November 13, 2011

November 13, 2011

This morning Becca and Alex woke up around 7:30 and Nikki and I slept in until 8:30. Becca decided that, because her foot felt better, she would run part of the race with Alex (just not the beginning or end). So they packed up, had breakfast and checked out before Nikki and I headed down to breakfast around 9:00. We had an absolutely lovely breakfast before packing up and checking out. We left our bags in their luggage room, which was nice to be able to do. Also—side note—everyone at the hotel memorized our names and greeted us every time they saw us—“Buona Sera, Mrs. Nelson etc—love it! Anyway, then we headed to the starting line to see Alex off. It was crazy busy but very exciting because there were about 3,000 runners! The race started at 10:00 so, once all 3,000 people had started, Nikki and I headed to the lake (a half marathon is thirteen miles so it would be a little while). The weather today was absolutely stunning—sunny (not a cloud in the sky) and warm, no wind. We sat by the water, talking and taking in the beautiful view of the sailboats on the sparkling lake.

We had planned to do more than just that but, at 11:00, an hour after the race had started, we heard cheering and realized the first runners were already finishing—that means they averaged between four and five minutes per mile for all thirteen miles! So we left our spot on the lakeshore and headed to the finish line, cheering on the frontrunners. Alex finished around one hour and fifty minutes so we cheered for him and then went to see him. We then found Becca (who had run almost the entire race as well—about twelve miles of it) and headed to the big event tent. Alex and Becca showered and changed and then we got in line for our free pasta lunch at the pasta party! We ate our bread and pasta by the lake and then, realizing we needed to catch the bus, said goodbye to the lake, picked up our bags from the hotel and then headed to the bus stop, making it just in time.

The bus ride to Rovereto only look about half an hour so we had about an hour to kill before our train. Alex wasn’t feeling well so he sat down in a park and the three of us girls explored the town. It was a beautiful little mountain town that was very quiet, which we loved. We found a cute little gelateria and decided to have some and were so glad we did—it was so delicious and so cheap! We ate our gelato as we headed back toward the train station. There we met back up with Alex and waited about fifteen minutes for our train to Bologna. The train was very crowded but, thankfully, we found seats, although not together. We spent that trip doing homework and reading because we were all pretty tired. We arrived in Bologna around 5:50 and caught our train to Florence at 6:15. That train ride flew by and we were back in Florence by 6:50. From there we said goodbye until tomorrow and caught our respective buses home.

When I got home it was just about time for dinner so I unpacked and then it was time. Andrea had something to prepare for tomorrow so he didn’t have dinner with us but Franzi and I were both back so it was the three girls. We started with something that had tomatoes, some kind of flour something and cheese—I really have no idea what it was…it wasn’t my favorite though (I think that’s the first time I have said that!) We followed that with omelets, which were absolutely delicious as well as salad and bread. We finished off with clementines, which were very yummy.

Now that dinner is over I am typing up all of my blogs and going through my photos from the weekend (I took about 400…oops!) After that I will probably head to bed pretty early because I am pretty exhausted from a day of cheering and traveling :) I hope you all had lovely weekends as well!

All my love,

Kari