Back in the USA!

I headed back to the States for a visit in the beginning of October. I flew into Washington D.C. and stayed in the city for the night with my friend Liz from high school. I got in somewhat late, but we still had time to eat the green curry she and Dave had made for dinner before heading out to Dupont Circle for a drink. Since it was a work night, and the trains shut down at 12, we didn’t stay out too late. Omar was still able to come meet us, though! We woke up early the next morning and Liz and I met Omar at Cosi for breakfast in the city. S’mores for breakfast – delicious and nutritious. We chatted for a bit until I had to run to catch my train to North Carolina. I rode down to Winston-Salem to visit Katie at med-school at Wake Forest. The packed train arrived late and Katie was probably starving by the time I got in. We went to Mellow Mushroom (which I now know is a chain) for dinner. Very good, as always. We stopped by First Street, the bar close to the hospital and her apartment, where an 80’s cover band was playing outside, and I met a bunch of her med-school classmates.

The next morning we slept in, watched some Food Network, and then drove out to Salem Lake to run. It was great! I haven’t seen a lake in a long time! The only problem was that the trail wasn’t well-marked all the way around, so we wound up running a little farther than we needed to in the HOT weather. After we got back to the apartment I went for another 7-mile run – it’s getting to the point where I have to run long distances for marathon training on the weekends. After my run we went to an Oktoberfest party at one of Katie’s classmate’s houses. It was a lot of fun - there was a lot of good food and beer, and everyone brought their dogs. I heard quite a few med-school jokes that I didn’t get, but I didn’t mind. After the party, while everyone else watched the LSU game, Katie and I went to the Dixie Classic Fair, which reminded me a lot of the MN State Fair. Unfortunately, we made it there too late to see the pig races, but we did get to try fried candy bars/Oreos and see fireworks!

The next morning Katie gave me a tour of the WF Medical School, we grabbed Jersey Mike’s, and then went hiking at Hanging Rock Park. Hanging Rock looked eerily like Humpback Rock, but had a couple of water falls to see, too. After a nice afternoon outside, we got back to town and went out for good North Carolina BBQ, with sweet tea. This was my first experience with sweet tea. I loved it, but went a bit overboard. I had five cups – the sugar content of which kept me up most of the night. We also made a stop by Krispy Kreme because the “HOT NOW” sign was on – sooooo good! After eating we went over to the main Wake Forest campus to see the two med-school football teams face each other in the intramural playoffs. High stakes. It was fun to watch! Here is Katie and a lot of the WF Class of 2011. After the game, we went home and tried to get some sleep before the late night trip to the train station in High Point – the only train that services Winston-Salem and goes to Charlottesville is one hour away and leaves at 3:30am every day – very convenient. And there are no buses that run there at that time of night, so Katie had to drive me. Thank you soooooooooooo much Katie!!!

I arrived in Charlottesville around 8am the next day, where Kat picked me up. I made it back to the new apartment on University Circle, said hi to everyone, probably ate some brownie mix, and then took a long nap – I seemed to have fallen right back into the college schedule. I spent a lot of time at UVA hanging out at the apartment and talking to whoever was home at the time. Murph and I went out for dinner one night, as well as Arch’s, and Kat and I went to trivia at Mellow Mushroom another night. Amazingly, with just a team of two, we didn’t finish last! We also went to Revolutionary Soup for the first time (at least for me), which was good, and we had dumplings at some point, too! On Friday night a lot of the alums were back in town for Homecoming weekend. Kate and Katie got to UVA and the three of us and Kat went out to Buddhist. We had a sleepover, woke up the next morning and went running. Kate, Katie, and Kat ran to the downtown mall to get dumplings while I took off to finish my longest training run before the marathon – 20 miles. Later in the day, Kat and I jumped in the car and drove up to Northern Virginia for dinner at her house, where I got to meet her new puppy! Then we finished the last hour of the drive to Frederick, Maryland for Sara and Steven’s wedding. Luckily, the hotel we stayed at had a hot tub, which we made sure to use both nights. On Sunday we woke up and got a massive breakfast to go from IHOP. Then got dressed and went up into the mountains to Ostertag Vistas for the wedding! It was a great day out and the ceremony was beautiful. Short, too – only about 15 minutes. Then everyone went over to the refurbished barn for food, drinks, and bluegrass music. Kat and I stayed until we saw Sara and Steven off in the limo before we went back to the hotel and hot tub. We woke up really early the next morning so that Kat could get back to UVA and I took the train into D.C. I hung out in a coffee shop for the morning, reading and eating BAGELS (which I can’t get in Düsseldorf). I checked my luggage at a hotel and wandered around for the rest of the day. I went to the International Spy Museum, met Kate Meehan for lunch at Dupont Circle, and wound up in the Mall where the Solar Decathlon (a contest for solar-powered homes) was going on. That was really interesting. There was something like 30 teams, each with a model home powered completely by the sun. I think two of the teams were international, one of which was German. And, of course, the Germans won it all – they are really on top of a lot of environmental issues. By this time the day was winding down and it was time for me to get back to the airport to fly through Detroit and Düsseldorf to get to Spain.