Two Castles 10K Race Completed

As I posted a while ago, earlier this year I signed up for a 10k race as a bit of a challenge. I chose the Two Castles, the course for which is between Warwick Castle and Kenilworth Castle. I thought that would be a bit more interesting and notable than other courses.

The race was last Sunday and despite having to get there far earlier than was really necessary, I actually quite enjoyed it. My aim was to complete the race in under an hour. I’d managed it in training but I wasn’t sure how plausible it was for the actual race, because it’s quite a hilly course and obviously there were lots of other runners around, which there aren’t when I trained!

I’m delighted to say I finished in 56:51 which, as well as being comfortably under my 1 hour target, is the fastest I’ve yet run the distance.

Local people came out to support the runners throughout the race and cheered for other runners as well as their own friends and family. The crowds were thick in Kenilworth, especially up the hill at the end. For some reason, I didn’t struggle with the hill at all. I’d deliberately planned a training route which had some hills but I think it was partly because I had a bit of a second wind at that point – I was so keen to finish in under an hour!

Before I ran the race I was thinking that I probably wouldn’t do it again. Now, I’m not so sure…

Brecon Beacons Walking Weekend

I spent last weekend walking with my brother in the Brecon Beacons. It’s an idea that had been brewing since the weather on a weekend away last March ruined my plan to walk Sugar Loaf.

View of Pen – Y – Fan

We drove down on Saturday morning for the first day’s walk, which was a 9 mile walk around the Pen – Y – Fan horseshoe, taking in Corn Du, Cribyn, Fan – Y – Big and Pen – Y – Fan (the tallest mountain in south Wales) itself. All four are in a horseshoe ridge shape, though there is quite a drop and subsequent climb between some of them.

The walk done, we headed to the hostel where we were staying and had tepid showers before driving up to Brecon where we ate some Chinese.

Summit view from Sugar Loaf

The next morning we drove to Sugar Loaf. We had printed some instructions from the internet but the directions to the parking for the start of the walk were impossible to follow, so we ended up parking elsewhere and finding our own way using the map. This made it a much shorter walk – we were back at the car less than 2 hours after we set off – but that was just as well as we had to get back. Sugaar Loaf isn’t part of a range so the views from the top are truly panoramic and because it’s not as high as Pen – Y – Fan there were far less people, which is always nice!

Both great walks, I’m very glad we got to do them!

Bucket List Update: Sail a Boat #2

Following on from my first attempt at sailing last year, last weekend I took to the seas again.

I’ve been getting emails from the Tall Ships Youth Trust for a while and keeping a close eye out for a suitable trip. The Trust is a charity which runs sailing trips primarily for young people, but runs adult voyages as well.

The trip I found really appealed because it was a circumnavigation race of the Isle of Wight, which is a bit more adventurous and interesting than other sailing trips. My dad, who has always wanted to sail, came with me.

On Friday we arrived and got settled in on the boat. We were assigned to Challenger 1, the first of the Trust’s four 72 foot Challenger yachts. They have been around the world the wrong way twice and weigh 50 tonnes! We had a tour of the boat and sailed over to Cowes, practicing some sailing manoeuvres (tacking and jibes) before mooring for the night and heading into Cowes for some fish and chips.

It was an early night as the race start the following day was due to be 6 am, which meant getting up at 4am! There’s not much space on board and the beds are narrow cots – difficult to get in and out of and impossible for larger people to sleep on their sides, but not uncomfortable other than that.

I wasn’t great at the sailing because I didn’t have time to really get to grips with what to do when, but I got stuck in! Our skipper, Mike, volunteered me to go out over the side of the boat on a climbing harness attached to a pole holding a sail out to the starboard side. I was happy to oblige! The view of the boat was completely different from 10ft away from the vessel!

Winds were relatively low most of the time so we spent large periods of time sitting around moving very slowly! The circumnavigation is 50 miles and took the whole day to complete. By the end it was clear we weren’t going to improve on our third position and we returned the last short distance under motor because the wind was almost non-existent at that point. We had to be back in good time to make the dinner for all four crews at the Island Sailing Club, which was actually great fun. Our crew of 12 volunteers (with varying experience of sailing), two volunteer watch leaders, and the paid skipper and first mate, were a great bunch with interesting lives.

I had a cracking weekend. I’m really pleased I got to do it and I’ll be looking out for another trip – maybe this time on the Trust’s 200 foot tall ship, the Stavros S. Niarchos.

Roadtrip Recap Part 5: Las Vegas

America Roadtrip Part 5: Las Vegas, a set on Flickr.

So, on to the final part of my roadtrip recap!

After our morning in the Hollywood Hills and driving out of Los Angeles, we hit the Interstate for the drive to Las Vegas. It takes about four hours, but the further you go the more interesting the desert landscape becomes.

We arrived about 7.30pm. It was dark and as we stopped at a red light just off The Strip, we took the opportunity to put the roof down on the Mustang. If you’ve got a convertible, you have to arrive with the roof down. It’s the rules. The effect was spoiled somewhat by the fact that the radio was playing perhaps the least appropriate ‘Arriving in Las Vegas’ song imaginable – the live version of ‘Candle in the Wind’ by Elton John! It was funny though, so we didn’t change the station.

We checked in at our hotel, The Flamingo. It’s in the middle of The Strip so it’s easy to get about from there and it’s reasonably priced – though our room was next to some sort of cleaning cupboard, around which the maids gathered every morning at about 8am, talking rather loudly.

Sin City

Once checked in, we went out for the evening. With all the neon lights, Las Vegas looks far more impressive at night, though the seedy side of the city is also more apparent. There are people handing out cards for hookers and advertising strip clubs all day, but they multiply enormously at night. It’s hilarious though, more than once I witnessed these people try to pass a hooker’s card to a man walking hand-in-hand with his significant other. Nobody takes the cards, so you end up with pavements littered with business cards featuring naked women. It’s an odd place. Even the bar we ended up in that first night, in The Cosmopolitan, had three dancers in booths above the bar. After a drink or two, we decided we had to spend a couple of dollars on the slot machines (it has to be done, after all). I even won a couple of dollars. Another day I decided I had to play a table game and promptly lost $20 at roulette.

Guns, Guns, Guns

The following morning we tried one of the buffets for which Vegas is famous. This was at the neighbouring hotel, Ballys, and was ok but nothing special. Fortified on eggs and American solid bacon, we went to the Las Vegas Machine Gun Experience for go at a shooting range. They offer various packages at about $150 each, but they allow you to split the cost between you. One of my friends and I split the ‘Zombie Hunt’ package which let us fire an M4 machine gun, 12 guage shotgun and a pistol. The M4 was my favourite and the recoil of the shotgun hurt! The world is now safe from zombie Father Christmas. You’re welcome.

The staff at the shooting range got their minibus to drop us off at a bar they recommended a little out of town. After a quick drink, I left the others to enjoy happy hour and walked back into town to look at the hotels. I stopped by the famous ‘Welcome To Las Vegas’ sign – the picture above has been thoroughly photoshopped to remove all the distracting wires behind it! From there I started at that end of The Strip and went to look at a lot of the hotels: Mandalay Bay, Luxor, New York New York, Excalibur, Paris, Caesar’s Palace and The Venetian. After dinner we went to a KISS-themed glow-in-the-dark min golf course near the Hard Rock Hotel. Strange, but fun!

The Grand Canyon

The next day was the one I’d been looking forward to – the Grand Canyon! On the way we made a brief pit stop at the Hoover Dam, which is an impressive piece of engineering.

I’d assumed we’d be heading to the main tourist area, the South Rim, but my friends understandably expressed some unwillingness to make the 4-5 hour drive. Instead, we decided to go to the West Rim. While the North and South Rims are operated by the National Parks Service, the West Rim is run by the local Indian tribe, the Hulapai, who own the land. This meant a bouncy journey over a very uneven unpaved road to reach the visitor centre and an almost complete lack of any explanatory information about how the Canyon was formed or its importance in the culture of the Hulapai.

However, the scenery was impressive! Your ticket includes a free regular shuttle bus running between four points – the visitor centre, viewpoints Eagle Point and Guano Point, and Hulapai Ranch. We didn’t have time to go to the ranch but did enjoy the views from the other stops. The scale of the place is enormous, and the West Rim is apparently less impressive than the South! I’ll have to go there one day. Unfortunately, the choice of the West Rim meant no helicopter ride, which I’d been really looking forward to. We did discuss taking a night flight over The Strip instead but in the end there wasn’t time for that.

More Views

On eventually making it back to Las Vegas we went to check out the Fremont Street Experience. Fremont Street is the old Strip; they’ve covered several blocks over and the roof has a light show. It was busy and had a better atmosphere than the main tourist area, but there wasn’t that much happening so after a late buffet dinner we split into two groups. Three stayed there and the rest of us went to The Stratosphere. It’s a large tower hotel, 110 or so floors of it, at one end of The Strip. We had a drink and enjoyed the night-time view of the city from the 108th floor bar, while being impressed at the guts of the people on the amusement rides on the top of the tower. One of them involves riders jumping off the top of the tower and falling down a line to a landing pad hundreds of feet below!

Leaving Las Vegas

I had planned to spend the Friday at Zion National Park, which looks amazing. One of my friends had intended to come with me, but once we had arrived in Vegas he told me he wasn’t sure he was going to want to do all that driving. What I should have done was push him for a definite answer so I could book a tour if I needed to, but I thought he might decide to come after all, so I didn’t. After the Grand Canyon, I asked for a definite answer, was told ‘no’ and tried to book a tour, but it was too late. It was disappointing, but in some ways it might work out for the best. There are holidays which purely go around the National Parks in the American southwest, which would allow me to spend more time at Zion than a day trip as well as visiting other parks I’d like to go to, such as Bryce Canyon, Arches and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Instead, our final full day began with perhaps the best food of the holiday – breakfast at the Caesar’s Palace buffet. It was expensive, but worth it. We arrived at ten to eleven – they change the menu to the lunch menu at eleven, so we loaded up on the vast options of (mainly) breakfast food before realising that there was a dessert table and stocking up there too!

We then went to look around the shops, mostly within Caesar’s Palace. The whole thing is done on a Roman theme, with statues and the like scattered everywhere. For the last night we wanted a really nice meal, so after a recommendation from the Concierge we booked Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant, Saypo. The food was pricey but lovely!

We finished off the evening by watching the free fountain display at The Bellagio (excellent) and the Sirens of TI show at Treasure Island (awful, but also free) and a few drinks.

While the holiday wasn’t perfect and I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to (helicopter flight, whale watching trip, Zion National Park, second day in Yosemite), with a group of eight people there will always be some compromise. I got to see so many places I’ve always wanted to go so I can’t complain!

The only problem is now I need another epic trip to look forward to… maybe Peru next year?

Roadtrip Recap Part 4: Los Angeles

America Roadtrip Part 4: Los Angeles, a set on Flickr.

From Santa Barbara, it was on to LA. Having been to LA before and not particularly liked it, I wasn’t surprised to find that my opinion hadn’t changed. It’s simply so large – there’s no cohesive feel to it and neighbourhood’s merge into one another without anyone noticing. That’s how I felt anyway, though I realise I was there for less than a week and it may be that if I was there for longer, or saw more of it, I’d feel differently.

Chilling Out in Central Perk

On our first morning, we did the Warner Brothers Studio Tour, which was well worth doing. You see the backlot, where street scenes are filmed and our guide pointed out sections used in everything from Friends to the upside down kiss in Spiderman. We went through the transport museum, which had every Batmobile and saw the main museum with props and costumes from various Warner Brothers productions (including the recent Batman films and a whole floor dedicated to the Harry Potter films). We also got to look around the set of The Mentalist while the guide (who was excellent and clearly loved his job) explained various tricks of the trade. The highlight of it was when we got to see the Central Perk set from Friends. They are trying to preserve it for posterity but our guide was kind enough to let us sit on the sofa for a group shot!

That afternoon we went to Hollywood to look at the Walk of Fame and Graumann’s Chinese Theatre. Later, we drove into the hills to find the Hollywood sign, only to find that they don’t light it up at night anymore.

Surfing With Dolphins

The following day two of the group headed to Disneyland while the rest of us went to Manhattan Beach aiming to surf. There were loads of surfers in the water but to our surprise, nowhere renting equipment. We asked a number of people with no luck before eventually deciding to ask the lifeguard instead of giving up. He pointed us to a shop where we were able to get boards and wetsuits.

I’ve surfed a few times before but I’m by no means good at it. I stood up on the first wave then failed miserably on every other wave I caught! At one point I heard my friend shout “Dolphins!” and looked over to see two fins swimming about 15 metres away. It was a magic moment but I just hope they were dolphins, not sharks!

Out On The Edge At Venice Beach

The next day the group split in two, with some going to Long Beach and some to Santa Monica. I went to Santa Monica and explored the pier. I’m not really a beach person so instead of lying on the beach I hired a bike and rode it the few miles to Venice Beach. It’s a strange place – it seems to think it’s a bit more edgy and out there than it really is. I watched the skateboarders at the skate park and the graffiti artists who were (perfectly legally) covering everything in one small area with colourful designs.

Upside Down, All Around and Everything In-Between

The next day we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park. More by luck than judgement, we’d chosen the perfect day. Spring Break had just finished, the weather wasn’t anything to write home about and it was a Monday. This combination meant queuing for no longer than about 5 minutes for any ride, and usually less than that. This particular Six Flags has the most rollercoasters of any theme park in the world (13, I believe) and we did all of them. Many of them we did twice. That was a very fun day!

Hollywood Hills and Leaving LA

After a night’s sleep it was time to leave LA. We still hadn’t been to see the Hollywood Sign so we took a detour to the Griffith Observatory. (Actually, in LA nowhere is a detour because it takes so long to get anywhere, but you know what I mean.) This is right up in the Hollywood Hills with great views over the city and really gives you a sense of how sprawling and enormous LA is.

From there we drove through West Hollywood and on to Beverly Hills before arriving at our destination in Burbank – a shop called It’s A Wrap. They sell used items from the costume departments of various tv programmes and films. Some of these I’d never heard of, but a friend bought a t-shirt from House, so some are well-known.

Retail therapy completed, it was time to head out into the desert for the drive to Las Vegas and the final stage of the holiday.

Roadtrip Recap Part 3: Pacific Coast Highway

America Roadtrip Part 3: Pacific Coast Highway, a set on Flickr.

After Yosemite we drove back to the coast aiming for Monterey. After setting up shop in a motel just outside town, we got taxis to Cannery Row. Our friendly Mexican taxi driver recommended a couple of spots, one of which had a cool live band we enjoyed.

I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

The next day we went to Monterey Bay Aquarium, which was very impressive. I particularly liked the jellyfish exhibition, watching them propel themselves around the tanks, and was stunned by how large bluefin tuna are.

Next we went to the Monterey Mirror Maze, which I thought would be a little lame but was actually great fun! As you may guess, it’s a maze made of mirrors. The lights are brightly coloured and always changing and you wear glasses which make it harder to tell what’s real and what’s a reflection.

After a Ghiradelli sundae we hopped in the car and drove round the 17 Mile Drive of stunning coastal scenery to Carmel. It’s a pretty town but there’s not much there – we had a quick look around the Mission, a wander on the attractive beach and a drink before driving back to Monterey.

Heading South on Big Sur

The following day we hit Big Sur which is rightly called one of the best drives in the world. It hugs the coast for most of its length leaving views of cliffs and crashing surf for miles in each direction. At our lunch stop I was amazed to spot a hummingbird in the flowers and even more amazed to be able to get some decent photographs of it! We ended that night in Morro Bay, where we went out for cocktails and Mexican food and ended up playing shuffleboard in a saloon bar.

In the morning we climbed back into the cars aiming for Santa Barbara, stopping off at Pismo Beach for lunch, where we watched the surfers and three of the group rode quad bikes around the dunes, which they loved. Most of the towns we saw in California were full of non-descript, squat concrete buildings, but Santa Barbara was completely different. Many of its buildings were destroyed by an earthquake in the 1920s and were all rebuilt in the same style, with whitewashed walls and terracotta roof tiles. It lends the town a lovely cohesiveness missing from almost everywhere else we went.

Classic California

Santa Barbara is how I imagine a California beach town – it has a beachfront promenade, palm trees, and a pier as well as these Spanish-style buildings. We all really liked it there, probably helped by our motel being located as close to the beach as possible. In the morning myself and 5 friends went horseriding in the hills behind the town, which was great fun if a little uncomfortable for a while afterwards! There were fantastic views from the top of the hills. After arriving back in town I went to explore, walking up State Street and looking around the courthouse, which has a tower offering impressive views for miles around.

Then it was onto LA, but that’s another blog…

Roadtrip Recap Part 2: Yosemite National Park

America Roadtrip Part 2: Yosemite National Park, a set on Flickr.

This may have been the part of the trip I was most been looking forward to and it lived up to my expectations.

In common with much of the holiday, we found April to be a great month to visit as we had nice weather but it wasn’t too crowded, which I can imagine is a problem in the summer months. Furthermore, many of the waterfalls dry up in the summer months, but in spring they run strongly from snowmelt, making them more impressive.

Having arrived from San Francisco, we were staying in a large apartment in the National Park, complete with barbeque, pool table and hot tub, all of which saw use.

Tunnel Vision

I hadn’t appreciated until shortly before our arrival in California, but the location of our accommodation meant that arriving in Yosemite Valley involved driving past Tunnel View, the stunning viewpoint into the valley. From the viewpoint you can see a carpet of pine trees with El Capitan, the largest granite monolith in the world, on the left. In the distance is Half Dome and on the right is Bridalveil Falls.

 

Water, Water, Everywhere

Wild deer were roaming freely throughout the park. We spent the day on several short walks. The first was to Lower Yosemite Falls, before heading into a meadow alongside the Merced River. At one point in the meadow I just laughed from the sheer beauty of the terrain on all sides – high rocky cliffs, waterfalls, trees and the grassy meadows. It was incredible.

After that we had some lunch and caught the shuttle bus to the Mirror Lake trailhead. Mirror Lake is actually a pond in a river where the water is so still it provides a clear reflection of the mountains behind it. The National Park Service used to dredge the lake but they stopped that practice some years ago, so eventually it will fill up and become a meadow. It’s a bit of a shame really.

The final walk was a quick one on the way out, to Bridalveil Falls. The spray got my t-shirt damp, but it was worth it to see the falls and the rainbow they produced.

I would have loved to have gone back the next day but I was overruled by the group. Instead we went to Bass Lake, which was attractive in its own right but not a patch on the stunning grandeur of Yosemite. It was absolutely one of my favourite places I’ve ever been and I’d go back in a heartbeat.

Roadtrip Recap Part 1: San Francisco

America Roadtrip Part 1: San Francisco, a set on Flickr.

I’ve been back from my big America trip since Sunday and it’s been an adjustment, returning to real life!

I’ve been sorting through the myriad of photos I took selecting the best ones; here’s a selection from the first section of the holiday, in San Francisco. I’ll do a short write-up on the other bits over the next few days.

I was expecting to love SF and I did, albeit perhaps not quite as much as I thought I would. It was, however, by far my favourite of the three cities we visited on the trip.

Hippy Central

We had an apartment in Haight-Ashbury which turned out to be an excellent location, as nowhere was too far away. There were plenty of interesting shops, restaurants and bars literally around the corner. Haight-Ashbury was quite an upmarket area in the Victorian era but come the 1960s and it was hippy central. To an extent, that feeling persists now, with shops selling Himalayan items and the like. If you went the other way, the lovely Golden Gate Park was just a few minutes’ walk away. It’s a very large park, with a lake, Japanese Tea Garden and the Conservatory of Flowers, designed to look like Kew Gardens. San Francisco is the sort of place where a park can have a large group of people drumming together and a little further on, a smaller group roller skating to music, and nobody bats an eye.

On our first full day we all agreed that we had to start by going straight to the Golden Gate Bridge. We eventually found our way to Fort Point which has great views from the San Francisco side of the bridge. We wandered along the waterfront in the sunshine, which was excellent. On the pier there I was amazed to see sea lions frolicing together in the water! After that we drove over the bridge to Sausalito, a little town on the other side. It’s supposed to be a very attractive little town but it had started raining quite heavily so we didn’t stop. Instead we drove back into the city, after a little run between the bridge toll booth and the side of our car! We went downtown and parked near Union Square. We had a quick look around, including at the cable car turn around, dodged another heavy rain shower and ended up having dinner at John’s Grill, which features in The Maltese Falcon. Afterwards it was back to Haight-Ashbury where we walked around Golden Gate Park.

Going To Prison

The following day we went to Pier 39. It’s a bit of a kitschy tourist trap, stuffed full of souvenir shops, but it was fairly interesting to wander around. It is also well-known for the sea lions which gather on an empty pier. There were probably a hundred or so and in contrast to the playful swimming of the sea lions I had seen in the Bay the day before, sea lions are very lazy and slow on land. The only exception was a fight between two of them, where one was trying to get onto the pier and the other didn’t want to give up his spot and kept knocking his rival into the water!

I was very keen to try the traditional San Francisco dish of clam chowder in a sourdough bowl. I’d heard Boudin Bakery was the place to go so when we found it I joined a long queue. I was impressed by the loaves of bread they had for sale in the shape of various animals, such as crocodiles! My chowder was tasty and worth the wait. After lunch we wandered down towards Pier 33, from where the Alcatraz boats leave.

We’d originally intended to do a night tour, but they were full before we expected, so we ended up with a day tour. The tour is extremely well organised, with an excellent audio tour telling the story of the prison, from its beginning as a fort, through its life as a military prison, to a civilian prison and eventual closure in the 1970s. There were also reminiscences from inmates, guards and their families who had lived on the island. The most interesting stories, I found, were those of the various escape attempts. On one such attempt, three men did escape and do this day, it is not known if they survived the mile-long swim, the cold and the treacherous currents to reach land. If you have a clear day, without the famous San Francisco fog, there are great views of the city skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge from the island.

Bits and Pieces

Our third full day was occupied with fitting in all the smaller tourist attractions. The first of these was Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. This provides fantastic views over the city. From there we had a walk around the North Beach area which was famous for the Beat generation. The next stop was Lombard Street, a short residential street of only a few hundred metres long, with eight wide sweeping turns to get down the steep hill. We drove down that, parked and walked up it. Fortuitously there was a cable car stop at the top, so we caught the cable car towards Union Square. Health and safety hardly exists – you can hang off a pole on the open sides! That would never be allowed here. After a busy day exploring the city we went out to a few bars in Haight-Ashbury and the Mission district, catching a couple of live bands by accident.

Golden Gate Bridge Redux

Day 4 began with a visit to Baker Beach, which I knew provided more excellent views of the Golden Gate Bridge. After enjoying the view and clambering over the rocks (and taking lots of photographs, of course) we drove over the bridge again, heading for Muir Woods. This is an area of redwoods, well-known as the tallest trees in the world. They were impressive but it’s difficult to get a sense of scale from the bottom looking up! We found a walk which took an hour or so and got chatting to a couple of older local men. They recommended a detour which took us to the top of a hill providing an excellent viewpoint over the woods and to the sea.

Unlike most of the other big places we went, we were able to do everything we wanted to do – perhaps because we went there first.

I really enjoyed San Francisco and would love to go back, but there are so many other places to go first! Our time in the city done, we drove to Yosemite National Park.

Taken The Plunge – 10km Run In June

As I said I would, I’ve officially signed up to take part in the 2 Castles 10km run in June.

With that in mind, I’ve been semi-training for a while now and as of today have completed 2 10km (ish) runs outside and one on the treadmill, as well as a few shorter runs. It’ll be easier to train more now that it’s getting lighter in the evenings.

My two aims are:

1. Finish the race!
2. Finish in under an hour if I can

I suspect number 2 will be difficult as I’m not the fastest runner and with the hills, it’s not a course which disposes itself to fast times.

That said, my run yesterday was a 9.9 km and while it felt very slow to me, it actually took about an hour and 3 minutes, so not too far off! I felt very unergetic this morning so I was pleasantly surprised at the time. It might be that come race day, with enough training and with the energy of the race and the other runners to spur me on, I might be able to do it. I hope so, anyway.

I’d loe to get faster but while my lungs are willing, my legs aren’t! Does anyone have any tips to improve my base speed?

2 Days To Go

I have been slacking on the blogging front lately.

In my defence, the latest Weekly Photo Challenges haven’t inspired me and I don’t want to write about something just to fill a space.

I won’t be updating for the next few weeks either, because I leave on my America roadtrip on Saturday. We’re starting in San Francisco, heading over to Yosemite before driving down the Pacific Coast Highway into Los Angeles. From there, we’re crossing into Nevada where we’ll stay in Las Vegas, taking side trips to the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park.

Needless to say, I’ll have a lot to write about when I get home!