Random

How many of the World's Top 100 Wonders have you been to?

1 Pyramids of Egypt 26 Chichen Itza 51 Pompeii 76 Mont St Michel 2 Great Wall of China 27 Petra 52 Kashmir Valley 77 Topkapi Palace 3 Taj Mahal 28 Nile River Cruise 53 Prague Old Town 78 Carnival in Rio 4 Serengeti Migration 29 Easter Island 54 Golden Temple 79 Stonehenge 5 Galapagos Islands 30 Cappadocia 55 Amalfi Drive 80 Angel Falls 6 Grand Canyon 31 Colosseum of Rome 56 Meenakshi 81 Yellowstone NP 7 Machu Picchu 32 Fjords of Norway 57 Chartres Cathedral 82 Santorini 8 Antarctica Cruise 33 St Peter's Basilica 58 Mezquita Cordoba 83 Matterhorn 9 Iguazu Falls 34 Egyptian Museum 59 Damascus Old City 84 New York Skyline 10 Bali 35 Borobudur 60 Dubrovnik 85 Marrakesh 11 Amazon Rain Forest 36 Valley of the Kings 61 Uffizi Gallery 86 Eiffel Tower 12 Ngorongoro Crater 37 Hong Kong 62 Rio Panoramic View 87 Ladakh 13 Great Barrier Reef 38 Sistine Chapel 63 Golden Pavilion 88 Niagara Falls 14 Angkor Wat 39 Burj Khalifa 64 Delphi 89 British Museum 15 Victoria Falls 40 Alhambra 65 St. Basils Cathedral 90 Burj al Arab 16 Forbidden City 41 Louvre Museum 66 Abu Simbel 91 Yangtze Riv. Cruise 17 Bagan 42 Canals of Venice 67 St Mark's Basilica 92 Yosemite NP 18 Karnak 43 Versailles 68 Florence Cityscape 93 Ayers Rock 19 Teotihuacan 44 Carlsbad Caverns 69 Kremlin 94 Hermitage Museum 20 Banaue Rice Terr. 45 Mecca 70 Varanasi/Ganges 95 Chambord Chateau 21 Bora Bora 46 Kathmandu Valley 71 Li River Cruise 96 Lijiang/Shangri La 22 Acropolis 47 Metropolitan Mus 72 Shwedagon Stupa 97 Neuschwanstein 23 Potala Palace 48 Mt Everest 73 Sahara Desert 98 Banff NP 24 Jerusalem Old City 49 Temple Em. Buddha 74 Leaning Tower Pisa 99 San Francisco 25 TerraCotta Warriors 50 Hagia Sofia 75 Baalbek 100 Portofino

I consider myself fairly well traveled but I haven't even seen half of the list. Good to know there's a lot more 'splorin' to do.

No, Rocco is not a pitbull or a shar pei but as of last night, he is a graduate.

I decided not to run the marathon in Athens mostly because I don't want to dedicate a lot of time to something I hate doing. Cardio is a necessary evil but not an activity I want to do for more than a few hours a week. Instead, I'll continue to bulk for the next couple of months. Right now, I'm 213lbs. I hope to get up to 235-240 before I start cutting.

I'd like to learn more about meditation. The older I am, the more I love animals. It's been hard not being able to get pregnant. Living a boring life is one of my biggest fears. I generally hate pop music. I'm grateful for digital photography. Life is more gray than black and white.

To Marathon or Not to Marathon

Yesterday, a very close friend invited me to run a marathon with him.  The marathon is in Athens Greece and is the same course the very first marathon was run by the messenger/soldier Phidippides.  It's the 2,500 year anniversary of that fateful run and therefore, kinda special.

Here's why I should run the marathon:

1.  It'd be running along the same path as the original marathon runner and touching a piece of history.

2.  Spend some quality time with my homeboy Kubs.  

3.  I love Gyros.

4.  Finally, a good excuse to wear a toga.

5.  Running has phenomenal fat burning qualities.

6.  Greece, birthplace to modern civilization.  Never been there before.

7.  I don't think I've ever wanted to run a marathon but if I ever did, this would be the time.

8.  You only live once, why not try a brutally painful experience?

9.  The Kraken comes from Greece.

10.  I know a lot of peeps who have conquered the marathon.  How hard can it be?

Here's why I shouldn't run the marathon.

1.  Running=Pain

2.  Excessive running (see marathon) burns muscle like crazy.  

3.  The marathon is in October, too cold to visit the Greek isles.

4.  Running can be kinda boring, Greek footpath or not.

5.  Phidippides, the first person to run the marathon, died shortly after running the course and delivering his message.  Following his example, 2,500 years later is a little disconcerting.  

It's a tough call.  I'm going to let it marinate for a few days before deciding.

Growin' up

Babies and puppies just don't last long enough.  Rocco, grows at 1/2 lb-1 lb/day.  It's a little strange how attached I've become to him in our short two months together.  I can't imagine how bonded you feel when you have children of your own.

Cool Vacay

NOTICE:   WE LOST ONE OF OUR CAMERAS SO PICS ARE LIMITED-SAD I KNOW

We just got back from a trip to Montreal and Quebec.  Let me clarify something for you right now.  Unless you've been to Canada in January, you've never known what it is to be cold.  With that said, it was one of the best trips I've ever taken.

Montreal is a fairly cool place.  An architectural mix of neoclassical, 70's and modern.  The majority of the city isn't gorgeous but the warmth of it's residents and the quality of food more than compensates.  The food in French speaking Canada is the best value I've had anywhere in the world.  Could you get the same innovation and quality of ingredients in say, Paris?  Of course you could but dinner at one of the upper echelon of restaurants in Paris will cost you literally 5-6 times what you'd pay in land of the cold Frenchman.  

We stayed at the W Montreal.  It's the best W we've ever stayed at although we did get in trouble for crashing some business party  and drinking all their herbal tea.  Oh, there's nothing like getting in trouble to make you feel young again.  

After Montreal, we drove to a small rural town where the Hotel De Glace is located.  If you haven't stayed at an Ice Hotel than by all means please add it to your bucket list.  Yeah, it's a little cold but you dress for it.  The hotel is absolutely stunning and the pictures are a sad representation of it's true grandeur.  

Full Disclosure:  We got a warm hotel room (located on the premises) just in case we were miserable.  I'm proud to report that this room remained vacant and was only used to hold items that don't freeze well.

Ice glasses that we carved

Our Room

We chose the only room that had it's own hot tub.  It was just as luxurious as it sounds.  The fireplace also came in handy.

Different rooms

We totally rocked the ice slide.  Mostly kids used it and occasionally an adult would give it a try.  Candice and I abused ourselves on the slide over and over again and we have the bruises to prove it.  I know people always say they're just kids in grown up bodies but I really feel that way.

Hotel De Glace is the only ice hotel in North America and only a few hour plane ride from most US locations.  Do yourself a favor, go and enjoy this work of frozen masterpiece, you'll be glad you did.

The next day we rented snowmobiles.  We thought it was interesting that snowmobiles are a legitimate form of transportation in this frigid part of the world.  They have backwoods roads that are regulated like paved highways would be.  You can snowmobile from Montreal to Quebec City via snowmobile roads.  We had better pics of us in rad jumpsuits but these photos are gone for good.  The snowmobiles got up to 65 mph, which was sweet.

We then went dog sledding.  We thought we would probably just be sitting in a sled having a group of dogs haul us around, fun, gimmicky but whatever.  Little did we know that we would be mushing our own team of dogs.

The thing is, I know I look like a complete tool in this hat but honestly I just trying not keel over and die from the cold.  Driving the dogs (mix of malamutes and huskies) was so much fun and also a little tricky.  In fact, it was so tricky Candice crashed our sled into a snowbank.  We both tumbled off the sled and our faithful team of canine companions just kept on going, leaving us alone in the freakin' wilderness.  Thankfully, our guide spotted us and came back to the rescue.

Finally we ended up in Quebec City.  Quebec city is like a mini-Paris without the jetlag.  The town is adorable with intimate cobblestone streets and traditional french architechture abounding.  We lucked out that we came just in time for the winter carnivale.

The people of Quebec embrace winter like no other people on earth.  It has to be the snow/ice sculpture carving capitol of the world.  You see sculptures in every nook and cranny. 

The carnivale itself had snowrafting (shown above), ziplining, human foosball and tons of games and distractions.  It was sweet.

We pretty much stayed at Hogwarts school for witchcraft and wizardry also known as Cheteau Frontenac

Some other shots of the city.

This post is too long and I know because I'm bored writing it.  

In short Quebec is cool in more ways than one.