TRAVEL BLOG

CRAP I LOST MY PASSPORT

1/2 Marathon

After wearing sneakers EVERYWHERE for 2.5 weeks my foot still hurts! So in order to not further injure myself I was advised by my doctor to not run in the marathon. So instead I was on the side lines cheering on the rest of the gang in my "13.1 can SUCK IT" shirt!

Getting an MRI done this week to see if my foot is fractured... should be fun! hopefully I can resolve this prior to the Tour de Earth!

Itinerary

Here is a loose itinerary in no particular order...

- Ireland
- Turkey
- Bulgaria
- Romania
- Hungary
- Croatia
- Slovania
- Austria
- Czech Republic
- Poland
- Russia
- Trans Sib RR
- Mongolia
- China
- Thailand
- Indonesia
- Vietnam
- Laos
- Cambodia
- India
- Australia

panic franic

So last night my heart started racing, I got light headed, I couldn't breathe, I started shaking, I plopped myself in the middle of the living room floor and started to go through all the motions of an anxiety/panic attack!

It just hit me that on Friday I am giving my work my 4wk notice and I will be unemployed so I can travel the world... WTF and am doing?!

After talking with Phil I calmed myself down, regrouped and realized that I have been dreaming of doing this for years!!

So today all is better and I bought our tickets to Ireland!!! We will be embarking on our journey May 4th!! eeeek! :)

Tendi what?

Last week I went Snowboarding on Sat and Sun, ran 12 miles on Monday evening, ran 5 miles on Thursday and after the 5 mile run couldn't walk home with out having EXTREME pain shoot up my right foot! I don't know how i got to work on Friday but had my co worker bring me crutches and working at a Hospital definitely has its perks cause I was able to get a podiatrist appointment within one hour of calling the doctors office!

My doctor is one of the head podiatrist for the NY Road Runners and a runner himself! Cute but married! STORY OF MY LIFE! After him feeling up my foot and getting an xray the verdict is that I have Tendinitis! Woop woop! Basically he put me in a soft cast and told me to keep it on for five days and to not get it wet… (showering has turned into quite the plastic bag experience) he prescribed anti inflammatory pills and physical therapy for 4-6 weeks. He said that I should be OK to do the marathon and that I can cross train… I might have to get the bike out and I can do the elliptical as long as I stay off my toes. He also recommended foot insoles which I have to go buy and bring back to him with my sneakers next week and he will help set them in for me.

i also don’t need crutches (thank god cause my armpits started to swell from just going down the hall) and can apply pressure to it… so I look a little gimpy but hopefully all will be well in two weeks and I can run in the marathon!

Trip Planning

Just realized that MAY is almost here!! holy crap! where does the time go! in a little over a month I will need to be all prepped and ready to go for my world travels! Phil and I plan on starting a blog that will document our trip preparations and actual travels! quick to do list:

- Get shots (not the alcoholic kind)
- Obtain appropriate Visas
- Update my Polish Passport
- Pull together a rough itinerary
- Start looking at tickets

13.1 Miles

NEVER in my whole life have I ever even considered running a distance more then 5K. There is no reason why someone should have to run more then that in their life time!

Then November 1, 2009 happened... when I watched my dear friend run in the NYC Marathon! Amazing! and I figured if she can do it why couldn't I? I could certainly use the exercise and its been a really long time since i've set a goal with a timeline in my personal life . I decided that I would run the NYC half marathon. 13.1 miles seems like a good start.

About 8 weeks ago I started running. I started with one loop around the reservoir, 1.6 miles. it wasn't that hard but the thought of running two loops around without stopping several times a week worried me. Its hard to believe that 5 weeks ago I was DIEING after my first 3 mile run! how the eff was I going to do 13.1?!? Low and behold I just ran 10 miles on Sunday!

did my knees hurt? yes.
did my big toe pulsate in pain for hours after? yes.
could I not walk up stairs for 2 days? yes.
did i feel like a freaking champ after? yes!
was the bud light i had right after delicious? hell yes!

I am so proud of myself for sticking to it and not giving up! Living across the street from Central Park and being sponsored by ASICS doesn't hurt either ;)

2009 can SUCK IT!

Agita came to visit and we checked our livers at the door of at least 20 bars over the course of the weekend! We celebrated New Years Eve for 4 nights in a row! It was AWESOME! I miss her already! This whole weekend was one long SNL skit after the other! “…is that bad?”

 

Happy Holidays from your Madison Ave Girls

Happy Holidays to you all! I wish for all of you to be smothered with love, good food, and lots of presents this holiday season!

xoxo,

asia and the apple

First Real Snow This Season

This weekend was maybe one of the better ones this year! I got a Christmas tree on Friday… and by got I mean dragged one home from Washington Heights in the middle of the night! It snowed all day Saturday and the city was just amazing in all the white flurries falling from the sky! And Sunday the day was bright and white all around! It was truly an amazing weekend and I swear God engineered it all for me and the sake of my happiness!

 

Phil's Birthday/ Indian Street Food/Robin Williams

Filipek's birthday was this week so to celebrate we went to a dinner and a show... the dinner was at the Biryani Street Cart (winner of the 2009 Vendi Awards) it was DELISH!!! then we went to town hall to see Robin Williams stand up show! HILARIOUS! there was some good toilet humor... one i enjoyed in particular was him descirbing his idea of a human poo powered car and how a bean burrito would get him from LA to Manhattan!

We finished off the night at EPSN Zone with drinks and using up the rest of the points on Phil's game card that he got a couple months ago... i realized that i truly suck at games... well air hockey and car racing i can still hold my own... the other stuff not so much.

Faaaaaaaaalafel

Totally forgot to mention that there was falafel involved this past weekend...
Set the effin catapult! Son of a Tit! You're a little asshole chucka! Slappin' the Bass! Those fish tacos are the tits! Big time! SUCK IT! Half a cup!

Thanksgiving Shit Show

Thanksgiving weekend was a total shit show! Started with the parade and ended up in a three way bitch slap fight! Good Times! Anna and I made ourselves a delish dinner, drank beer and watched movies, Agita got into town early Friday morning and we started off with a bang and kept going 100mph for the rest of the weekend. The whole weekend was a mix of quotes from "Land of the Lost" and "I Love You, Man" spiked peppermint mochas, bud light, jager, and cupcakes. Weekends/weeks when Agita comes to visit are always guaranteed fun and always end with a hangover. Can't wait for New Years 2010! And HUGE discovery of the weekend was: Anna can totally hang!! who woulda guessed...

its been a while...

...since my last post. sometime around the end of May work got crazy hectic as my project was nearing completion. May thru September was basically a sprint at the end of a two year marathon. Once that finish line was crossed and the Red Ribbon was cut (by a CEO and a senator of Jersey) i have been in recovery mode.


To make this short since my last entry here is a list of significant happenings in my life:


- My 25th Birthday

- My mother's 50th Birthday

- Labor Day weekend Szajda wedding

- Started new projects at Columbia University Medical Center

- Developed a crazy allergic reaction to my contact lenses

- Agita visited and we went to the Jay Z VMA afterparty

- Had an EXCELLENT review at work

- Met a nice boy...

- Celebrated 2 YEARS in NYC!

- Poconos for Kimmy's engagement party

- Gaby's wedding!

- Basita's Baby Shower!

- Told my boss about my traveling plans

- ... so called "nice boy" stopped calling...

- Agita ran IN the NY Marathon!

- Finally went to Boston!

- Started running in hopes to be able to run a half marathon in March! (thank you Agita for the inspiration and showing me that you can run marathons and still have a drinking fun social life!)

So all in all recovery has been pretty great! with exception to the whole "orange boy" situation but whatever... as usual i am sure I'll get over it.

The plan is to resurrect this blog... as well as create a new one that will focus mostly on world travel preparation.

Subway

There's a kid on the subway around 7 years old licking the pole and his dad isn't saying/doing anything about it! I just puked in my mouth a little!

Home Sweet Home

I wentto California for Mother's Day! I missed my flight to Long Beach, but after causing a scene at the jet blue counter got a free flight to Burbank the same day! Thank you Jet Blue!

it was so nice to see my Mommy and the rest of my family/friends! it was a pretty mellow weekend mostly spent in Huntington Beach which I must admit the weather there beats the weather anywhere else! It was so nice to walk around in shorts and a t-shirt and to sit in my back yard sipping on a minty drink while soaking in every ounce of sunshine!

Agita was in NY while I was in So Cal... leave it to us to be on opposite sides of the country at the same time! We have decided that she must come back soon and Puck Fair better prepare itself!

Five Boro Bike Tour (numero dos)

This year’s bike tour was completely different from last years! It was COLD, WET & MISERABLE! But all in all we managed to have a blast! Twelve of us Stantechies participated in the tour! We started off in great high spirits and ended up with chattering teeth and a high need for a warm shower! I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a hot shower more! Well… maybe that one time when I came home from ZLOT 2000 where I was allowed to shower twice in the two weeks I was there… but that’s a different story!

Half way through the race my brakes stopped working as I was going down a hill in Brooklyn that lead straight into a left hand turn! I just screamed as I was going down and was totally anticipating a complete wipe out… but being the crafty and fast thinker that I am I tried my best to run over as much pot holes as possible and to weave right and left to slow myself down. Once I got down the hill and around the turn safely (only pooping my pants twice) one of my coworkers helped me fix the brake and I was fine for the rest of the ride. The last 15 miles were the worst since the temperature dropped, the rain got heavier and the wind picked up! Then once we got to Staten Island 42 miles later we had to wait out in the cold for the ferry to take us back to the island. I have never been in a place with so many frozen bikers who actually paid to be there! It was a very adventurous yet terrifying experience but I would totally do it again next year!

Vegas Baby

What was originally planned as a girls weekend turned into an asia/archie weekend! I flew in to vegas at 11:30pm archie picked me up from the airport and we went straight to luxor for a night of bar/club hopping. Saturday we pool hopped and eventually ended up at carnival court with the crazy bartenders who balance 10 bottles of jager on their head while walking around the bar!

After a whole day of catching up and drinking we met up with archies friends at rain where the guest dj was paul oakenfoul (sp chk?) The music was awesome! And they had crazy trapeze dancers above the dance floor! We ended the night at ghost bar which overlooks all of vegas. I tried to dance off as much of the alcohol as possible and it seemed to work because now I am sitting poolside at the luxor and feel fantastic. A little dehydrated but feeling good!

Viva Las Vegas!

Coney Island

This past weekend was gorgeous and warm! Friday night was the season opener for Stantec softball in central park! I played 2nd base; I made a few great catches and some nice hits! On saturday I made plans with OG and a few coworkers to go on a bike ride to Coney Island! Sooo fun! We ate hot dogs and drank beer on the boardwalk... Didn't get to get on any of the rides but I will def have to go back and do so!

bye bye camera

While on a pleasant bike ride around Manhattan two weeks ago with a few of my co-workers I took amazing self-timer pictures of the group! It was a beautiful day, slightly windy but perfect riding weather! We stopped at the lighhouse underneath the George Washington Bridge and snapped a few more photos. Then we headed of to Inwood park where you can see the Bronx right across the river. As I reached into my backpack i realized that I have left my camera on one of the picnic tables by the lighthouse. We rode back as fast as possible but the camera already vanished... :( poop!