This March has easily been one of the crazier months of my life - thus the lack of posts recently. March started with a continuation of my running recovery, which mostly consists of not running. Did I mention
I ran a half marathon?!
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| Brandenburg Gate. Berlin, Germany |
I got the chance to go to Berlin and Budapest on a travel grant that I applied for through my work and I'm already trying to plan a backpacking trip through central and eastern Europe. Living in the states you forget how old things are in, oh, almost any other part of the world. Although I spent the majority of my time attending a conference or working, I did spend any free waking minute pounding the pavement to see (or eat) as many new things as possible. Leave it to me to fill a work and vacation trip with all work. It was completely exhausting but mostly amazing and I'm so inspired to go back and see more!
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| Hungarian Parliament Building. Budapest, Hungary |
About two hours after my [nearly] two week trip to Europe was over, family started arriving in Houston for spring break! I thought I would be in an alarming physical and mental state when they landed, but Casey graciously came to the airport to pick me up, drove me home to take a shower (which literally changed my life) and then turned around and drove with me back to pick the first round of cousins up. I think everyone, including myself, was surprised as to how well I held up. It's amazing how far a shower, tasty BBQ, and good company will take you.
We went to NASA, where the theme was: "hurry up and wait!" We stood in lots of lines. The good news was that waiting in line resulted in some really cool things like seeing mission control and Saturn V. Other times it ended in puking children and a cramped place to take a photo. You win some and you lose some, but overall it was super fun!
We also had a bit of an eventful spring break due to a couple of lovely
Houston drivers and their interpretation of driving best practices. In short, semi trucks can go wherever they want whenever they see fit
and you do not need to accelerate [at all] before getting on to the freeway. Need to enter from the shoulder of the road at 15mph? No problem! These two unfortunate circumstances combined forces and lead to the death of the Volvo, but thankfully not our husbands. In all seriousness, it was pretty traumatizing, but we were so fortunate that no one was seriously hurt. We're still in the process of finding another car and going to the grocery store without an adrenaline rush.
The final element of crazy has been that somehow both midterm exams and final projects have managed to make an appearance in March. I can't say I'll miss being a student and a professional at the same time, but I will totally miss the people it has brought me to. We'll just have to do more fun things with each other and replace class with happy hour!
And somehow, I'm still
getting things done. Here are some of the tasty new dishes I tried in Germany:
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| Pakistani |
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| Turkish |
