RAGBRAI 2010

Saturday, July 24th, was a warm summer day, but not nearly as hot or humid as you might expect for Nebraska in July.  My wonderful girlfriend, Emily, drove me up to Omaha to meet up with my college buddy, Matt, and his friends from Kansas, who would be joining us for RAGBRAI.  Emily dropped me off at The Upstream and I met up with Matt.  Matt ate lunch and we killed some time walking around the old market as we waited for the guys from Kansas.  After a couple of hours they finally showed up.  They couldn't find a parking spot close to where we were, so they parked a few blocks away and Matt sent me ahead to screw with them.  I found them (Larry, Kyle, and Colin) milling about the car and took them for a ride, asking them if they were, "on some sort of racing team," and "if they had room in their car for me and my bike because I've always wanted to do RAGBRAI."  It was a magical first meeting.  They had a good laugh when I told them the truth and I knew they would be a good group of guys to spend RAGBRAI with.  We left  for Sioux City in two cars.

When we arrived we found a nice grassy knoll upon which to set up our tents and, once our campsite was established, we immediately started drinking.  We took a short break to check out the expo, where Matt and Colin (both bike mechanics), kept running into people working the tents that they knew.  We milled around for a bit, joked about missing the Smash Mouth concert, and headed back for more drinking until we called it a night.

RAGBRAI, for those of you who don't know, is a cycling event across Iowa.  It is the oldest, largest, and longest multi-day bicycle tour in the country.  There are about 15,000 people who do it and cyclists completely take over both lanes of the highway.  There is a start town and an end town each day, and in between we pass through little towns that are essentially shut down and turned into one big street festival.  The enormity of this event is nearly unfathomable and, unless you've done it before, there is no way to accurately describe it that would convey the true chaos of RAGBRAI.

This post has the potential for becoming excessively long, so I'm going to do the rest of the week like this...

Day 1:
Woke up too early (this was to be the theme for the week because insanely slow people get up at 5:00 to be obnoxious and get ready to start riding, since it's going to take them all day)
Beautiful weather
68.5 miles with 3,687 feet of climbing
Matt's drive day (one person had to drive each day to get our gear to the end town.  Matt rode a single speed, so he decided to drive the day with the most climbing)
Best thing that happened - found a party farm 5 miles from the end town with free beer and brats.  Also, free watermelon at one of the towns along the way.
Ended in Storm Lake.  That town is beautiful.

Day 2:
Woke up too early
Another beautiful day
100 miles with 1,416 feet of climbing
Colin's drive day since we were all doing the extra loop to make it a century ride and Colin thought that Idea was dumb.
Best thing that happened - stopped 10 miles from the end town and gorged on all-you-can-eat pasta and garlic bread (which was delicious), but then had too many beers and got WAY too full.  Also, was on the periphery of an accident and got stabbed in the Achilles tendon by my big chain ring.  Kyle and Larry were riding drunk the last 10 miles and were hilarious (and STILL way faster than us).

Day 3:
HOT AS HELL
59.9 miles with 1,068 feet of climbing
My drive day, since I figured I'd be sore from the longest ride of my life (I was right)
Best thing that happened - Went to the pool in the end town.  We all got sunburned and watched a (probably drunk) older lady with fake boobs have WAY too much fun

Day 4:
51.8 miles with 1,180 feet of climbing
Kyle's drive day
Best thing that happened - Stopped for Mr. Porkchop (delicious), took the wheels off of Colin's bike, and left while he was still in line for food.  "Really, guys?  Really?!"  It was priceless and would not be the only time his wheels got removed from his bike.

Day 5:
Larry's drive day
82 miles with 2,635 feet of climbing
Best thing that happened - I had a good ride and took some strong pulls (letting people draft off of you - at one time I had a train of 6-8 people following me.  I almost felt like a real cyclist for a second!)

Day 6:
Matt drives again (because he blew up the day before)
Rainy
Best thing that happened - being done with the ride.  The weather was crappy and I finally blew up and was unable to keep up with the guys.  We went to some crazy bars, I got Iced twice...about 30 seconds apart.  It was a good ending to a crap day.

Day 7:
I drive again since I blew up the day before
47.5 miles
2,591 feet of climb (I guess there were some killer hills on this day
Best thing that happened - being finished and saying goodbye to a new group of friends.  Matt and I stayed with Emily and her parents that night at their house near Des Moines.  We got to clean up in a real shower, ate a ton of awesome food, and I Iced Matt (finally).

RAGBRAI was twice as much cycling as I usually do in a week and 100 times more drinking than I usually do in a year.  We also had lots of, "fellowship," as Larry liked to call it, which was basically just us eating at a restaurant and hanging out.  Spending all of my time with these guys for an entire week sort of reminded me of being on tour, which was good; I miss that feeling.  There were plenty of other crazy and cool things that happened, but if you want to hear about them you'll have to drop by for a chat or give me a call.

2010 Season

Inspired by Barrett Brandon's new post on his 2010 season.  Mine isn't as epic, but it does have two half Iron-distance races 5 weeks apart.

March 13th - Leprechaun Chase 10k road race
April 17th - Novartis run 10k road race
June 5th - Dam to Dam 20k road race
June 20th - CSG sprint triathlon
July 17th - Lake Geode Olympic distance triathlon
August 22nd - Pigman half Iron-distance triathlon
September 25th - Redman half Iron-distance triathlon
November 20th - Living History Farms 7 mile XC race

And for anyone who only keeps up with my life via this blog...join Facebook (Barrett)!  ha HA!  Kidding.  Today I started my first "real" (salary, business casual, benefits) job today.  I fought the good fight  for 31 years, but I guess it's time to move on.

Also, I have a girlfriend and she's awesome.  REALLY awesome.  :)

2010 (01-01-10)

If I’m completely honest, I never thought I’d be updating from Europe, and I’m not just talking about this new year post, but any post in general.  Sure, I’d dreamed of living in a foreign country, but who hasn’t?  I always thought it was one of those things on my “bucket list” that would just always be there, as a quaint thought in the back of my mind.  It’s interesting to think about how completely unexpected nearly everything in my life has been.  If you had asked me when I was a senior in high school, I would have told you that I was going to go to college and then grad school to become a psychiatrist.  Instead I have an English degree (I didn’t love books then), spent 10 years running around the country and playing music with my best friends (I didn’t play bass then), became a triathlete (I couldn’t actually swim then and had never even heard of a triathlon), and moved to Europe (I had never even thought of living abroad and only very rarely thought of traveling).  There have been sacrifices--boy, have there been sacrifices--but I consider myself quite lucky.  So what’s the message here?  Don’t make plans?  All of life is an unexpected adventure?  I don’t know; I don’t have the answers.  I just think it’s amazing where my life has taken me and almost shudder to think how differently my life would have been had I skipped touring for grad school and rushed into a full time job.

2009 was a very turbulent year in the already crazy life I had created.  Maybe turbulent isn’t the right word, but a lot of big stuff happened.  I went on two tours and the stressful life of scraping-by and touring finally got the best of me, so I quit the band.  Maybe the decision is still too fresh, or it’s too early to tell in the grand scheme of things, but that might be the only decision I’ve ever made that I really regret.  I knew that if we couldn’t “make it,” at least to the point of being able to support ourselves, then it would have to end some day.  I know we had some small success, were able to tour the entire country multiple times, and sell records in Japan, so I should feel good about that, but there’s going to always be a part of me that wishes it could have gone on forever.  I ran my first marathon, which I trained for nearly all year.  I moved to Hungary, which has been hard, but good for me.

For whatever reason, I think 2010 is going to be a good year.  I’m actually looking forward to a little normalcy.  I’ll get to come home.  I’ll get to see my friends.  I might be able to get a really good job.  It would be nice to finally start digging myself out of debt, have health insurance, and be able to do little things like buy my family Christmas presents (which hasn’t happened for a number of years).  I’ll spend a lot of time swimming, biking, running, and reading.  I’ll probably train for another marathon and half Ironman (I hope to do my first Ironman in 2011).  I don’t usually get this way with the new year, but I feel like 2010 has a lot of potential, and I’m making plans to make it great so that it doesn’t pale in comparison to the last 10 years that I’ve spent having the best time in my life with my best friends.

Krakow (Photos)

Krakow (Part 2)

The alarm goes off at 9 and I’m probably still a little drunk.  We drag ourselves downstairs to eat the free breakfast, which is far better than any free hotel breakfast I’ve had in the states, and includes scrambled eggs and ham.  Unfortunately, we have to choke down our food because neither of us are feeling that great.  Now aware of where we actually are, we walk the few kilometers to the city center and find the bus station.  We buy tickets to the town of Oswiecim and get on the bus.  The trip takes about an hour and a half, and because of our crazy night and lack of sleep, neither one of us have a very comfortable ride.  I have the same initial experience with Auschwitz that I had when I went to the Alamo--I’m completely confused at how it exists in a town.  I always imagined it would be located in a barren field somewhere far from civilization, but there is a town living in the shadow of this monument to horror; there is a mall within walking distance from the gates.

There’s not much that I could tell you about this place that you’re not already aware of.  In addition, there’s no way to describe the gravity of that place--the way it has the ability to make your heart so heavy and pile more weight than you think you can handle upon your shoulder--so I won’t even try.  The one thing I noticed that I wasn’t expecting is that it isn’t ugly; the grass was green, there were birds singing in trees, the buildings don’t look terrifying (from the outside).  I had almost assumed that the things that happened there would have had a Chernobyl-type effect on the land.  Anyway, we walked around  and through the buildings, many of which have been turned into sort of a museum.  It was nearly 3:00 by the time we left, which meant we didn’t have time to go down the road to Birkenau.  I am told that it is even more gruesome, and that children under the age of 14 aren’t allowed to visit that site.  It’s probably a good thing that we couldn’t go, because I don’t know how much more either one of us could handle.

We’re pretty quiet the entire ride back to Krakow.  We get to town and go find a polish restaurant for some food.  It has a log cabin feel, with a stone hearth and blazing fire in the main room, as well as some delicious food.  Full and warm we walk back to our hotel to shower and nap again.  We head back into town and meet up with some more people from CouchSurfing.  Zenia, who is a first generation Pole from Chicago, and her friends Matt from London and Echo from China.  They take us to a techno dance club that is too loud.  JM and I don’t feel like drinking because of the last two nights, so we sip sodas.  Echo has some crazy stories, when you can hear her, but Zenia and Matt are more interested in making out.  We hang out until about midnight and then call it a night.

There are couple of inches of snow on the ground when we wake up.  Our free breakfast is delicious this time around, and we’re feeling pretty good about the trip, overall.  We get packed up, check out, and head back to the main market square.  We walk around for a little bit and then start making our way to the bus station, determined to get it right this time.  There’s a giant, four-story mall on the way, so we walk through.  It’s packed with people and looks like any other mall.  We get on the bus and watch two year old movies overdubbed in Hungarian, but with English subtitles.  After nearly eight hours on the bus, we finally make it back to the apartment.  The really strange thing about taking a trip from Budapest was that the whole time I kept thinking that when the trip was over I should be going home, but instead I knew that I would be going back to Budapest.  Still, it was a great trip.  Next up is Rome, tentatively planned for late February.

Krakow (Part 1)

The trip started out a wreck, as do most things that JM and I do together.  We got up at 4:30, after less than 5 hours of sleep, ate a quick breakfast, and headed out the door.  We walked to the metro, took the red line two stops, changed to the blue line, took the blue line 6 stops, and got off the metro.  The travel agent said we need to go to the bus station once we get off the metro at this stop, so we walk upstairs to look for the bus station.  The stairs open into a huge, bright building lined with benches--the bus station.  It’s surrounded by huge charter buses, so it looks like we’ll be riding in style.  Way too easy.  We look on the board and see our bus leaves at 6:15 instead of 6:00, so we sit down and close our eyes for a bit, since we’re about half an hour early.  The bus finally pulls up and we wait in line to get on.  As I walk onto the bus, I had my ticket to the driver, who is checking the tickets, and he says something in Hungarian.  “I’m sorry?” I say.  “Wrong bus line.  You want one by stadium,” he replies, and points across the street.  Dammit!  I step off the bus and we look across the street to see, what is probably our bus, driving away.  We go underground and across the street anyway.  We come up the stairs to a dark street corner.  The building that is the other “bus station” isn’t open.  It’s not lit.  There are no buses around.  We stand confused for a few minutes until another bus pulls up.  People suddenly pile out of cars and appear from the shadows, and board the bus.  We are now sure that we missed our bus.  We head back home and decide to straighten it out after a little more sleep.

When we get up JM calls the bus line, only to find out that there isn’t another bus going to Krakow for 3 days.  He walks about half a mile to the train station near our place and books us on the night train to Krakow.  We have a small lunch, nap a little, have dinner, and then, to prepare for the long train ride and to help wash the morning away, we kill a bottle of Johnnie Walker.  We get to the train station nearly an hour early (we’re not taking any chances) and the alcohol has definitely kicked in.  A homeless man hassles JM for a cigarette and some money.  Being drunk, JM isn’t in the mood for speaking Hungarian, so he replies in English.  We’re drunk, so for some reason we get a kick out of the pantomiming and five-or-so English words this guy knows.  Anytime he says a Hungarian word that reminds me of an English word, I start talking to him about it in English.  A girl standing near us can understand both sides of the conversation and can’t stop laughing.  JM gives the guy a cigarette and 300 forint, and we get on the train.  Already round two is getting off to a better start, or at least the alcohol makes it seem that way.  We chat with  the Aussies a couple doors down from us for a bit, and then settle into our little bunks.  I must say, a train isn’t a terrible way to travel overnight, if you get to lay down.  The bunks were actually more comfortable than my “bed” in Budapest, which says nothing about the comfort of the train and EVERYTHING about how uncomfortable my bed is.  We both sleep fitfully¾nodding off when the train is rolling and waking up when it jars to a stop at the stations.

We get to Krakow just after 6:30 in the morning.  We magically pick the right direction to walk from the train station and end up in the huge market square in the city center.  It’s an interesting and unique experience to be walking the streets of a new city as the sun is coming up, and before most of the people who actually live there are out and about.  We walk  around the square and window-shop.  We check out St. Mary’s Basilica, which is in one corner of the square.  We take a small side street away from the square and come to a big park.  We learn that the wide green space circles the entire city center, and is where the main wall used to stand.  We walk back into the center and find a little café that is open early (7:30.  Everything else opens at 9) and go in for cappuccino.  Warm and awake, we head back out to start taking everything in.  We hit up all the usual tourist stuff (the market square, the city center, the churches, the statues in the green space).  We find a little restaurant and eat brunch (potato pancakes and goulash).  We walk up the hill to see the castle and it’s church.  There’s a massive marble courtyard in the middle.  We walk down the hill to the Dragon’s Den.  We walk along the river.  I’m not going to go into much detail since I have pictures and this post is going to be massive already.

At this point it’s late enough in the afternoon that we can check into our hotel.  It’s only supposed to be 4 kilometers from the city center, so we decide to walk it.  JM has directions and after about 15 minutes of walking, we situate ourselves enough to head to the street we need.  We walk for about 45 minutes and end up where the Google directions sent us.  Unfortunately, our hotel is not there.  We ask around and most people just give us confused looks.  We sort of get directions from a guy who doesn’t speak any English.  He writes down a new street name, so we feel like we’re back on track.  We think he says that it’s just down the road about 800 meters.  We get there and not only is there no hotel, but the street that he has written down for us isn’t there either.  We walk around for a bit and still can’t figure it out.  We find another guy who roughly tells us that we have to take the bus, but we think we should be close and he doesn’t seem too sure about it, so we walk around some more.  We cover the entire neighborhood one more time before we ask another lady.  She doesn’t speak English at all, but gives us very specific directions to go straight two stoplights and then go right.  We walk in that direction and finally come to a part of town that looks like it might actually have a hotel.  We see a taxi, give up, and get in.  He drives us directly to our hotel…on the other side of the city center!  The directions Google maps gave us were at least 10-15 kilometers off.  After nearly 2 hours of walking, we’ve made it.

Finally at our hotel we spend a little time taking naps or showers.  We kill just a couple hours there before we head out to meet up with Ewa (Eva, for all you Americans).  We met her through CouchSurfing.com.  She seemed very nice, invited us to dinner at her place, and said we could hang out with her and her two friends who were in town.  We get there and she tells us to make ourselves at home.  Already the beautiful little apartment smells like delicious food.  We chat for just a few minutes before her other two friends show up; Andre from Romania, and Karolina who is from Krakow originally but lives in London.  We start in on one of the four bottles of wine (we all brought some) and jump right into the conversation.  Ewa is finishing preparing the meal, Karolina makes a salad and then makes birds out of the napkins for the table.  After dinner we finish off all the wine and catch the last tram to the Jewish district.  Ewa takes us to a bar, which I believe was called the Singer or Singers.  I don’t remember exactly,  but most of the tables were made out of old Singer sewing machines.  It was a cool little place and was pretty mellow when we got there.  They bought us hot beer, a shot of some special Polish drink that was absolutely toxic, hot honey wine, more hot beer…  By our second drinks (third if you include the shot, sixth or seventh if you include the wine), there was a drunk couple attempting to dance in the middle of the bar.  They were barely doing a good job of even standing up, but no one seemed to be bothered by them at all.  In fact, everyone there seemed to just be having a great time.  We had been drinking a lot and went from zero to drunk pretty quickly.  The next thing I know, most of the people in the bar are dancing, including our group.  At one point, Ewa and Karolina even end up dancing on a table.  Eventually we leave the bar but I think I left my camera so Andre and I go back in.  We search for a few minutes before I find it in my coat pocket.  We get back outside and, somehow end up in a cab, and then somehow end up at the hotel.  We stumble out, slurring goodbyes, drag ourselves into our hotel room and pass out at nearly 4am.

This is the second time in a few months that I’ve done drunk goodbyes, and I must say I hate it.  The same thing happened at my going away party.  I got drunk and stumbled out of there to walk home, just like I would at any other party.  None of the goodbyes were very heartfelt, and I even forgot a few people because they were passed out or I just didn’t remember they were there.  Same thing here, I didn’t get to fully express my gratitude and appreciation for the good time we were shown by these great people, and I regret that a little bit.

This thing is getting pretty long, so I guess the rest of it will have to wait for the next post.

Thermal Baths

Yesterday JM and I went to the Király Baths.  Here's a little history first: Hungary sits on one of the largest resources of geothermal water in the world.  Of the approximately 1300 thermal springs registered in Hungary, about 300 are used for "bathing" purposes and about 130 of those are located in Budapest.  The Turkish ruler of Buda started building the Király Baths in 1565 (which was finished in 1570), just inside what was then the Castle gates.  He wanted to make sure that, in the event of an invasion, the Turks could still bathe.  Some of these baths were only for men as recently as 2007, and even now there are only certain days when women are allowed to go.


OK, so here's the story:  JM and I decide to have a little relaxation before our trip to Krakow (a little relaxation before our relaxation?).  We went to the Király Baths, and as soon as you walk in you can smell the sulfur.  We paid at the front desk and went upstairs.  Once upstairs you walk into what is essentially a locker room that had sex with a dressing room.  The man at the door hands you a "towel" that much more resembles a thick bed sheet in size and thickness, and, what I can only refer to as a "junk apron."  This is essentially a thin white piece of cloth about the size of an unfolded napkin, with two very long strings attached at one end, which you use to tie it around your waist; it's a loincloth.  Oh, and it's white, so it's pretty much useless as soon as it's wet.  We were there on a mens only day, so the entire experience had a very locker room feel.  


Anyway, you go into one of the dressing rooms and change into your loincloth.  When you come out there is a guy with a bunch of keys.  There is one key in the door, which you use to lock the door and then tie to your loincloth, and then he uses a key to lock the other lock to the door and your stuff is safe.  We walk through the locker room, making sure to walk exactly side by side so we don't have to see each other's butts (we do still have to live together).  We head down a couple flights of spiral stairs, and the entire time the smell of sulfur (from the water) gets stronger.  Once at the bottom the air is so thick with it that it's like eating a sulfur/air sandwich.  There are showers at the bottom of the stairs, which you must use before you get in the baths.  You walk down a short hallway and it opens into a large domed room with a giant octagonal pool in the center.


We went in and sat on the second stair, which let the water come up to my neck.  The dome of the room is dotted with small circular windows in a concentric circular pattern.  There are a handful of other guys there, most of whom are older gentlemen, but a couple who looked about 40 and one other guy who looked to be in his late 20's.  There wasn't much talking going on, and what we did hear was mostly in low voices.  After just a short time in the main pool, I realized that the water wasn't really hot, but more like warm bathwater.  JM went to test out the other two smaller square pools, located around the edge of the main pool.  He dips a foot in the first one, turns around and shakes his head no.  He goes to the other one and gets in.


When he returns he says that the first one is cold, and the other one is very hot.  I venture over to the hot one.  After 10 minutes I come back to the main pool which, in contrast, feels cool now.  We sit for a little while longer before JM decides to check out the steam room.  This is when stuff gets weird.  While he is gone, two guys have gotten quite close.  One is laying face-up with his neck on the edge of the pool, almost floating.  This was the younger guy.  The other guy was at a weird angle to him and I was pretty sure there was some inappropriate touching going on, however, none of the other guys seemed to notice.  


Upon JM's return, my suspicions were confirmed.  Not only did he say he thought the two guys I saw were up to something fishy, but he said there was some questionable stuff going on in the steam room.  Of course, he said the steam room was crazy and I had to check it out.  We go in the steam room and it's amazing.  I've never been in one before, but it's just oppressively hot and humid.  After being in there for about 5 minutes I came to the realization that the water dripping off of my body  wasn't because I was just in the pool, but it was because I was sweating profusely.  We're in there for maybe 10 minutes before we leave again.


When we come back out, the main room has become a fondle-fest.  The two guys from before have moved to the other side of the pool and one is unabashedly fondling the other one.  There is a  group of three older men, two sitting against the side facing the middle of the pool, the other standing between them facing the edge of the pool; he's fondling both of them at the same time.  When one of them leaves, another  guy floats up to the other two and starts very gently stroking the face of one of the men, while positioning himself for some of the action.  I'm sure I was wide-eyed, because I wasn't expecting this.  Sure, I had steeled myself against seeing old, flabby men in nothing but a loincloth.  I had also steeled myself against the guy doing a weird naked spa workout, and sure enough, there was one.  I had not, however, expected blatant sex acts in the middle of a public bath.  There were only a couple of other guys in there who seemed to be caught off guard as well.  We decide to call it a day.


That was by far the craziest thing that has happened in Budapest.  While searching for the information in the first paragraph, I found many reviews of the baths, most of which had something or other about the Király Baths being "the gay one."  Now you know.  In two hours we leave for Krakow to explore a new city for a few days and meet up with some random internet people.  I'll be back in a few days with my blog on the trip.