Prague International Marathon Weekend

Since we got to stay in Prague a little longer than we thought we would, we decided to participate in a great event here in town. This weekend was the 11th running of the marathon in Prague. About 4,500 racers ran last year...I'm not sure how many took off this year. Geo had only trained for about 2 weeks leading up to the race. He probably ran 2 or 3 times a week while in school (even in the freezing cold) and then took a couple weeks off while we were on our various vacations. Then for the last 2 weeks he got serious, running a few longer runs and tapering properly. I knew he was serious, even though he wasn't anticipating to go out and have a fast run. He finished in 3 hours and 23 minutes, which is a great time! He told me to expect about a 4-hour race, but based on his times when I saw him out on the course, it looked like he was running faster. It was a great day: overcast and not too hot. Those are great race conditions. Anyhow, Geo was happy with his performance, and I was happy that I was able to see him 3 times on the course, and at the start and the finish. It was a lot of fun and Geo reports that Prague puts on a great marathon. It's small, but it has room to grow. Prague is going to be putting in a bid to host the Oympics in 16 or 20 years and they think the strength of the marathon will be a key consideration.
You can look at a few pictures of Geo by following this link: http://www.marathon-photos.com/index.html
Look for Prague International Marathon and then use Geo's bib number 999
Meanwhile, I rollerbladed a 15 Km non-competitive race. I was pretty much by myself the whole time. I'm not sure how many people competed, but I was not the last one across the finish line (my personal goal). I passed a lot of people too. It rained a couple times during my race and I had to cross cobblestone intersections three times (horribly embarrassing I might add) and a couple sets of tram tracks (that was easy). I had fun, which is the most important part. I might even do another race this coming weekend...purely for exercise and fun.
And we're joking around saying we might go to Nice in June to watch Ironman France, although it won't be the same if Geo's not competing. Stay tuned...

Our New Place in Prague

Geo and I signed a contract for a 3 month lease on a nice apartment in Prague. It's pretty conveniently located (very easy Metro access). It takes 10 minutes to get to Wenceslas Square. Our apartment is huge--98 square meters. I have no idea what that is in square feet, but for the same price (a little closer to the popular parts of Prague) we only would have gotten about 40 square meters. It's 3 bedrooms, and has a nice living room and kitchen. The place itself is about 9 years old, we're told. It's typical Czech construction...nice but not extravagant in any sense. We have a big TV with cable...30 German stations and CNN in English. Not one channel with any Czech. Very interesting...The landlord and his wife live one floor below us. A couple of guys live the floor above us. Also in the building is a small business. Across the street is the only curling arena in the Czech Republic. There is a brand new, gorgeous, American style mall one Metro stop away. Unfortunately, there isn't a movie theatre there, but there is a great big grocery store (much like a Super Walmart...it's got everthing).
I'm going to try to upload a few pictures. We've got a new internet connection for the laptop now. It's a mobile phone modem. It is not all that fast, but it's cool because it can go anywhere!
Here goes...well...it looks like it's not going to work after all. I've got to figure out a way to reduce the size of the pictures so they'll be able to upload. Perhaps that will be a project for another day...sorry about that!

A Little Bit More on Prague

So many things we didn't know for the first three months because it was such a different climate then. Spring is here and things are actually open now. And everything is so beautiful. Here are a few pictures of what Prague looks like now.

A Few More Pictures

These three are: Krissy and Geo on the old medieval wall in Tallinn, Estonia; looking at an old part of Stockholm (tiny lanes through most of the old town); and an overview of Stockholm.

Recent Pictures

The three pictures are: the view of the Oslofjord, coming into Oslo from our "cruise" ship; the Holmenkollen Ski Jump from the 1952 Olympics in Oslo; and the view from almost the top of the ski jump, looking back into the Oslofjord.

The Beginning of Prague, version 2

I know it has been a long, long time since the last post. We were out and about, seeing the world! Now how's that for something new and exciting?!? Well, we are "home" again in Prague, and this time we're in a sweet apartment that is actually in Prague...not that we didn't like the experience we had with Thunderbird, near Prague (as they put it), but now we're truly in Prague. Geo got his first monthly transit pass, a real sign that we are blending in with the locals.
Today we got hooked up with mobile phone internet technology. Our laptop can go anywhere and still be online. Sweet! It's a bit slow, but it gets the job done. (We'll see about uploading pictures, though.)
Geo's still waiting to find out if he has an official internship for the summer. In case that falls through, we'll just stay here until August 1 and then we'll be back in Arizona to get things started for the Fall trimester back at campus.
I'm going to have to write more later about our Scandinavian Blitz Tour. I took good notes along the way and I took tons of pictures on our new camera. 834 pictures in less than 2 weeks, to be exact. Not that any of them are any better than the sort of pictures I used to take...the new camera is just so small and cute and easy to take out if I feel the need.
So enjoy the teaser pictures for now...and as soon as I get fast internet access I'll publish some more.
Ciao!

This picture is in Copenhagen, Denmark. These are the horses that the Carlsberg Brewery uses today to deliver beer kegs to the pubs.