Check out the training video on Caroline's other blog

Hi everyone,

Rather than post twice anytime anything exciting is happening with regards to the marathon, I'm going to be writing on my other blog, carolineinbarcelona.blogspot.com. Yes, the blog name is old, but I have a lot on there, so I'm sticking with it. For starters, there's my newest post with a video of Alan and me from our training run this past week. Here's the link!  Sam and I will keep updating this blog with our joint adventures, so check back every now and then to see what we're up to.  But for all your marathon news updates, head on over to carolineinbarcelona!

Caroline

Caroline's running the Boston Marathon!

Hi everyone,

For those of you who aren't following my (Caroline's) blog, you should know that I'm running the Boston Marathon this April! I'm running to raise money for the Museum of Science's Traveling Programs. Since not all schools can get their students to the Museum of Science for field trips, the Traveling Programs take the museum to them! They do all sorts of science programs at the K-9 grade level, and the programs are available on a scholarship basis to schools that can't afford them. Sam's school has been one of the beneficiaries of this program. Last year, they got to learn about heat and temperature in October, and motion, speed, velocity, and acceleration in November.

I'm really proud to be running for this program, and I would be honored and happy if you wanted to support me by donating to the Traveling Programs. If you want to donate, the link is here. If you were thinking of getting me a present this holiday season, this would be a great present! You don't have to get me anything else!

Of course, I'd also love to have support on the day of the marathon, so if you can come to Boston for April 16, 2012, that would be wonderful!

Love,

Caroline

I did a podcast!

I might possibly be the coolest person you know.  Here it is:  http://www.mos.org/events_activities/podcasts&d=5198

We’re back in Cambridge!

And what great weather we’ve got here!  We went to participate in the inaugural ride for the Boston bike share program, called Hubway.  It was such a fun experience – everyone was so excited, the weather was perfect, and now Boston has a bike share program!  We both signed up, and we got t-shirts, and we made friends with some other bike enthusiasts.  We’re busy now taking care of things around the apartment, so we’ll write more later.

Carolinevej – the most awesome street in Denmark

Yes, that’s right. There is a street called Carolinevej. We pretended that it would be pronounced “Caroline-veg” which is a perfect name. Actually in Danish, “vej” is a street ending that is pronounced like “vay” similar to how we would call a street Something Way.

In any case, we found it and took lots of pictures. It made one of us very happy – you can probably guess who!

The Blue Lagoon

Our flight back from Copenhagen connected through Iceland again, and this time we had only one day (well really 8 hours).  We went to the one thing we most wished we had had time for on our first stop in Iceland, the Blue Lagoon.  It’s really touristy, but it still manages to be extremely awesome.  It wasn’t a beautiful day by any stretch of the imagination – mid-50s, rainy/misty, and very cloudy.  But somehow that almost made the Blue Lagoon seem even more exotic and unusual, since we couldn’t see very far past the edges of it. 

Anyway, you’re probably wondering what the Blue Lagoon is.  It’s a mostly seawater natural pool heated by geothermal activity, and the minerals and algae make it look translucently blue.  Even in the cold rainy weather, it felt great to get in.  And there was a cave, and white silica mud that you can put on your skin, and a warm waterfall that feels like an excellent massage, and lots of different areas to explore.  It was nothing like the geothermal pool we went in on the first part of the trip.  Supposedly the stuff in the water is really good for your skin, but it is pretty bad for your hair! 

We were too scared to try to bring our camera out for fear of dropping it in the water, but we talked to a Mexican family who had a waterproof camera.  After we took a picture of them, we asked them to take a picture of us and send it to us, so hopefully we can post that when we hear back from them.

After the Blue Lagoon, we showered and got back on the bus to the Keflavik airport.  Nothing like a spa break in a geothermal lagoon to make an 8-hour layover fly by!

Best day ever (except our wedding!)

After two weeks of mostly rainy weather, Denmark was nice enough to give us a beautiful warm sunny day for our last 24 hours here, and we made the most of it!

The couple that we rented our apartment from came back from their own trip to Vietnam on Monday, so it was time for us to move. We mostly cleaned up the apartment, and then ran out to take care of some last errands before they arrived. Somewhat awkwardly, we got back from our errands to find they were already back, earlier than expected! And we hadn’t finished cleaning! Fortunately, they were really friendly even after their long trip, and they were actually going right away for a birthday party so we had time to finish cleaning up. They were also very impressed that we had washed all the linens and towels that they had left for us.

OK, on to the good part.

We carried all of our luggage across town to meet our new host, Lars. He is a Danish guy that we found via CouchSurfing.org, a website that lets you find people willing to host you at their place for free. He turned out to be a great guy – very nice, friendly and interested in hanging out with us. We treated him to dinner (his first time trying Indian food), and then we all went together to a bar where there was a CouchSurfing meet-up (same as last week), basically just a social event with people from all over the world. We met some more Danes, some Germans, Canadians and others.

The next morning, we started early since we had a big day planned. We had rented bikes the day before, and we were going to bike to the Louisiana Museum (modern art and sculpture garden). The Louisiana is about 20 miles north of the city, and the whole ride is with good bike paths and most of it is right along the coast. We started off kind of slow, but by the end we were on a long path with no stops and we just cruised. It was BEAUTIFUL biking, with a wide enough path to go side-by-side, the sun shining on us, and the sea and Sweden visible off to our right.

When we got close to the museum, we stopped in the town nearby and found some shops. We decided that since we had just biked 20 miles, we were entitled to eat whatever we felt like at the bakery – and boy did they have good stuff! The Danes really have amazing breads and pastries. At the museum, we sat in the sculpture garden and enjoyed an amazing view of the open sea.

We biked back (with one last stop at the bakery) and made really good time, got showered and changed, and then went out to meet Stella and Philip, the couple that we had rented the apartment from. We ate dinner at the Nyhavn canal, with a setting sun shining on the picturesque houses along the side. It was fun hearing all about their trip to Vietnam, and telling them about our time in Copenhagen. They seemed like a great couple, and we hope to stay in touch for our future trips or if they come to the US.

After that, we headed back to our new host’s apartment and turned in, since we had an early flight the next morning. I’ll write about our trip back (hint: we had an awesome 8-hour layover in Iceland!), but for now, it just feels great to wrap up our trip with such a wonderful last day in Denmark.