Day 69

This morning I slept in longer than I have in awhile... 10:30, and I was still tired all day. I stayed the night at Kelsey's again, so when I woke up I biked back to the house to have a bowl of cereal... as I was eating I decided I needed to go run ASAP or I wouldn't be in the mood later on. So I called Kelsey to see if she wanted to go with me, and she did, so I ran by her place and we started running. 


After a mile, Kelsey back tracked so that she would get 2 miles in. I continued running and got 4 miles in, although my body was NOT in the mood to be running today. 


As soon as I was back, I changed into my bathing suit and laid out in the backyard. It was beautiful today... mostly sunny and in the 70's. Tomorrow will be another great day to lay out... sunny and 77! 


After laying out a couple hours, I grabbed an apple and watched some tv. Then I took the car and picked My up at 4 from the train station. When we got back I had another bowl of cereal, and then we biked down to the field so My could work on her pitching with Kelsey and I caught. Then we had practice from 6-8 with the team. We had them do 4 rounds of hitting today, which they enjoyed. 


After biking back to the house, we ate tacos outside. Micke made homemade guacamole dip and it was SO good! 


Micke gave me a USB stick that has 6 different movies on it, so after showering I checked to see what movies were on it, and I just got done watching Source Code. I really enjoyed the movie. 


Now I am about to read my kindle and head on to sleep. Hope everyone's weekend was great! 

Day 68

After having a bowl of cereal this morning I went back to sleep for an hour :) I'm getting pretty good at that. I was really tired, though. Once I woke back up, I had a cup of hot tea, and watched some tv for awhile. Then Kelsey and I biked to my place so she could look at some of my shirts for her to wear. Once she left, I asked Karin if I could take her card and go buy some groceries from the store, so she made me a list, and I biked there.... biking back with 3 very heavy grocery bags was not fun. I walked into the house dripping sweat and Karin said "You didn't take the car!?" haha


I had some more cereal for lunch and watched Britain's Next Top Model for awhile... I could barely understand their accents. I started to get bored, so I decided that I would go rollerblade for my exercise. The last time I had rollerblades on I was 10 years old and ended up in the emergency room with stitches and one side of my face skinned off, so I was anxious to see how it would go. 


There were several moments where I thought I was about to have a mouth full of concrete, but other than that I just flailed around for an hour making a fool of myself and laughing. I'm sure people who passed me thought I was insane or feared for my safety. It was also a great butt workout... it might have been because I was tensed and hunched over the entire time hahaha. But I ended up rollerblading a little over 7.5 miles on rollerblades that were 3 sizes too small... I have a blister on the back of my heel and a blister on the side of my leg? I guess I had them too tight... my big toes are also kind of bruised and sore, so I think I'll hold off on rollerblading again for awhile :) 


After showering, I watched tv and then Kelsey came over and we just watched more tv. After awhile, I went upstairs and decided to make some macaroni noodles for dinner and melt some cheese on them. After I was finished, I biked to Kelsey's and we watched a movie, made some popcorn and drizzled peanut butter and cocoa on it, and started to watch another movie, but we both got sidetracked skyping with our families. 


Now I am about to get in bed and read for awhile. Hope everyone is having an great weekend :) 

Day 67

This morning I set my alarm so I could have some cereal before running down to the softball field. I had to catch for one of the girls on the team who was pitching, so I decided I would just run there and then run back afterwards since it's a little over a mile to get there.


Once I got back, I watched some TV for awhile, read, had some lunch, then I biked to the grocery store with Kelsey so she could buy some groceries for herself this weekend.


After that, we biked back to her place to watch TV for awhile... then we biked to my place to change clothes so we could go blueberry picking in the woods with Karin. We were out in the woods for a good 2 hours before going back home. Once home, we showered to get the blue stains off our skin, and then we ate crawfish for dinner.


After we ate, Kelsey and I biked back to her place where we've just been hanging out. Our plans of Margaritas, Movies, & Munchies didn't pan out... but we did find some ice cream in the freezer to satisfy our late night chocolate craving. 


No plans so far for the weekend, so I won't have anything exciting to post about. 


That's all for now :) goodnight! 

Day 66

This morning after waking up and having a bowl of cereal, I went back to bed for an hour and a half. Then I basically laid around all day reading my kindle... I did get in an hour cardio workout on the track path about 1.5 miles from the house. 


After I got back from that I had a small lunch with a bowl of fresh picked blueberries that were delicious! Then I biked over to Kelsey so we could make a practice plan for tonight's practice, which was from 6-8. 


After biking back from practice, I showered, had a bowl of cereal and a bowl of blueberries for dinner, made a cup of hot tea, and now I'm back to doing nothing :) 


I think I'll probably be spending the weekend over at Kelsey's since Ingrid and Micke won't be home... we are planning a HUGE party! (JK Ingrid ;) ) haha... we'll probably watch lots of movies and be boring. 


Tomorrow we are meeting one of the girls down at the softball field at 10 am for her to practice pitching, then I am going blueberry picking in the woods with Karin around 5 pm, and then we are having crawfish for dinner! 


It's good to be back with the sun and warmth here in Sweden as opposed to the dreary, chilly, overcast days in the UK.

Day 65, Home sweet Sweden

This morning we had a small breakfast in the hotel, packed our bags, grabbed a taxi, and headed to the Natural History Museum. Jeanne sat at an outside cafe with our bags while Kelsey and I went in. It opened at 10 am, and Jeanne wanted us to leave for the airport at 11:30, so we only got an hour at the most to look around... DEFINITELY not enough time. You need a good 4 hours to spare to look at everything in there. 


So, we got to the airport at 12 and our flight wasn't until 4:30!!! So Jeanne bought us a small lunch, and then Kelsey and I went through security and had to sit for 3 hours waiting for the board to show us our gate number. Right around 3:45 it told us our gate #, so we grabbed a frappucino from Starbucks and headed to our gate and boarded right away. 


The flight wasn't bad, and Karin and Ingrid both picked us up. Once we got back I made a salad, had some cashews, and now I'm relaxing with a nice mug of hot tea :) 


I had a great trip, I'm in the process of uploading my 400 pictures at the moment, but I'm definitely glad to be back in Sweden. Now I have a good week to relax, and then Greg will be here and we'll head to ROME, ITALY! I'm so excited :) 


Check out my photos in awhile.. I'll probably have about 5 different albums. 

Day 63 & 64

Yesterday I woke up not feeling great, so we had a lazy morning of fresh fruit for bfast and soup and crackers for lunch. Then Kelsey and I went out shopping around Cardiff and got some frozen yogurt from a small stand. We then went to the grocery store and bought stuff so we could cook Flying Jacob (swedish meal) for Jeanne and John.

After a few mishaps in the kitchen, we had dinner ready and they liked it. Then we had to hurry and change and grab a taxi to take us to the Millenium Center for the Grease musical. We thought we were going to be late so we were running, but we made it in time :) The musical was so good! But I haven't seen the movie since I was little and never realized how sexual it is! I was laughing at some of the song lyrics they were singing because I had no idea.

After getting back to the house we all headed to bed. This morning we woke up early and packed our bags and took the 8:55 am train into London. We took a taxi right to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch, and then afterwards checked into our hotel. Once we had all of our bags put away, we took off for London Dungeon and Madame Tussauds.

The London Dungeon took over 90 minutes to go through... but we had a lot of fun. There were a few rides inside that you had to go on... one of them was a free fall drop ride that took your picture, and Kelsey and I ended up buying it because our faces are PRICELESS in them! It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, but it was a lot of fun.

After that, we went straight to Madame Tussauds. We took lots of pictures with the wax figures, and they even had a horror tunnel that only took about 5 minutes to walk through but those 5 minutes were scarier than the 100 minutes in the London Dungeon.

By the time we were done with those 2 attractions, it was 7:30 pm. We met back up with Jeanne and we went to Bella Italia for dinner. We shared a garlic and cheese pizza appetizer and then I got a really good pasta. Afterwards, we walked to this gelato/frozen yogurt place called Rendezvous that we saw earlier and ended up having dessert here. I had a scoop of nutella gelato and a scoop of cookies n cream gelato. IT IS SOOOO GOOD! I am going on a strict diet for the next week, and then when Greg gets here and we go to Rome I can be bad again :)

Tomorrow our plans are to go to the Natural History Museum and hopefully catch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. Then our plane leaves around 4:30 pm. I think I have about 750 pictures from these 8 days :)

Hope yall have enjoyed my vacation as much as I have :)

Day 62, Salisbury + Stonehenge

This morning I woke up at 7 so I could get in a workout before getting ready. We had fresh fruit and coffee for breakfast, and then walked to the train station to catch the 9:15 am train to Salisbury. We ended up catching the train RIGHT before it left. The train ride was a little over 2 hours long. When we got to Salisbury, instead of Kelsey and I hopping  right on the tour bus for Stonehenge, the 4 of us (me, Kelsey, Jeanne, and John) walked into the city and found a nice restaurant to have lunch; I ordered the red pepper hummus flat bread wrap with a side salad.

Kelsey and I then left the restaurant and walked back to the train station so we could catch the 1 pm tour bus. We grabbed a Mocha from the train station cafe before so we wouldn't fall asleep. The bus ride was about 25 minutes and the 15 pounds we paid included the tour bus and the admission to Stonehenge; it also included one other place, but we weren't in the mood to get off after walking around Stonehenge. With our tickets we were able to walk straight in and grab an audio set for the audio tour guide. After being at Stonehenge for an hour, we hopped back on the bus and hopped off in the center of Salisbury city. We walked around awhile, went into the Salisbury Cathedral, got a little lost, and then met back up with Jeanne and her husband. By that time it was about 4:45 pm. They were ready to take the 5:30 train back since John has to get up early for work, but Kelsey and I decided to take the last train at 7:30 pm so we could sit down and eat.

We ended up at Cactus Jack's, a mexican restaurant, and we each ordered a margarita around 5:15, waiting for them to open at 6 so we could eat. We were the only customers they had, but the food was so good! We got chips with sour cream and guacamole as an appetizer, and then we each got an order of 3 enchiladas (3 cheese and veggie for me) that came with curly fries (weird, I know) and small salad garnish.

After we paid, we walked around looking for some place that had chocolate cake.. we were in the mood for cake! But, most of the places were closed, so we ended up getting a chocolate brownie from inside the train station right before jumping on our train.

We got back to Cardiff at 9:45 pm, and walked back to the apartment. We are both pretty exhausted. I've never done so much walking in my life!

Luckily, tomorrow will be a relaxed day... sleep in late, exercise if I'm in the mood, shop around Cardiff, Kelsey and I are cooking dinner for them, and then we are going to watch the Grease musical at 7:30 pm at the Millenium Center.

I can't wait to post all my pictures from this trip! Hopefully I'll remember what every building/castle/church is! :)