Wednesday: Swim and Weights Workout

So, I will say that in the annals of potty training, today was a low.  Ivan woke up before five this morning screaming for his diaper, it was more than the worst.  The wailing went on until 7:00 and mutated into hysterics.  In fact, I will just go ahead and let you know that we were all hysterical with exhaustion and the mind-numbing misery of a determined toddler wailing for something that he is not going to be given.  I hid in the bedroom for about 10 minute slugging coffee and desperately wishing it was something stronger.

Ivan finally pulled it together long about 7:30 AM, but he never once used the potty.  It was a whole day of wetness and great misfortune and serious exhaustion. We stayed home from swim to potty train, which was a total bust today, and by 8:00 AM, Ivan was ardently asking about the gym nursery.  We will stay home on Friday as well, but we are both ready to get back to our morning outings.  On a morning like today, there is no joy in being stuck at home.

Anyway, as we moved through the day, things got easier.  We had a successful swimming lesson and a reasonable trip to the grocery store.  When Ivan went down for his nap, I was able to get in a really tough Exercise TV yoga sculpt workout, before whipping up dinner, heading to work and then to swim.

Swim tonight sort of made me feel like a new person.  Work makes me late to swim, so I only got in 2500 meters, where the rest of the class got in more like 3500 meters, but it was my only option.  Workout as follows:

• 10 x 25 swim with pull buoy
• 10 x 25 swim with pull buoy
• 5 x 100 swim at t-30 pace
• 1000 pull
• 5 x 100 swim @ t-30 pace

It was a great workout and my swim actually felt really strong, which maybe means that a week of not pushing as hard as usual made me stronger tonight OR my deep frustration with our potty training situation spurred me to greatness.  I do not know.

So another day at home tomorrow.  Hopefully there will be a run and some yoga in there somewhere.

Tuesday: Another Day of Potty Training Spent Somewhat More Productively

So today, we made more progress.  There were frequent potty trips, only one or two accidents, and overall success.  One accident resulted in Ivan taking his wet underwear and hiding it in desk drawer, so that maybe I would not notice that he was suddenly naked.  It seems good and bad that he is somewhat mortified when he has accidents.  I am sure that Freud would have awful things to say about my parenting, but tonight we had an entire trip with no accidents.  It was great!!

In other news, I made my Glowing Green Smoothie for stockpiling, read Cornelius Vanderbilt so as to be finished this week, and got in a great circuit workout from Exercise TV and a jog stroller run.  So much more productive than yesterday!!

Monday: A Great Loss

This is apparently to be a week of great loss and deep frustration, as I am trapped at home in a potty training netherworld of pain and agony.  I feel that if Dante had ever attempted to potty train a child, specifically my child, he would have most certainly written in a tenth circle of hell.  Not that today went terribly, but this morning, there was some screaming and threatening and deep angst at being asked to use the potty.  By ten this morning, Ivan had successfully completed the most important of all the bathroom functions to take place in the potty, and he was racing for the potty at the slightest urge.  I was able to take him off the timer, and there was much pride.

The bad thing is that we were chained in the house staring at each other like High Noon all day.  It was just tense, and it seemed like it was a constant confrontation where I was forced to chase down my child and go nose to nose asking, "do you need to use the potty??", "are you sure, are you sure, are you sure??!!".

In other frustrating news, FitTV disappeared from our digital cable.  On a day when I was trapped at home, I could always count on FitTV to provide me with enough fodder for exercise that I could work out all day.  FitTV was stolen from me by Oprah's OWN network, and I would never have expected it from Oprah.  I feel like she is always telling us to get off the couch and eat our flax seed and what not, but she really failed me.  No more Namaste Yoga and while Gilad still exists, he is relegated to five workout that air in the mornings, and I have already done them all.

Luckily, with digital cable, I can download all these great workouts.  So, when I realized that FitTV was gone for good, I pulled myself together and downloaded a yoga sculpting circuit workout.  I have never even heard of a yoga sculpting circuit workout, but I am here to tell you that I am in ridiculously good shape, and it was seriously the hardest thing I have ever done.  At one point, as I was approaching the third circuit, I thought I was going to have to quit and slink out of my den and hope the cat was not watching.  I made it through, and I think I will try it again tomorrow.  Other than that, it is another day of potty training and pain for me.

Sunday: I Somehow did Not Blog on Friday or Saturday

SO, on Saturday, I was up at 5:45 AM to meet my running group at 6:30 for a run which ended up being a nine mile run, about which I am very proud.  We ran most of the 11.2 mile course at Percy Warner Park taking quick short cut to shave off nine mile hill and make it a shorter course.  I have been sort of wanting to do the 11.2 all summer, but as slow as I currently am, it is a huge time commitment.  You should just see me waddling up the steeper hills.  Anyway, everyone was very patient with me and even waited while I went to the bathroom and stopped at a water fountain.  At home, I made more Glowing Green Smoothie, which I stored in mason jars and ate a papaya and avocado salad for lunch that was just absolutely fabulous.  The salad is honestly just papayas and avocados and some lime juice.  I am really enjoying my detox and am moving Kimberly Snyder's book to the coveted spot on top of my desk next to my Dr. Perricone collection.  

In other news of Saturday and probably the reason that I did not blog on Friday is that Ivan refused potty training on Friday and Saturday.  He just refused.  The couch in his bedroom and the couch in the den smell COMPLETELY of urine.  There was poop on the kitchen floor.  I have no words to tell you the frustration and deep deep anger that I was forced to suppress all weekend as I cleaned various messes and even tonight when I realized that the lovely settee in Ivan's room needed to be re-febreezed.  I have tried shame, punishment, rewards, anger, all to no avail, and it seems that we are back on track to wearing a diaper to prom.

For this reason, I made the very difficult decision to stay home all week and let Ivan work out his potty training issues.  Hopefully if we center our lives around a home toilet, things will be better.  Honestly though, I have to admit that I currently have no faith in this hypothesis.  The long term forecast seems to be that I will have no choice but to ask Ivan to move outside in a couple of years, since he continues to refuse to potty train. He will become completely feral, and my life will be like Lord of the Flies.  I feel that I will become the sad Piggy character whom no one will listen to even if I am holding the conch, and Ivan will be Jack; all naked, savage and angry.  This is where potty training has taken my mind, and it is not my best angle.

Anyway, today, I was up early again to meet my swim group for morning swim at the lake.  Now, I will say that I should have A) checked the weather and B) checked our coach's facebook page where she posts a final verdict on whether or not we are having swim.  Instead, I just loaded up into the car in a tacky track suit and my red bikini and assumed the best.  As I drew nearer and nearer to the lake, however, it was evident that there was not a lot of best to assume.  The sky was increasingly black, and it was raining more and more steadily.  Of course, I was already there, and admittedly I have swum in quite a bit worse, so I lumbered into the water and began swimming with the other members of my swim class that apparently do not check the weather or read facebook posts.  I would be curious about the common sense factor of those of us gathered at the lake this morning, but I choose not to think on it right now.  I am addled by a child that will not potty train, and I cannot say that I am at the top of my game.  It  LITERALLY POURED 75% of the time that we were swimming.  It was ridiculous.  We just swam around in circles for 1.7 miles and then got out and went home like so many wet rats.  The water was not too cold and the visibility was not too bad, but that is really all I can say about my workout.

Anyway, otherwise Sunday has been a nice day, and I am hoping the best for tomorrow's potty-train-a-thon.

Thursday: A Day of Great Gain

So my Thursday actually went incredibly well.  I used my time wisely, I ate good food, and acquired amazing things.  We were all up early this morning and we had a very successful potty training incident.  I had almond milk oatmeal, as I have read a recent article about soy and have decided to forgo it as my milk alternative.  I had lots of blueberries and enough green tea to bathe an elephant.  I loaded Ivan into the car promptly at 10:00 AM and headed into work where I met my parents, and they took Ivan home for a spend the night.

Work was lovely.  I accomplished a lot and enjoyed my time there.  I hit the grocery on the way home and bought items for my Glowing Green Smoothie to which I decided to add beets.  I also bought mason jars so that I could seal my excess smoothie more conveniently.  Like I have said, my eating habits are about to crack out.  Next week, I am determined to learn how to make a probiotic and enzyme salad with fresh miso paste, as well as the papaya and avocado enzyme salad.

After my Glowing Green Smoothie, I loaded into the car and ran three miles at the gym and swam half a mile before hitting the showers and getting ready to go to an estate sale where I became the proud owner of a lapel pin worn to commemorate the death of Abraham Lincoln as his coffin passed through America by train.  It is a thrilling piece of Americana which I cannot quite believe is sitting on my mantel.

Hitting the gym tomorrow and must face up to the fact that my busy work week has left me with LOADS of paperwork that I have been diligently ignoring.

Wednesday: Under the Weather

And of course, I probably should have expected that after my hectic schedule, terrible eating, and all the rest of it, that I would come down with a bit of a something.  It seems like a cold or some such, and I didn't feel great on Tuesday and today it seemed that with a head cold it would be silly to stick my head underwater.  SO, I was able to get in a Gilad session and some yoga.  Ivan and I hung out at the house all morning and we had some successful potty training incidents.

I spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone with Garmin and FINALLY got my watch (310xt) reconnected, and it downloaded all but two of my recent workouts.  I got caught up on Cornelius Vanderbilt's goings and comings, and I wasted all sorts of valuable time on the internet and sending long emails.  Such long emails.  This is apparently what I do when I have time.

Also, I have eaten today as if food were going to become a lost commodity, and I needed to store up for a lifetime of starvation.  While it was all pretty good stuff, the volume was just astounding.  Tomorrow, I am heading into work and will have a free evening as Ivan is going to be spending the night out.  Very exciting!!

Hopefully feeling better and having a great workout as well.

Monday: Swim and My Eating Habits Are About to Crack Out

So this morning, Ivan and I were out the door to swim reasonably on time.  Now, I will say that potty training has added a new strain on our timeliness, as we have to have a potty run before we get in the car, and then once arriving in the gym, we have to have another potty run.  I am glad that some people are deciding that indoor plumbing is not terrible, but I don't think I can get started and get out the door any earlier.  Anyway, there were no accidents at the gym today, and I feel that today has been an overall potty training step in the right direction.  


At swim, I think I got in 2500 meters.  I swam pretty hard yesterday, and I did not put as much effort as completely necessary into today's workout.  No big thing.  Again though, after two weeks off swimming for the most part AND my compromised state, I am pretty slow, and I felt like I was working a lot harder than usual just to keep up with the people in my lane.  I didn't really even make a note of the workout.  I swam 500, pulled 500, kicked a lot, pulled some more and then swam a 200 meter cool down.  It was fine.


At home, I had to acknowledge that my eating habits are about to crack out.  I am on the road to being one of those people who shows up for dinner at your house with a tupperware of crazy raw vegan food, and proceeds to eat out of my tupperware instead of whatever tasty dish you have prepared. For some cursed reason, my compromised state and my two weeks vacation where I pretty much ate what I wanted, left me kind of sleepless, puffy faced, puffy eyed, bland of skin pallor and feeling wretched.  It seems like since my pregnancy with Ivan, I have been unable to eat what I wanted without paying for it with half a bottle of Tums and couch confinement.  Yesterday, I decided to address the issue with a full on calorie full detox.  I am pretty much down to vegetables, fruits, turkey, gluten free toast, and a bit of coconut milk dairy free ice cream.  I have been reading this Kimberly Snyder detox book, The Beauty Detox Solution, and it has both ruined and enriched my life.  For instance, yesterday and today for lunch I had the following smoothie.  

RECIPE: GLOWING GREEN SMOOTHIE

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 head organic romaine lettuce, chopped
• 3-4 stalks organic celery
• 1 bunch organic spinach
• 1 organic apple, cored and chopped
• 1 organic pear, cored and chopped
• 1 organic banana
• Juice of 1/2 fresh organic lemon

I blended all of the above together for a smoothie lunch that I was initially frightened of, but actually rocked my world.  It was really delicious and you can make enough for a couple of days and I am committed to doing it for a week.  Now, I will say that the smoothie takes FOREVER to make.  I had to food process the ingredients for about 20 minutes, before blending them for at least 15 minutes, and I will not even tell you about all the chopping and peeling and whatnot that went into the preparation.  These are the times when I realize that a personal assistant would really come in handy.  

Anyway, the smoothie is great, and on top of the other drastic changes that I have made this week, I feel that my skin is looking lovelier, I am sleeping better, and feeling great.  I think that somewhere in my head, I assume that I will be one of those people that works out a lot and eats what they want forever, but it just is not the case.  I can't expect two weeks of Pop Tarts, Apple Jacks, and refined flour to make me feel better as a person.  It all caught up with me, and I am now reduced to Glowing Green Smoothies, which honestly, 10 years ago, would have made me laugh through my Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizza.   

Sunday: SWIM

In keeping with being back on my game, I was up and at 'em this morning at 5:15 AM.  I packed a healthy breakfast of fresh berries, a grab the gold bar, an iced lime water and a huge green tea. Everything went off without a hitch until my child crawled out of his bed like Cindy Lou Hoo and wanted to know where I was going, and was I going "simming" without him.  For whatever reason, it has become my child's habit to wake up at ghastly hours of the morning and ask guilt inducing questions.  He has been doing it since we arrived home from California, in the same way that I have been falling asleep where ever I am sitting at about 2:00 PM each day.  I think we may be jet lagged.


Anyway, I had no choice but to explain to Ivan that I would come home after swim and I would be back and Daddy was here to stay with him and I would get him some milk in a sippy cup and he needed to get back in bed and blah blah blah.  Iregardless of this delay in my morning, I was at the lake in time to do a warm up lap before the main swim.  I had a really nice swim, but I had to come to terms with the fact that my compromised state made it impossible for me to swim at my regular pace.  I looked over to notice my regular swim partner, John Maple, breaststroking beside me.  When I popped up to ask him what he thought he was doing, he said, "waiting on you".  JOHN MAPLE!!!!  Aaaah the sadness of my slowness.   I will have to find a new open-water swim partner so John Maple can continue at his speed.

At home, Ivan never went back to bed and he was a walking tantrum throwing zombie.  I have honestly never seen him behave so horribly and cry so often.  I was fully dressed for church and Ivan was partially dressed when I finally gave up, zipped Ivan into his crib, and let him cry it out.  He slept for almost four hours and I fell asleep on the couch.

At least I got my swim in.  Swim tomorrow!!

Also, I might have eaten two cup of gold bars this morning!!

Saturday: Run and Yoga

OH, it has happened.  I am back on it.  I am for sure back on schedule.  I was up this morning at 5:30 AM and hit the streets at 6:15 AM with my running group to get in an easy eight miles.  It was lovely.  The weather was nice, the rain did not start until after we left, and there was lots of good talk and catching up after my long hiatus.

At home, I managed a quick yoga session, and I have really congratulated myself all day for getting back on my schedule and accomplishing things.  I have written all my thank you notes, and I have done 1/2 of the ironing, and I cooked dinner one night this week.  I also froze a crate of blueberries and planted some watercress in my kitchen.  PLUS, I am working three wheat grass shots this week and no dairy or wheat.  I am a detox QUEEN.  My child is still alive, and he does not seem to hate me.  It is all I can ask for after my last two weeks.

Now, in other news, my crashed computer is now fixed, but devoid of any programs, so I need to re-download my garmin program and re-download all my pictures and my work software.  After that, I will hopefully post a review of my swim in San Francisco as well as keep you posted on my ever slower run times.

Getting up early to swim at the lake!!

Friday: SWIM!!

So today, I thought that I would hit the Whole Foods blueberry sale before swim.  Whole Foods has been touting this big sale all week, and I felt like I needed to be there at the crack to get a case of organic blueberries at 1/3 of the price.  Of course, I was the only person at the store, I was late to swim, I for some reason bought my child two mini-cupcakes, and we had a little problem with the wheat grass powder apple juice samples.  Ivan has recently become a huge fan of pushing levers that release liquid, and it was a hard sell to drag him away from the juice canister.  No one cares about blueberry sales.

Anyway, our Whole Foods hiatus put us a full half hour late to swim, and you know, I get really tired of people saying "nice of you to join us" when I am late.  I am dragging along THE un-potty-trained toddler, a LOAD of things including a massive diaper bag with a change of clothes, 3 million extra pairs of Thomas the Train underwear and diapers and snacks and toys and the kitchen sink.  I am also dragging myself in a compromised physical state and trying to get the best deal on blueberries from my local vendor, all before 8:30 in the morning.  It is actually NICE OF ME to join you.  I could sit on my couch staring glazedly at Sesame Street and deny everyone the joy of my presence in a bikini that is growing smaller EVERY DAY.  

Anyway, I got in a 2500 meter swim, had fun talks and picked up Ivan from the swim nursery to spend an afternoon in my continued state of detox.  I am definitely looking and feeling better, and my wheat grass ingestion is making me feel a bit like I have hopped on the food crazy train, but it all seems worth it.

Tomorrow, I am going to learn to make a Glowing Green Smoothie.  It is for sure going to happen!!

Run tomorrow morning and hopefully yoga.  I must get in the yoga!!

Thursday: Day Off

I find that my days off usually become days off by necessity, as I am SO busy that there is no chance of a workout happening.  We were up early, running about and doing our very best to get to a doctor's appointment on time, then another doctor's appointment, then to Whole Foods for lunch, then home to clean and plant and iron and maybe take a small nap before the babysitter arrived.  Then rushing off to a party and then out for a bite to eat.

It was madness.

According to my new obsession, The Beauty Detox Solution, I need to be doing some yoga to release toxins from my lungs.  I will have to cut myself a break, as I have really just arrived back in town and I am barely through all my travel laundry.  It won't kill me to have a day off.

Tomorrow, I have swim.  I am going to ATTEMPT to get to Whole Foods for the organic blueberry sale and I am going to attempt to get in a yoga session.  Hopefully, a good day of routine tomorrow and a good run on Saturday will really get everything flowing back to normal.

Also, I would like to pat myself on the back for having a beet juice with a wheat grass shot while at Whole Foods and a huge helping of kale.  Also the chicken fried tofu.  Why will it be so good??

Wednesday: Double Swim and Detox and I have begun to resign myself to the fact that Ivan may wear a diaper to prom

Oh friends, I have lived the life today.  This morning I had a tasty smoothie and a spelt muffin with loads of berries for breakfast, a big cup of green tea, a bit of coffee and a big glass of iced lemon water.  Ivan and I were early to swim, and it was refreshing to roam back into the old gym after a two week absence.  Everything felt fresh, and we were both happy to be there.

Now one of the things that I am loving/hating about potty training is how hilarious it really is when I think that Ivan has mastered some level of potty training.  For instance, today when I dropped Ivan at the gym nursery, I informed both Cameron and Miss Pat that Ivan was completely pee trained.  "He will most definitely tell you when he needs to use the potty."  As soon as such arrogant words escape my lips, I can usually count on Ivan to look at me with eyes of steel and urinate a puddle through his Thomas the Train underpants.  This is exactly what happened today.  As soon as I finished my sentence, there was a puddle on the floor.  I looked ridiculous, and Ivan waved his hands in the air like he just didn't care and the thing is, he doesn't.  He does not care at all.  He refuses to respond to shame, sadness, frustration or the public embarrassment of standing in a puddle of his own urine.  It is tragi-comic or I am a terrible mother.  It is one of those things.

After cleaning up said puddle, I was a bit late to the pool deck and maybe hung out a bit too long with Dennis, today's coach, talking about my recent travels.  In the pool, I swam 2600 long lane meters or 2843 yards.  It was a good first day back, and on the way home, Ivan and I hit whole food where I picked up some Sushi and a fresh beet juice with a wheat grass shot.

At home, there were babysitter mixups and swimming lessons and a new tutoring student to get started with.  For the whole summer we are focusing on word problems and algebraic equations, which is so good for my brain.

For dinner, I had some a spelt berry muffin with almond butter, a piece of millet toast, and a huge container of mango and berries.  THEN, I hit evening swim, where I swam 2400 yards and came home to a Grab the Gold snack.  The decent food has made a big difference, and my mind is still reeling when I think that I ATE SO MANY POPTARTS in San Francisco

Tuesday: Home for Good

In an amazing feat of jet setting, I came home from Spain on Saturday and boarded a plane to San Francisco (with my child) on Tuesday.  I actually was not suffering from any jet lag, and having been separated from Ivan for a week beforehand, the trip out was a bit like a honeymoon for us.  Everyone seemed well behaved. There were celebratory happy meals in the Dallas airport, and Ivan took great joy in his airplane cocktails and watching the plane go up and down from his window.  It was really a pretty nice day-long trip out west through some seriously large airports.  Yes, the portable DVD player broke on our first flight, but all was not lost.

Once in San Francisco, we jaunted over to see family at dinner and settled ourselves back inside our lovely borrowed home for the week.  The house where we stayed was in walking distance of the beach and a playground, and a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.  We walked down to the beach every morning that we were there, took long naps and had great dinners.  This year in San Francisco, I had the luxury of a babysitter for a couple of nights so that I could go for great dinners and not feel quite so cloistered.  Ivan jumped into the water, and we visited the Aquarium where he petted skate and starfish.

We did not watch much TV, but by the end of the week, in a city with so much amazing fresh food, my eating habits began to spiral negatively.  There was a small macaroni and cheese issue which led to an Apple Jacks issue, which turned tragically into a pop-tart issue.  There was, at one point a chocolate issue, and in a final low point, half a loaf of french bread with butter. I knew things were bad when on Sunday night, I was calling the vegetables on my pizza a salad.  By the end of the week, it was showing in my face.

This prompted me to order a detox book, The Beauty Detox Solution, which encourages me to drink all sorts of juiced kale and bitter greens.  It is pretty hardcore, but has a few elements that I can incorporate into my daily routine.  I have to hit Whole Foods tomorrow for some watercress, and I will for sure grab a kale juice with an added beet.

ANYWAY, San Francisco was the greatest, and I ended to week with a great swim session in the bay.  After my last year's disasterous swim from Alcatraz, I was excited to sign up for a bay swimming clinic.  The water was 53 degrees, so I wore a full wetsuit, bonnet, wetsuit socks and gloves.  As per usual when swimming in cold water, I peed my wetsuit for added warmth.  It helps so much, as the urine cuts the cold of the water touching your zipper when you are first getting in.

I was very comfortable in the water, though I could feel the fatigue of the cold by the time that we had been in for about an hour and 15 minutes.  I worked on sighting and keeping my stroke from flailing though I was tired, and the wetsuit accoutrements felt as if they were affecting my stroke by the end.  All in all, it restored my confidence in swimming the bay and I feel that I will be back at it next year.

The trip home from San Francisco was less blissful.  In the airport as we were boarding the plane, Ivan held up two toys that his Aunt had given him, one was a train and the other was her CAR KEYS.  Oooh, the drama.  There was much fedexing and overnighting to be had when we arrived home.  Ivan sprinted away in the Dallas airport, he had difficulty with the people that sat in front of him on the plane and he cried for a good bit of the journey.  Once we touched down in Nashville, Ivan was happy and we arrived home in one piece to began our normal lives.

Things went pretty smoothly with a good night's sleep, a day of detox eating and a nice run in the evening. Double swim tomorrow, starting back to work, and blogging regularly!!  Never traveling without my computer again.

Saturday: It has been forever since I blogged

I think that this is my longest blog hiatus since I started my blog.  It was actually pretty painful, and I missed it.  IN FACT, I was so overcome with concern at not being able to report my comings and goings that I almost had a Mac attack on Friday night and went and bought an ipad, so that I could at least tap out a bit of my travails in Spain.  I do not think that I will travel again without some way to capture my experiences.  I took a notebook and made journal notes of everything we saw and did, but it was not the same.  

Anyway, Spain was really fabulous.  My friend Melissa and I travelled together and then met her sister once we reached Madrid.  Our flight over was brutal, and I do not mean to complain or sound like the Princess and the Pea, but there is no quality sleeping to be had on an overseas flight when you are flying coach.  I sort of have in my head that the next time I go overseas, I will put all my money into one of those British Airways flights where you can sleep in the first class beds.  I will be glad to save money elsewhere by sleeping in hostels and public parks and eating Grab the Gold bars that I have brought from home.  Anything seems a worthy sacrifice.  

We began our day with an 8 hour layover in New York, where we went to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the MET.  The clothes were stunning, the craftsmanship was unreal and the presentation was interesting, to say the least.  We were able to have lunch at the met and to be honest, I thought that we would never get out of the MET (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) as it seemed as large as the Louvre and the more we walked the more there was of everything that you can imagine.  It is amazing that as a world population we have provided so much stuff.  Just so much stuff.  

Our overseas flight was just the worst, as above mentioned.  I staggered off the plane shellshocked that anything that miserable could last 8 hours.  It seemed cruel and unusual.  We landed finally in Barcelona, and boarded a train to Madrid.  You know the trains were so much nicer that the plane, and I took many a fabulous train nap on our trip.  I usually strolled off the train thinking that life was worth living in the world of Renfe (the train company).  

So we arrived in Madrid at around 3:45 and walked with our luggage to the Hotel Mora.  It was quite nice and in walking distance of the train station and the Prado.  We checked into our hotel and took showers and walked down to the The Prado.  The Prado is a Spanish Art museum that houses portraits of the Spanish Royal family, many Catholic depictions of various Biblical events and some portraits of various events in the lives of Greek gods and goddesses (for instance Saturn eating a baby).  We saw art by Goya, Reubens and El Boscos.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  On the way home, we stopped at a tapas bar (La Taperia) for dinner and hit the room early for a good night's sleep before hitting Madrid hard on Monday.

Monday: On Monday, we embarked on one of my all time favorite things to do in the world:  a hop on/ hop off  bus tour.  The weather was lovely.  I wore the very best of my tennis shoe chic and packed up my trip journal and my camera and we were off.  We saw the Parque de Retiro, which houses the Crystal Palace, the Rose Garden and the Boat Pond.  We stopped into the Sal Monica shopping district mostly to find a bathroom, went to see the Palacio Real and Gardens which were once home to the Spanish Royal family.  It is said to rival Versaille, but I would disagree.  It is more eclectic with a porcelin room and a China room that you would never find in France, but it lacks the scope and especially the gardens.  We had lunch outside again as the weather was lovely.  In the evening we took a   modern tour of Madrid and saw the football stadium, some of the foreign embassies, the children's hospitals and Ingles, which is a sort of Bloomingdales of Spain.

Fo dinner, we walked to Plaza El Mayor.  It took us about 20 minutes to get there from our hotel.  We went to the Mercado del la Paz and had Churros and chocolate at San Gines.  They were crazy delicious.

Tuesday: Now, this morning, I got cocky and thought that I would go for a jaunty run through the streets of Madrid, and I felt a bit fancy as I ran through gardens, around the Prado, and circled around Neptune's fountain a couple of times.  I felt great when I came in.  I stopped at Starbucks on the way back to the Hotel Mora, and I felt like my day was off to a fabulous start.  I was, however, entirely incorrect about this.  I crashed hard as we were walking the Botanical and I took a park bench nap like a vagrant with horrible jet lag.  We had hoped to visit the Reina Sophia today, but it was closed and we missed Picasso's Guernica.  We had a quick lunch after the Botanical gardens, and then grabbed a train to Pamplona.  

I slept for most of the three hour train ride to Pamplona and when we stepped off the train I felt relatively refreshed, but it was only moments before I realized that by way of a surprise cold front, the weather had stabbed us in the back.  The weather had turned brutally cold and by the time we had moved into and then headed out of the dorms where we were staying, the temperature had dropped to 45ish degrees and it threatened rain.  It was bitterly cold.  It was so cold that I could not wrap my stiff fingers around my camera to document our evening.  On the way home from dinner, where incidentally, I had some amazing lasagna, it began to rain horizontally.  So cruel of Spain to treat us thus.  

Wednesday, June 1: So today, we were up early to catch the 7 AM bus to Bilbao so that we could tour the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art.  I slept most of the way there, and the museum was stunning, but I was struck over and over with why they would have built it in Bilbao.  It was a three hour bus ride, and while the town of Bilbao was charming with medieval squares and a great little tram system, I couldn't, for the life of me, understand the choice of location.  I should read more about it, but it seemed that it should have been in a higher traffic location.  It seemed a bit like overlooking New York as a place for a center of modern art and turning instead to Paducah, Kentucky.  Also rather damning was the fact that the weather forced me to wear a sun dress with leggings and my dansko clogs, a cashmere sweater, a rain coat and a scarf. It was painfully frumpy.  

That aside, the museum was just stunning.  It was rife with works by Jeff Koons, a huge flower puppy and balloon like steel art.  There was a Port-a-jon with microphones over the toilet seat and megaphone speakers coming from the top of the port-a-jon that told just how much of our privacy has become public with the internet.  There was a screen  replaying the 1966 world cup while on another screen a 21st century crown cheered the game.  There was barbed wire art left over from apartheid, and pickled cow innards from Damien Hist that was supposed to help me come to terms with my own mortality.  A room of feminist art focused on fecal matter, which was rather unfortunate and actually did not resonate with me.  

After the museum, we toured the small city of Bilbao and then boarded our bus back to Pamplona (I slept the whole way home) where we got into bed early in anticipation of our early morning train ride to Barcelona.  

Thursday: I slept the whole way to Barcelona, we arrived about 11:00, and took a cab to the Hotel Condestable.  The Hotel Condestable had an amazing bathroom, but was otherwise rather sad and shabby with graffiti on the doors and paper thin walls that made it sound as if the man in the next room was actually snoring in my bed.  

ANYWAY, we took another Hop on/ Hop off tour and saw pretty much all Barcelona could offer us in two days.  We visited the Sagrada  Familia, which is the magnificent and unfinished cathedral by Gaudi.  It is over 100 years in the making and only halfway finished.  We also visited Gaudi's Parque Guell, the Palau Reial and Paellons Guell and Barcelona's futbol club.  All of these sights were amazing, we were near the ocean, and it was a great tour, but the weather somehow made Barcelona a lot less glamorous than Madrid had seemed to be.  I was still stuck in tacky, makeshift cold weather clothes and shivering about town in sad, sad tennis shoes.  I snacked on a grocery store dinner.

Friday: Somehow, today I slept until 10:30 AM, and it was completely lovely.  We started out hop on/ hop off tour rather late, but the weather was rather better and everything seemed a bit more positive.  We saw the Olympic ampi-theatre, and rode the Teleferic (air trolly) to the top of Montjuic so that we could see all of Barcelona and the ocean from this medieval fort of protection.  Of course, it was raining and cold at the top with even a bit of fog to block the view.  We visited the Barrio Gotic, went to the flea market and then toured the Catedral of Barcelona, which is their oldest church built close to the sea so that sailors could visit upon disembarking.  It was beyond medieval ornate and the church is still very much in use with people coming in and out for confession as we were touring.  We got in early, packed our bags and prepared ourselves for a 6 AM flight to Munich.

Saturday: We cut our connection from Munich to New York rather too close, the overseas films were just awful, I slept a  bit and made it home at 4 PM on Saturday.  

 No jet lag so far!!!