- Wednesday - 7:20 am flight to Milan from Stavanger. I was up at 4, packed and out the door by 5 am or so. Rushed to the airport, using my trusty iPhone as a GPS again (haven't received my check from Apple yet) and after the rush rush rush to get there on time - we sat and waited. Our flight had to connect in Frankfurt, which is notorious for bad weather and delays. Well, it lived up to it's reputation. So we were worried about missing our connection flight to Milan. We get on our plane an hour late, anxiously watching the time. We arrive in Milan with only minutes to spare, so we rush rush rush across this massive terminal, maneuvering our way through the crowd, rush rush rush - we sat and waited. Our connection was also delayed. Now we were really worried because we had a meeting an hour and a half away from the airport that afternoon and everything was planned and timed our PERFECTLY - we had an airtight schedule that was now in the hands of Frankfurt.
Luckily, we made it to the meeting. We were tired. Dad was up at 3:00 am to build the presentation he would deliver (to the most senior level executive we have worked with in a long time eeeeeeeeeek) and I had gone to bed at midnight the night before (4 hours sleep) so that I could run and blog for you people. I'm not saying it's your fault but .... nah, it was solid. Well worth the rushing and waiting, rushing and waiting. This one meeting was well worth the whole trip to Europe. Big success!
After the meeting, we went to our hotel. I forget the name of the town we were in, but it was very close to Parma. I was thinking nap, run, blog, sleep. Dad was thinking walk, dinner, drink, sleep. Dad always wins these for some reason. So we venture off in search of a restaurant that suits my odd diet. This proved difficult considering virtually no one understood English in this town. We were far from the tourist district out here but apparently we were in the cheese capital of Italy. Every dish in every restaurant had cheese in it. I asked Dad, "There must be some lactose intolerant people here. How do they eat?" Dad replies, "They move." Eventually we settled for a restaurant where the server knew someone who knew someone who spoke a few words of English and we brought him over to help explain my "allergies". After about 10 minutes of pseudo sign language/English/Italian (and French squeezed it's way in there somehow for some reason) we discovered I could eat the smoked swordfish. It was also a nice treat that I could eat the melon gelato :) When Dad and I got our gelato cones, we headed into the square to see what all the noise over there was...oh geeze, it's a professional karaoke singer singing English pop songs in Italian, and the crowd is just loving it. Hundreds of people crowded around to dance, sing along and clap. All of the restaurants in the square had seating outside to face Karaoke Man. I even got asked to move because some people on a patio eating dinner couldn't see Karaoke Man. Yup, they take Karaoke Man pretty seriously here. I posted a clip of him below so you can see what I mean.
- Thursday - Was a pretty easy day. Dad called it a "Jeans Day". We didn't have to visit anyone and our only meeting was a conference call we joined from the hotel. Then, we headed off to Bologna. What do you think this town is the capital of? Dinner here was amazing. First, let me explain something. When you have a diet like mine and you can't eat much in Europe, you take advantage of the restaurants where you can eat. I ordered two dinners this night. Hey, I had no idea when my next meal would be. Sometimes, you have to make like a grizzly bear and fatten up. I enjoyed a whole pizza (which is probably suitable for two or more people), followed by a sea bass and veggies and then lemon sorbet. Oh ya....pizza is from Italy - it was delicious!! The waiter was a little thrown off by this little person who came in and cleaned up the way I did.
- Friday- We visited a bran new potential client in Bologna. By this point, I had been averaging 4 hours of sleep a night (due to Dad's enjoyment of late dinners and full bottles of wine...I have no idea how he survives like this, especially since he does all the driving and has to think the hardest when we meet clients) and when I looked at this Italian VP Operations, I saw two of him. I figured it highly unlikely he had a twin who shared his duties in the company, so I knew at this point, I was overtired. Luckily, my pops is a superstar at his work and these guys were really impressed. He might be going back to see them next week already.
After a long meeting with Gianluca and his twin brother, we headed for Venice and went on a search for our hotel. We used the GPS and my iPhone GPS and still somehow ended up on this narrow street with a used RV dealer, a construction site and some crummy little apartment buildings. We even followed the street signs that pointed us in this direction. Hoping we weren't staying in a shack for the night, we pulled up to a storage shed where we saw a man we could ask for directions. Now something shady was going on here - there were two men in nice suits, two black Mercedes, and a dinky shed on this really quiet little street that leads to nowhere. The one man who saw us coming walked towards us and motioned us to stop (probably so we couldn't get close enough to the shed to see what was in it) and in clear English, he very charismatically gave us instructions to find our hotel. I'm pretty sure his perfect teeth twinkled as he spoke. Hmmm???? Maybe I've just seen too many mafia movies.
When we got to the hotel, I was thinking nap, run, blog, sleep. What do you think Dad was thinking? Dad wins. We took a cab into the city of Venice, and then took a boat (equivalent to city bus) to the island. The island in Venice is like no city I've ever been in. No cars, taxis, buses...thus, no streets. It was a maze of unnamed stone pathways through ancient wobbly shops and apartments. Somehow, through the maze, Dad found the restaurant one of our Italian clients had recommended. Having not eaten lunch, and unsure of my next meal, I ate a feast of bread, bruschetta and seafood spaghetti (I'm going to start using the term 'grizzlied up'). It was approaching 11:00 pm when we finished our meal and I just about fell asleep at the dinner table. I was tired enough that I saw two Gianlucas earlier, and now, I was falling asleep in a fancy restaurant. The walk, boat and taxi ride home were all a blur. I felt like my brain was imploding, causing a migraine, blindness and nausea. Like....a really bad hangover. Somehow, Dad was chirpy as usual and excited to be in Venice. I wish I could have been, but I felt miserable and as a result, probably ruined his Friday evening. I'm not sure how he can be a normal person with no sleep, it's like a superpower or something. If I get less than 7 hours sleep in a night, I'm more like a superbitch.
- Saturday - So, we got back about 12:30 that night. We had to leave the hotel by 5:00 am to make our 6:50 flight out of Venice. I slept through both of my alarms and awoke to Dad calling me at 5:10 to see if I was awake. Conveniently, I never had time to unpack in the first place and I fell asleep in my clothes, so I rolled out of bed and into the car and then onto an airplane. We had a connector in Frankfurt again, luckily without delays (that I can remember, I was still blurry). Dad's connection flew him home to Toronto and mine to Edinburgh. Oh Scotland...what a relief it was to be back! The first coffee shop I saw made me a vanilla soy latte - do you know how crazy I was going without soy milk in all these other countries?? No, you probably don't. Oh well. Anyway, something as simple and familiar as soy milk can make me feel at home in an unfamiliar place.
Now getting to St. Andrews was a bit confusing. Malcolm advised me to take a bus from the airport toward Aberdeen and then get a train to Leuchars and a bus from there to St. Andrews. Dad, a seasoned traveler, advised me to take the StageCoach to Inverkeithing and then take the train from there to Leuchars and a bus to St. Andrews. While I was on the StageCoach to Inverkeithing ( I always trust Dad's travel suggestions most), the driver recommended I transfer at Ferrytoll and take a bus from there directly to St. Andrews. I was too tired to argue and his suggestion just sounded so much simpler. Are you still reading all of this? I'm pretty amazed that you're still with me...I haven't even mentioned running yet.... Anyway, when I got to St. Andrews, I walked to Malcolm and Naomi's place and headed straight for the bed.
Can you see why I hadn't gone running in a while?
Sunday - First, I slept 12 hours. Sat around reading a book (reading SuperFreakonomics {read the prequel, Freakonomics, in Italy}, I recommend it), went to a coffee shop, BeanScene (where I'm writing you from right now) and caught up on some work for DBM, grizzlied up (because when you do something enough, it becomes habit) and then got suited up for a night time run, hence the blog title "Midnight Runner". I didn't actually run at midnight, more like 8:30, but it felt like midnight? St. Andrews shuts down at 5:00 PM on Sunday. Everything was shut, the streets were quiet and empty and it was very dark out. Having carbed up on a full plate of pasta and garlic bread for dinner, I was ready for a good run.
I ran down by the old golf course (not sure if you know this, but St. Andrews is home of the world's oldest golf course. You should wikipedia it), and then kept on a path parallel to the beach. I think I found the teenage "hookup spot' in St. Andrews. Along this unlit path, there was a car parked about every 300 meters with a young couple.....hmmm... So I ran until my path was blocked not only by a gate, but also by 10 foot heaps of manure. Why the manure heaps? I have no idea. But it smelled bad enough to make me want to turn around and head back to town. When I had run back and reached St. Salvador's Hall, after about 40 minutes of running without stopping, I thought what the heck, let's keep going! (must have been the carbs!) So I ran past and went all around town, since there was no traffic or pedestrians. The run ended up being 50 minutes (since 10 minutes is all it takes to run all around town) and I still had juice for pushups and dips :) I just might maintain the figure I arrived in Europe with to start :D
Following the run, I watched a Spanish thriller with Malcolm, Naomi and three of the RAs (that's what we call them in Canada, I don't know about in Scotland) that work for them at St. Salvador's. Don't rent Julia's Eyes. After the movie, I slept for 12 hours again. Finally, I'm catching up! I'm almost normal again. Superbitch lingers a bit, but she's almost out of my system.
Now, I'm at BeanScene (not sure if it's one word or two), writing to you, then I'll do some work (I told them yesterday that this would be my office for the week) and I will have another lovely run this evening. Hopefully I'll get out before dark so I can take some pictures for you. The beach I ran along last night is lovely but it was too dark for pictures. Instead, I'll share an adorable video of Calum from last weekend.
OK Kids, sorry this blog was more about traveling than it was about running. But if you made it this far, you probably don't care much. By the way, I noticed that no one is leaving comments anymore, which makes me a bit sad. I appreciate all the feedback on Facebook, but it would be really neat to have the feedback organized in this blog so I don't lose your comments. So please, comment on the blog directly. Now, I'll stop pretending I'm working and start doing actual work on my computer. Until next time!
Peace Homefries!
-Jerk
Only a Jerk writes a blog this long and expects people to read it hahaha ....... JERK!
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