor to do anything else.  The dollar is basically worthless there–a pound equals two dollars.  The problem is that everything is the same price in pounds as it is in dollars, so essentially, you are paying double for anything you buy in the UK.  Crappy dollar.

Anyway, we had a nice day–as in interesting, not as in weather.  The cold kind of sucked, and the rain sucked a bit more, but we dealt with it.  We started off with The Museum of London.  Expecting to see all sorts of fun royal court stuff and the like, I was excited for this stop on our itinerary.  Unfortunately, all of the exhibits from 1666 and onward were closed for renovation.  But we did get to see a riveting film on the Great Fire:

This sign says it all . . .

Next we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral, but once we got there, we decided that it just wasn’t worth 20 dollars to go in . . . I chose to spend the money on tea to try and warm up a bit : ) 

We had tickets to go see King Lear at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre for that afternoon.  Because of my amazing planning of this trip, we were able to walk right across the Thames to get to the theater.  Again, this was one of the activities that I was especially looking forward to (hey, it’s the simple things in life : ) but the cold rain and wind put a bit of a damper on our trek over the Millennium Bridge.  

But my spiffy umbrella made it all good . . . Even though the pictures are depressing enough to make you . . . well, you can fill in the blank with what you think I might have added here : )

King Lear was the best thing that we did tourist-wise.  I loved reading the play in AP English, Ronald Levao made it even better during one of my Rutgers Shakespeare classes, and finally getting to see it live, in a replica of the theater that it was first performed in, was super.  They guy who played Lear was amazing–same for Edgar and Gloucester–so good.  The fact that I stood (that’s right, I was a 5 pound paying groundling . . . or as my students might recall . . . a drooler : ) for three hours straight, enduring intermittent rain and 50 degree temperatures speaks volumes for the quality of the acting.

We were right next to the sort of peninsular part of the stage that jutted out into the audience . . . and eye level with some sweet feet (and target of a lot of spittle, good thing we had rain jackets on : ) The feet belong to the guy all the way to the left.  These musicians played before and during the play.  I was impress with how good the instruments from the 1600s sounded. (If the picture doesn’t show up, try clicking on it.  It is worth seeing the death stare that the horn player is giving me.)

Aww . . . how cute is my fellow drooler?  Some of the people around us really did fit the groundling stereotype; I wished bad things upon their restless, fidgety souls.  The first picture is of the seats for the richer folks (actually, we were going for these originally, but they were all sold out), and the second picture is of the stage–it was awesome.

It was a little disconcerting at the end of the play, though.  If you don’t know the story (or know about Shakespearian tragedies) almost everyone dies at the end of the play–most of them laying there on the stage, newly dead from the final killing spree . . . go Shakes!  Okay, so in King Lear, Edgar, Kent, and Albany are the only ones still alive.  They are standing there looking, quite appropriately, forlorn after the last lines were delivered, and then suddenly, the musicians start playing this jumpy music, and the three actors start doing a jig . . . then they systematically start tapping the dead characters.  I guess they are “it” and they wake up and join in the jig.  Lear and Cordelia are the last to tapped, but like all the rest, they pop up with smiles on their faces and begin dancing.  What the hell?  It was a weird, unexpected way to end one of Shakespeare’s most tragic plays, but who am I to complain–it was insanely amusing : )  That picture above is of one of the bows during the jig dance.

The next day consisted of a trip to Westminster Abbey and the British Museum.  Again, crazy cold and on and off rain weren’t the best of conditions (especially since I brought all skirts and t-shirts) but weren’t bad enough to keep us inside.

Westminster was beautiful.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but we did sneak a couple in the cloisters (what, other people were doing it, too).

I threw in a picture of Parliament’s Big Ben for good measure.

After Westminster, we took the Tube over to the British Museum.  I was excited to see the Rosetta Stone and I remember enjoying the museum last time I was there.  It is a beautiful building, but when you get down to it, the BM just couldn’t compare to the MET.  I know I am kind of a New York snob, but I try to keep an open mind.  I can easily see myself living in London (even though the inside of my nose gets way more disgustingly black there than in NYC), but, I don’t know, I just like New York (and everything that has to do with New York) better.  I don’t think someone who is moving to Shanghai should be saying this : )

There was a cool photography exhibit in the first room.  You know, I thought the Rosetta Stone would be bigger . . . I wanted to be impressed, but I wasn’t wowed.  Am I a bad person?  Last two pictures are some fun Korean art.

When the ceiling is one of your favorite parts of the museum, you know it is time to go back to the hotel : )

Denis spotted this Librarian action figure as we walked back to the Tube station.  How good it that?

The front of our hotel . . . it was located on a beautiful tree lined street.

Before we left on our trip, we pre-purchased tickets to the play Woman in Black.  It got these amazing reviews across the board.  Since one of the best plays we have ever seen (The Pillowman) came from London, we decided to give this play a go.  It sucked.  We discussed leaving at the intermission, but unfortunately, we stayed put, hoping it would get better.  We would have been so much better off if we had ran out of that place, especially because we had to wake up at four the next morning to catch a train to Scotland.  But even though the play made me want to swim in the Thames, it was fun hanging out in Covent Garden for a bit.

Sorry if you actually read this stuff . . . these post are turning out to be epics.

Again, it is way past my bedtime . . . some teasers for tomorrow . . . Kristin’s wedding and finally–a sunny day in London!  (sorry Davis, you will have to wait another day; I tried : )

I Love Sheep . . .

and that is all I have to say about my trip to London and Aviemore . . . but I guess that would make for a pretty crappy post.

So here it goes . . . 

We left good ol’ Newark at 9:00PM Tuesday night.  One of the best flights I have ever been on was about 10 years ago when I last went to London.  That trip made such an impression on me that I was determined to fly Virgin Atlantic again . . . and so we did.  VA did not disappoint:

Amusing ourselves before take off–note how tired we already look . . . it only gets worse : )

Denis couldn’t have been happier . . . mini diet cokes and 64 movies to choose from.

I kid you not . . . my dinner was delicious.  (I am NOT being sarcastic.) It was tortellini if you couldn’t tell. 

Sexy, yeah?  Those eye mask thingys really work, and the noise canceling headphones are heaven.

Classic window picture : )

Unfortunately I didn’t sleep at all on the flight over.  I guess I could have (I was certainly tired enough) but I was thoroughly enjoying my book and I got to watch Juno, can you blame me for not sleeping? So, needless to say, once we arrived in England, I needed some sleep–badly.  It took some trial and error, but we finally made it to our hotel via the Underground and some wandering around Paddington. Thank God our room was ready for us, or so we thought . . . after trekking up to the fifth floor, we discovered that the air conditioning was being worked on . . . right inside our room. What the hell.  I looked like I was about to die; the guy was like, “Jet lag, huh?”  Was it that obvious : ) and then he proceeded to tell us that he was going to be in and out of the room for the rest of the afternoon.  BAH.  So Denis went back downstairs where the front desk girl said the working guy would only be in the room for ten more minutes. What? I did not want to play this game.  Finally after waiting however long (I honestly have no clue as I think I was beginning to hallucinate) Denis told the guy that we would be in the room sleeping and if they needed to get in then knock.  Even with the banging and yelling–we died for a couple of hours. They did have to come in once. I hid in the bathroom : )

The room was good–even though the bed was crazy hard, it was still comfortable, and it was nicely decorated and not sketchy . . . but, damn, that room was small.  I don’t think the pictures do it justice, but there was literally about 10-12 inches on one side of the bed and about three feet of space at the foot of it, and that was all:

    

When we finally came to (it was about three hours later) we figured a walk in the park would be helpful. Part of the reason I chose the hotel I did was because Hyde Park was right down the street, so we wandered off. Even though it was pretty cloudy and kind of cold, the park was still great:

Happy little waterfall . . . Bob Ross would be in heaven.

We were certainly much happier than we were a couple of hours ago.

 

I think these grey geese made the vacation for me (almost as much as the sheep did).  Okay–story time–When I was at Rutgers, I would often go running in Johnson Park.  One day I saw this weird group of grayish geese; they weren’t white geese, and they weren’t Canadian geese.  The only explanation I could come up with was that the white goose (there was always one or two hanging out with the special geese) took a look at the Canadian goose, and suddenly realized what he/she was missing . . . voila . . . my fun goose was produced.  I started calling them inbred friends . . . I know that this is entirely wrong, as even if my theory was correct, they would be by no means inbred but rather interracial friends, but the name stuck.  I had never seen any water fowl like these, and every time I spotted them on a run, I would feel a little happier (come on, I was running, give me a break).  Then one day (like years later, actually) I finally figured out that my inbred friends were really grey geese . . . Like you really needed to know this . . . but anyway, they were every where in the London parks.  And it was good. 

Okay, I have to go to sleep now, so more later . . .

Gone to London

See you next Tuesday!

Death by Packing

Packing is killing me . . . damn.

We started off kind of slowly–doing a couple of boxes of books a day, labeling them neatly and stacking them precisely–just the way I like it : )  I was feeling accomplished, in charge . . . competent, if you will.

I was none of the above.

Wednesday came and proved that I had nothing on packing.  Packing was kicking and would always kick my tuckus.

Denis and I spent literally all day working on the kitchen.  We went out once to open up our new bank accounts (with Citibank we will only get screwed out of 2% of each withdrawal we make overseas . . . yeah!) and eat, but other than that, it was all work, all the time.  Not only was the actual packing difficult (I have so many randomly sore muscles and cuts and bruises from the boxes) but parting with our beloved, well, stuff, was hard, too.  I know one shouldn’t get attached to material things, but come on, I can’t help myself.  Denis and I have worked hard on nurturing our various collections of cups, plates, and magnets–It was hard to part with them.

  

These are a few of our favorite cups . . . the “Dessert Diaries” ones have recipes on the back : )

Whatever, you probably think I am crazy, but if the cups make me happy, so be it . . . at least I don’t collect cats : )

The kitchen boxes required much more strategy than the book boxes did.  I am like the packing nazi; Denis runs everything by me before he actually packs it as to avoid my wrath.  But with this move it is even worse.  Who knows when we are going to see this stuff again.  It is going to be festering in a Mahwah storage unit for possibly three years, and then it will have to endure a move to NYC–that can’t be a happy ride for breakable items.

    

You have no clue have much we (carefully) stuffed into that box.  Every draw and cabinet in our kitchen looks like this now . . . except for the food cabinet, but now we have nothing left to cook with : ) These are only some of the evil kitchen boxes–there are much larger ones lurking further down that same wall.  I think the packing finally got to Denis.  This is one of my packing wounds . . . four days later.

So now we have to move on . . . decoration stuff, clothing, and then the worst part–for anyone who has ever had to move before, I think you will know what I am talking about–the random stuff that is left over.  There are boxes everywhere; most of your belongings are being good little belonging boys and girls and waiting patiently in their respective containers, but then there are the renagades.  The miscellaneous items that evaded the packing process by lurking in the dark recesses of your home while everything else was being properly labeled and organized.  Ugg, I dread that last day.

But at least I got these:

 

On Friday, Aliki and I did what we do best . . . meet at malls to eat and shop.  We switched things up this time and went to Riverside Square.  After a great lunch, the shopping began.  There is nothing like shopping with Aliki–I have never had such successful trips before, with some seriously good conversation mixed in : )

After making a killing at Cole Haan, J.Crew, and Banana Republic, we made it to Pottery Barn.  TWO birthdays ago, my sister had given me a Pottery Barn gift certificate that I almost used for a huge furniture order, but then the phone people pissed me off, and I ended up never making the purchase.  I guess the gift certificate didn’t approve because it went into hiding after that and didn’t come out until about a month ago.  While it is not exactly the best time for me to be making PB purchases, I figured I better use the gift card before it disappeared forever.  We were wandering around for a while when, in this random back corner of the store, we found a travel accessory display.  I was able to get those luggage tags and the green patent-leather travel folio for our passports and such.  How fun was that.

I met Aliki at 12:00 that day, and I got back home at 5:00.  I don’t think we have ever had a trip shorter than four hours.  If it weren’t for her anniversary and the impending doom of traffic, God knows how long we would have talked : ) I will miss our mall trips . . . a lot : (  

Happy 4th Anniversary, Aliki and Mike!

Hardcore Apples to Apples

When you get down to it, I am a lazy brat.  I can admit it.  But for someone who puts in so little sometimes, wow, I certainly have been getting a lot back lately.  I can’t believe how generous people have been with their time.  I have been trying to get together with with everyone who makes it difficult for me to leave for China.  Even though I barely get to see some of these people each year, they are doing their best to make sure that we get to meet up before Denis and I leave.   It is warming my heart (ewww).

Against ALL odds, a group of Whippany Park teachers were actually able to meet in one place at one time.  I never thought we would pull this off, but there we were, all enjoying a delicious lunch at Margherita’s on Thursday.

I am seriously going to miss my co-workers.  I only wish that we started hanging out regularly earlier.  What will lunch be like without you guys?  Probably pretty boring (and not controversial in the least : )

Denis and I were finally able to catch up with Laura and Eamonn that same evening–who knew it could be so hard to find time to meet up when you live down the street from each other (oops, I think that laziness comes into play there–sorry about that : )  At least we have two more definite meetings before we go.

I can’t wait to see everyone else in the 21 days we have left.

Although I have known all along that I will miss my family, our get together tonight made me realize just how much it will be.  My sister drove home from DC for an unexpected visit, and she asked if Denis and I wanted to meet up with her and my parents for dinner.  I suggested that we include my mom’s twin brother’s family in this, too.  After a dinner filled with great (meaning silly) conversation, we went over to their house for “just a little bit.”  Three hours later and I am second guessing my trip–not in any real sense, but just in recognizing how lucky I am to have gotten stuck with the monkeys that I call family.  I can’t imagine not being able to see them on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and all those other “just because” meetings in between.  I couldn’t have asked for a better bunch of people to be stuck hanging out with for my whole life : )

Playing Apples to Apples with my mom, dad, sister, Aunt Faith, Uncle Bill, Kim, and Denis was truly hysterical.  (Some of our partners in crime were missing though . . . Just wait till the going away party : )

My mom went nuts . . . this is what most of her cards ended up looking like.

My mom wasn’t the only freak, though, we all had our moments.

They look like some sort of non-gangster gangsters (okay, not really, but in my head, it works)

Neither these pictures nor my words do this evening justice . . . When times are tough in Shanghai, these will be the memories that I look to in order to keep a smile on my face.  I love you guys!

(hope your sweater is okay, Kim : )

What the . . .

I decided to get the tetanus shot . . . bad idea.  I got the needle on Thursday, and I was lulled into a false sense of security as it didn’t hurt too badly going in and it didn’t bother me too much that day.  Little did I know the treat that I was in for.

Yesterday I couldn’t lift my arm at all, yet we still went running that morning.  While I normally suck at running, I REALLY sucked on that run.  I couldn’t even pick up the pace at the end.  After an epic struggle to get my soaking wet clothes off (and a really pointless 2 mile walk to get a wonderful sandwich that turned out to be not so wonderful) I slept for two hours.  I spent the rest of the day being rather pathetic and pathetically useless (we are trying to pack up all the stuff in our apt).

When I went to shower that night, I noticed that there was a massive pain in my collar bone area.  I knew that it had to be from the shot; I truly understood this in the deep recesses of my brain.  But in that crazy, irrational spot (who am I kidding–that is the majority of my brain) I was thinking all kinds of horrific bump causing diseases . . . all night I was imagining a blood clot making its way into my heart or brain–doesn’t make for good sleep.

I knew that there would be no long run this morning : (  This sucker HURT, but I did get confirmation that it was just the tetanus/diphtheria getting cozy in the limp nodes of my neck.  Yeah, good times.  Time to take some Advil and try to get my arm to stop being hot (no joke–it is burning up by the injection site) and try to get all the swelling down (so pretty–the protrusions in my neck and, again, at the injection site–so pretty).

But, really, the comedic value in watching me try to accomplish daily tasks with my gimp arm might almost be worth the pain : )

Beach Frolic

On a regular basis, Denis will bring up the ice cream sundaes at Duffer’s in Wildwood Crest.  He is in love.  We haven’t been to the Jersey Shore in four years, so I figured that it was time to get Denis his fix because I doubt that after this summer we will get there any time soon.

I booked us three nights at the Port Royal.  We each made some CDs for the ride there and back (a tradition–this year had a throwback theme–throwback as in our 10 year relationship : ).  And we were off.

So . . . it rained the whole way down.  A little disheartening, but our incredibly funny CDs kept our spirits up.  It had stopped raining by the time we arrived, and we felt we were set . . . until we stepped into our room.  The smell of some sort of musty b.o. was overpowering.  I wanted to cry about it.  Instead, I acted like a big girl, turned up the air con, opened the balcony door, and headed to the beach.  We figured that the room just needed to be aired out.

We were on the beach for about 40 minutes when it started to rain again.  Back to the room–ewwwwww.  I couldn’t stand it, so I went down to ask them to change our room–after waiting about 30 minutes (I am NOT over-exaggerating here) the guy finally came to me and told me that he would have the maid fumigate the room . . . umm, what does fumigating the room constitute, I asked.  She sprays some stuff, he said.  Are you kidding me?  Great.

I guess he felt bad, because he called our room a few minutes later and said he had another option for us.  When we got to the new room, we realized that not only were we being asphyxiated by the smell in the old room, but there was also about forty square feet missing from it because of a storage closet on the other side . . . who did I piss off so much when I called to book?

Once we got that out of the way, the vacation gradually improved.  I saw dolphins playing in the ocean each day–that was fun.

This is a bad picture of it, but you can see one of the fins.  It was cool, though, there must have been around 10 of them that day.

Growing up, my family and I went to Wildwood Crest ever summer, and without fail, we would reserve on day to walk from the beach in front of our hotel to the jetty that is just across the channel from Cape May.  This walk was one of my fondest memories of those vacations.  There are no hotels because the area is part of the coast guard reserve–it is peaceful and beautiful . . . but now they have the walk permanently blocked off to help a bird species make a come back . . . good for the birds, bad for Nicoles.  You can drive to a designated area and then walk through a trail in the dunes to get to the jetty, but it is not such a fun trip.  So we skipped it this year.  As I looked between the slats of the fence that blocked my fun, I noticed that the crabs had taken over the beach . . . I think they were laughing at me.

This jelly fish, though, was not laughing anymore : (

 

I don’t know if any of you can relate to this, but I have always wanted to run on the boardwalk–it has been a dream of mine (dream big, right).  So I was determined to accomplish this goal on our vacation.  Unfortunately, we decided to start running at 10:00am–an a REALLY sunny day.  (It was supposed to be an earlier start, but the beds down right sucked, and sleep did not come easily.)  We ran down the part of the the boardwalk that is before the boardwalk (you know what I mean if you have been there before–the concrete part that runs along the beach).  We were doing okay–it was hot, but we were going at a good pace (for us at least : ) and were easily dodging the death mobiles that they call bike rentals.  Then we got onto boardwalk proper.  It was hell.  And hell is running in all sun all the time and being attacked by various incarnations of bicycles–2 wheelers, 3 wheelers that were supposed to look like those low slung motorcycles, and the most deathly of all–the four wheel cart of a bike–misleadingly called a surrey . . . sound so sweet . . . but it isn’t.

So we are running, and the damn surrey is right next to us, and it won’t go past us (can’t go past us).  There are four people peddling the sucker and then there is this little kid, like hanging out in the basket on the front.  He waved to us and we waved back . . . then he started talking:

The kid’s like, “Hey, they’re going as fast as we are.”

Nicole . . . .

Kid, “Why aren’t we going faster?”

Nicole . . . 

Kid, “Hey, let’s go faster!”

I looked at Denis and we left the surrey in the dust.

We looked disgusting after the run; this picture doesn’t do it justice.  I think Denis may have wanted to kill me . . . I don’t want to run on the boardwalk again unless it is before 7:30 am.  (masochist)

As usual, skee ball and mini golf saved the day.

I seriously love skee ball . . . the only thing I may love more is the turtle that popped out of the fountain and scurried around on the mini golf course.

How cute is he : )  But I think he contributed to my mini golf ADD . . .

I am usually pretty good at mini golf–I still got a hole-in-one on this course and was under par . . . but I was all over the place.  That was me trying to use a field hockey flick to get my ball back into play–I just whacked it off the green : )  And that way my ball trying to hide from me and my satan club.  Good times!

Overall I am glad we went.  Our trips to Cape May were great–I think we will have to start staying there.  And we really did have a good time–not to mention, Denis finally got his sundae.