weekend

Women’s retreat at Tahoe

February 3, 2020 filed under: holidays, recap, travel, weekend

My friend Susi invited me along for a girls’ weekend with some of her mom friends from German School. We were headed to Tahoe over the MLK holiday weekend and stayed at U’s vacation home in Truckee. I was thrilled to get up to the mountains during winter time and very thankful that I was invited to come along.

It’s always a little awkward when you join a group of people that you mostly don’t know and my introverted self was a little bit anxious, but as so often, the worry was unnecessary and dissipated quickly once we had all introduced each other. We ended up having a really great time.

We arrived around 6 pm at Friday night in a winter wonderland. I couldn’t have been happier.

We had previously talked about things we wanted to do while we were there, and besides some outdoor activities during the day, we had all agreed on just hanging out at the house, cooking together, puzzling, reading, knitting/crocheting, and just enjoying each others’ company.

We also played Cards Against Humanity, which I had heard about, but had never played before. Well, let’s just say that it’s true that it’s “a party game for horrible people”, because some of the card statements made me either blush or drop my jaw. However, I am wondering what it says about me that I didn’t just win this game once, but twice over the weekend.

As J noted: still waters run deep.

Some of the women went cross country skiing on Saturday, while Susi and I and C hung out at the house. We went on a nice snow walk around the neighborhood and then started (the first of two) puzzle(s) when we got back.

The puzzle was really cool: the posters of all the U.S. National Parks.

We started a second puzzle in the evening and everybody got involved.

On Sunday, Susi and I had planned to go downhill skiing, but the week before the getaway, Susi had injured her knee and couldn’t participate in any sporting activities. As I didn’t know if anyone else wanted to go, I wasn’t sure if I was going to get to go skiing after all, but luckily, three others wanted to go and so we headed over to Homewood Mountain Resort on the western shore of Lake Tahoe in the morning.

I have my ski boots here in California, but don’t own skis anymore, so I had to rent them and I almost toppled over backwards when I heard that they wanted $99 for just the ski rental for the day. Gosh, Tahoe’s expensive. But hey, there was no backing out now.

Luckily, I had already bought the lift ticket for a discount at REI.

I was a little taken aback by the “outdatedness” of the ski resort. The ticket had to be scanned by hand (I was used to automatic scanners that read the ski ticket through your jacket) and when we got to the chair lift, it didn’t have a safety bar. I’ve never seen that in the Alps.

BUT: once I hit the slopes, it was blissful. Originally, we had planned to ski for a half day, but in the end, we spent 6 hours on the slopes. The others were beginners, so we took the easier runs most of the time, but that was fine with me. I was just happy to be skiing! The day was a little overcast, which was great because the snow stayed great the whole time.

And the views! Just amazing! We kept going back for more and spent 6 hours on the slopes!

Sunday night was for a movie, a delicious dinner, and face masks before we all headed to bed. We had planned to head back home early on Martin Luther King Jr Day to beat the holiday traffic, so the last night was an early night for all of us.

It was a really great weekend though and I am so glad I was asked to come along!

Did you do something fun over the long holiday weekend?

Our long weekend

September 4, 2019 filed under: holidays, weekend

Hello friends. I just thought I would come on here and ramble for a little bit and tell you about my weekend.

How was your Labor Day weekend? I didn’t know that Labor Day apparently officially marks the last day of summer, although that couldn’t be farther from the truth in the Central Valley of California. There are still quite a few hot days ahead of us, I assure you.

Last weekend was definitely a hot, summer weekend. We had planned to do stuff and ended up not doing much of anything at all. Does the heat make you lethargic, too, or just me? You’d think that we’re used to it here, but I definitely have days where the heat just gets to me. That is not to say that it wasn’t a good weekend.

We went out with friends on Friday night. We tried a new restaurant. I spent some time wandering around at Home Goods and Michaels (and didn’t buy a damn thing, riddle me that!) and took advantage of a Labor Day coupon and picked up some German goodies from World Market on Saturday.

I worked on some crafts and I sat in the backyard (if only for a little while when the heat was bearable). We picked our first ripe tomato (it was delicious. Thanks for asking!) and I’ve been keeping an eye on the 10+ still green ones on the vine. I went for an early morning run on Sunday (to beat the heat!), talked with my parents, and spent some time reading .

Even though we didn’t really go anywhere and didn’t do a lot of “fun” stuff, it was a good weekend in my book.

Tell me about your weekend! What did you do with your extra day off?

Other good things this weekend:

afternoon naps ♥ phone calls with my family ♥ reading ♥ going for walks ♥ ice cream ♥ sleeping in ♥ fresh coffee ♥ working on some crafts projects ♥

An overnight trip to the North Bay

August 28, 2019 filed under: California, travel, weekend

J and I had talked about an overnight trip for who knows how long. So a couple of weeks ago, we finally just said, enough, let’s go. Since it was going to be a hot weekend in Sacramento, it was a good time to get away.

Saturday morning, we headed out to the North Bay (which is the area north of the Golden Gate Bridge). We headed out around 11 a.m. and all roadtrips ask for fast food lunches, am I right? So we stopped at In’n’Out for a quick bite.

We had booked a small hotel. the North Bay Inn, in San Rafael and took State Highway 37 along San Pablo Bay. Unfortunately, we hit a bit of weekend traffic, but made it to the hotel by 2 pm.

On our way to the Golden Gate Bridge, we stopped at Philz Coffeeshop for a quick caffeine fix. Jon had never tried Philz Coffee, so it was a good time to give it a try.

Originally, we had planned to drive to the Golden Gate Vista Point on the west side of the bridge, but the exit and a whole stretch of the road was closed. So we ended up driving down to Fort Baker, on the east side of the bridge, which actually provides a really nice view angle of the bridge.

We got superlucky, too. Although it was kinda overcast, the Golden Gate Bridge was not covered by Karl, the fog. I repeat, the Golden Gate was not shrouded in fog. That was not a given at this time of year!

It was fun taking some pictures, we even saw a seal, but we didn’t stay very long as it was windy and kinda chilly.

We decided to head over to Sausalito and walk around for a bit. As always, Sausalito was full of tourists…. we heard a lot of German, French, Italian, and other languages.

There were also a gazillion people on bikes. They’ve done the Golden Gate Bike Tour and were catching the ferry back from Sausalito to San Francisco. One of these days, I’d love to do that bike tour with J as well.

Since we only had an early lunch, we were cold and hungry by 6 p.m. and decided to pick up a pizza, head back to the hotel, and take advantage of the HBO channel. Ha. Our hotel was nothing fancy, but the room was clean, the bed was firm and comfortable, and I loved the bed sheets. (There are few things I despise more than top sheets, scratchy woolen blankets and dingy bed covers.) All this to say, we had a good night’s rest.

Sunday morning, we checked out at 10 am and decided to drive over to Muir Beach. We hadn’t been to the North Coast in a while and I wanted to put my toes in the sand for a little bit before heading back home.

As the day before, it was quite cool and windy, but at least the sun peeked out a little bit and we saw patches of blue sky! And as they say, there is nothing better than standing at the edge of the ocean and taking some deep breaths!

Disregard my crazy hair. Did I mention that it was windy?

On our way back, we stopped at “Philz Coffee” again to get a hot drink and a bagel, since we hadn’t really had breakfast yet.

In order to beat traffic, we headed home around mid-day, but we definitely want to go out explore more soon!

Girl time in OC

April 6, 2019 filed under: friends, fun!, weekend

Last week, I visited my #fromURLtoIRL friend Tanja in Southern California and I had such a fantastic time!

Tanja, like me, is a German (dual) citizen and we’ve “immigrated” around the same time (2006/2007), however, I got my green card through marriage (as you know), but Tanja (and her husband Herbert) won the green card lottery!
We’ve been reading each others blogs for ages and finally did meet up for the first time in 2016. (Now I wonder, what tooks us so long?) We actually lived quite close to each other (she in Irvine, I in Westwood) for a while, but that was before we “knew” each other. What a huge bummer, because now I would give anything to live closer again.

Anyway, we met up once in 2016 when I was down in SoCal meeting up with another friend and then we met again in 2017, when Tanja and her Mom visited San Francisco and I joined them for the day.

And then we started talking about meeting up again sometime last year, but I kept delaying it (not because I didn’t want to, but because we had stuff going on with selling the house, etc.). I felt bad and hoped that Tanja didn’t think I wasn’t interested, because I WAS! So, when we started talking about it again earlier this year, I just decided to book a flight and see her for the weekend.

I was definitely in need of some girl time (always!) and I really wanted to meet Herbert and their three (really cute) dogs, too!

I flew down to Orange County early on Saturday morning to spend two nights with them. They have a beautiful house and yard, and they were really awesome hosts. They even took me to Aldi (because we still don’t have one in Northern California, much to my dismay).

We didn’t really make any plans in advance, but Herbert and Tanja definitely showed me around a little bit. It was beautiful weather, too, so we had to spend some time at the beach.

On Sunday, Tanja and I even worked out together. Tanja is one of my fitness buddies and I told her that I would love to join her for a class at her cycling studio when I come visit. No sooner said than done. She signed us up for the Sunday morning class and then I got my ass handed to me, because damn, cycling uses very different muscle groups than running. I was so sore. BUT, I also had a lot of fun. I definitely want to consider incorporating more cycling into my cross-training. I might (or might not) have checked out the cycling classes at my gym already.

After a shower and brunch, we played a game of (supersize) Jenga in the backyard. I didn’t know that this game was going to make you laugh so hard your tummy hurts.

(I lost, in case you can’t tell.)

Monday morning, we went on a walk with Herbert’s Social Dog Walking Group (Herbert is a professional dog trainer/walker) and that was so cool. See for yourself. I even got to walk one (and a half) of the dogs.

Then Tanja and I drove to Laguna Beach to hang out at the ocean for a little while. It was so awesome how comfortable we felt around each other and that we never ran out of things to talk about.

What can I say? The weekend flew by way too fast and we got along in person so well that I wish I could have stayed longer.

We’ll definitely have to do that again soon!

Recap | The SF Half Marathon 2018

August 6, 2018 filed under: running, travel, USA, weekend

A week ago, I ran the (1st) SF half marathon again. This race has become one of my favorite races (albeit an expensive one) because it combines a great race with a fun weekend in San Francisco. I was lucky that I signed up last year at the bargain price of $85 dollars. This was cheap. Prices went up to $125 for the half marathon, even more for the marathon, until shortly before race weekend.

Still, this race is (relatively) close to me (2 hours from Sacramento) and it’s just a great race all around.

Last year, I took the Amtrak into the City and since that had worked out so well, I decided to do it again this year. J dropped me off at the Amtrak station around 10:30 a.m. and I switched to BART in Richmond and was in Downtown SF with my backpack at 1 p.m.

I walked to my hotel near Union Square and was able to do an early check-in. I dropped off my backpack and then headed out to the Expo to pick up my bib and race shirt. I caught the free shuttle bus that departed from Embarcadero/Market St and it took me to Fort Mason in 30 minutes.

I picked up my bib + t-shirt, got my picture taken at the Biofreeze wall, the new sponsor of the SF Marathon, and grabbed more water and a sandwich at the local grocery store, before starting my walk back to the hotel. I walked through Great Meadow Park over to the piers. The weather wasn’t as clear as last year, and Karl the Fog was keeping the Golden Gate Bridge well under wraps. No pretty views of the bridge for me!

I ran into some Germans on the way over to Fisherman’s Wharf (when do you NOT run into other Germans in SF, I ask you?). It was a Dad and his two teenage kids and he was gesturing towards the SF Marathon swag bag on my shoulder and with (very) broken English asked me where the Expo was. You should have seen the relief on his face when I responded in German and told them the way. Haha.

I paid a quick visit to the sea lions at Pier 39 and then ran into the Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream carnival a few piers down, so of course, I had to stop for a free small cup of caramel cookie fix ice-cream.

I had dinner at the food court of Westfield Mall (it was the closest to my hotel and I just wanted a quick bite, and didn’t feel like eating at a fancy restaurant by myself) and was back in my room 7:30 p.m.

I got my stuff ready for the morning, called J for a quick check-in and then turned the lights off by 9 p.m.

My alarm was set for 5 a.m., but of course I had already been awake a few times. I can never really sleep well before a race, no idea why! I got dressed, had a protein bar and some water and made my way over to the Embarcadero start line at 5:40 a.m.. Lots of people were out and about already, after all, over 27,000 runners were signed up for the event this year.

I dropped off my bag off at gear check, got in line for the port-a-potties, as I always do, then I warmed up a bit and made my way to my corral. And then I had to pee again. I chalked it up to “phantom bathroom urges” (don’t we all have them before a race?) and just hoped that it would go away.

I had a pretty good start and the crowd dispersed much faster this year, which was great. The first 5 miles were the ‘easy’ part of the course because they were mostly flat except for one relatively short hill in mile 3 and even though I was not quite hitting my goal pace, I was moving fairly well and tried to focus on that.

I was a little bit frustrated with the pacer though. I had planned to try and stay with a pacer as a new race strategy, but the 2:00-hour pacer was a joke (sorry). I had started in front of the pacer and even though I was about 10 seconds-per-mile slow, I never saw him during the first 5 miles. Then in mile 5, all of a sudden, he passed me, and FAST. I probably should mention that mile 5 was also where serious inclines began. I mean, WTactualF?

I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I appreciate the runners who sign up to be pacers and put their own goals and ambitions aside to support fellow runners during a race, but if you commit to being a pacer, then, for the love of all things sweaty, run that pace. Don’t run slow for 5+ miles and then speed up disproportionally. The people that are looking to you to PR will not be able to keep up with such fluctuating paces. Well, at least I couldn’t. Not on an incline.

So, I let the pacer go and focused on myself and tried focus on the hills in front of me. There was a fairly rapid decline for about a mile after we passed the Golden Gate Bridge between mile 7 and 8, which is where I hit my fastest pace, and then there were some rolling hills left until the finish line.

I remember feeling really good throughout the race, but was still happy to see the finish line. There were a lot of people out cheering on the runners and even though I had contemplated at every water station to use the bathroom (yes, I ran the whole race thinking I needed to pee), I am glad I didn’t (and once I crossed the finish line, the urge was gone. Go figure!).

Sadly, I didn’t reach my A goal (still no sub-2 for me – womp!), but I was really happy with my finish time, because one huge success this year was that I didn’t die on the hills. I ran all of them, something I wasn’t able to do last year! On top of that, I felt great. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was glad that I was done, but I physically felt really good and my legs weren’t shaking or hurting.

I also shaved almost 5 minutes off my previous course PR from last year and finished at 2:05:03. My Garmin watch was scarily accurate this time as well. I ran a nearly perfect race line and the time was off by only 8 seconds.

I was a bit bummed this year as the organizers had made some big, last-minute changes. The race start for the marathoners and 1st half marathoners was split up. The marathoners had started at 5:30 a.m. and the 1st half marathoners started at 6:30 a.m.
For me personally, it meant that the course was much less crowded right out of the corral and there was a lot less swerving around and passing of people involved this time. For friends that had planned to run together but were signed up for different distances, this might have been a huge bummer.

The other big change was that the 1st half marathon was re-routed and we didn’t run over the Golden Gate Bridge anymore. That was a big disappointment and they literally announced this change a couple of weeks before the race. There was the option to upgrade to the full marathon (which was still going over the bridge – but I mean, who can just sign up for the full marathon if they trained for a half?) or defer your race entry, but I still think that was a shitty move on such short notice. In the end, it wasn’t a deal-breaker for me (since I had the experience of running the bridge last year), but I wish they had announced this earlier.

Still, you really can’t beat the race course through this awesome city. The 1st half marathon took us from Embarcadero along the piers to Fisherman’s Wharf, through Fort Mason and the Marina, along Crissy Field, under the Golden Gate Bridge, and through the Presidio and Golden Gate Park, and I would run this race again anytime.

I collected my medal, some snacks and – wrapped in my race blanket (it’s amazing how fast you cool down and start shivering after a race, or is it just me?) – made my way over to the bus shuttles that took us back to the Embarcadero marathon (and 2nd half marathon) finish line and to the race festival.

I walked around a little bit, got my finisher beer, and took some more pictures. I had time to go back to the hotel, take a shower, and get some brunch at Mo’z Cafe before catching BART back to Richmond and Amtrak back to Sacramento.