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Keblog – part I of a double blog

What a birthday! I warned RobO that if these great birthdays keep up I’m going to start expecting a trip every year at this time! (If you can’t remember last year’s Quebec City awesomeness your homework is to scroll back and read it.)

This morning started out with a walk to the painted steps. The story is that an Istanbul resident wanted to make people happy so he bought a few cans of paint and painted a staircase. The city painted it grey the next day, which caused a political revolt. The result? I guess you can see…

 

 

I met up with robO and we went to a Turkish Bath. This place was built 300 years ago and is in the ‘1000 places to see before you die’ book. Anyway, picture a big marble room filled with naked women soaping each other down. Before you get too excited, my woman was named Inge and she was exfoliating dead skin off of my body in little lint-like rolls. This was followed by a wash down and an oil massage. My skin has never felt so good! Check it off the bucket list! You can Read robO’s report for the full man experience.
Sorry… no pics of me in my birthday suit!
Next we visited the Bascilica Cistern, which is an underground water storage made with beautiful roman columns. And we got a special treat… a dress up like sultans and have a photo taken. Who could say no to that?!

The rest of our afternoon was spent eating amazing Turkish food and checking out the beautiful Blue Mosque and Aya Sophia.
 

We finished off the night with a birthday dinner and rooftop patio views of the sights. Not too shabby for the first day of my 36th year!

Looking forward to checking our the bazaars, then flying to Cappadocia tomorrow!

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Bloggle Bloggle -part II of a double blog

I can’t get enough of this picture:

Today DawnO celebrated her 36th birthday in magnificent fashion.  It all started with a Turkish bath.  And yes, we both got the full meal deal. You can read DawnO’s blog ‘Keblog’ for her experience.  Mine got a little awkward.

We each got sent into separate areas as the bath houses are segregated.  They took me to a little change room and told me to take off everything and wrap myself in a tea-towel and slip on a pair of wooden slippers.  I was led into this room:
I was told to relax and enjoy the sauna while I await my man.  Now at this point I was the only one in this huge room which was quite a cool place to be with nothing but your postage stamp of a towel and your thoughts.  Eventually the door opened and this was the scene:

It all started with a massage and streches, which included this dude trying to make my heel touch my back.  I may have yelped, but I did not let him see me cry.  I was then led to the sinks where I was scrubbed with an abrasive oven mit and washed with something that looked like a soaped up mop-head.  Up to this point my tea-towel was doing a better-than-expected job of covering my bits and cracks.  But it all came unravelled during my final rinse.  Soap was in my eyes so I lost sight of things…  When I finally opened them, I was free-balling it.  Unphased, my man finished the rinse cycle while I scrambled to cover up.  Afterwards he let me do some necessary self-rinsing and then met me outside the bathing room to wrap me in warm towels.  All-in-all, I would highly recommend a Turkish bath.

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Arrivederci Boston

We have really enjoyed our last few days in Boston. We highly recommend staying in the North End (Little Italy). It’s beautiful, tasty, and easy to walk/bike/metro to anywhere.

We’ll close with some pictures…

The Holocaust Memorial.  Each of the columns represents one of the concentration camps. The number of each person killed in the camp is painted on the glass.

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Ivy Leagues and Major Leagues

Yesterday DawnO and I celebrated our anniversary ‘Boston Style’ and it was wicked awesome.  DawnO started off her morning with a phone in radio interview and I got to sleep in a bit.  I informed Dawn that her anniversary present is waiting for her when we get home.  It’s a Venus fly trap!  I know, I know, it’s hard to believe how I came up with a gift that was practical and romantic.  (Thanks to Claire for finding it and taking care of it until we get home.)

We eventually got organized and headed to Harvard with both sets of parents.  We took a tour of the grounds which were quite lovely.  It was interesting to learn about all their traditions, superstitions and history.  For example, women didn’t receive the same degree as men until 1999.  How do you like them apples?
Afterwards we made our way to Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox take on the NY Yankees.  We got there early so we could enjoy our time at Fenway.  DawnO got to have her foot long dog (happy anniversary, indeed) and ‘crack beer’ while I enjoyed some park nachos and ‘gluten friendly’ pizza.  The game was great, though the Sox ended up losing.  The crowd was the most entertaining part for us.  I’d tell stories but I’m trying to keep this PG-13.
All-in-all we had a great day.  Tonight we’re going to have our official anniversary dinner  while our parents go to the ‘Book of Mormon’ musical.  I plan on having some New England clam chowdah.
And now for the pictures!
Apparently touching this dude’s foot brings good luck.  Immediately afterwards, DawnO lost her subway pass.  Good luck?  You decide.
The red chair marks the longest home run ever hit at Fenway.

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I kissed a girl…

Today was the running of the 118th Boston Marathon, and I was lucky enough to be a part of it. What a cool experience. The weather was perfect for me (aka a bit too hot for most people). There was a moment of silence in the athlete’s village for those who were killed or injured last year, but really the focus was on ‘Boston Strong’.

My goal for the race was to enjoy it. I was not focused on time, though of course along the way it’s hard to keep it out of my mind. As requested by my male (of course) running mentor/friend Terry, I took a picture of myself kissing a girl at Welsley College. This is a tradition, and it was serious. At least 300 girls held signs of different varieties (“kiss me I’m Italian”, kiss me I’m a first year”, etc, etc.). I chose one that said “kiss me and you’ll run faster”!
I felt really great up until the last 2-3 miles (pretty much the usual for the marathon), and finished with my second best time of 3:24:41. It was great to have a big cheering squad (robO, my parents, robO’s parents), plus all of those who were cheering while tracking online!
We spent the rest of the day wandering around, then I had a great dinner at Quincey Market, followed by a cannoli from the famous Mike’s Pastry.  We’re looking forward to checking out Harvard, then our Red Sox/Yankees game tomorrow.

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TNT, they’re dynamite

We’re sitting in the shade, enjoying our last couple of hours of 30 degree weather before our flight back to the Canadian winter. We have enjoyed our week in Huatulco. Though the ‘all-inclusive’ travel is different than our usual, we took full advantage, filling our days with tennis, ping pong, sea kayaking, sailing, swimming, yoga, dancing, reading, eating guacamole, drinking Piña coladas, and eating more guacamole. RobO planned a super date bike ride into town and to see a lighthouse. We spent lots of time with RobO’s family, including our main reason for being here… the wedding of cousin Tyler and his bride Tara (TnT). We didn’t take many photos, so here’s the meagre best of the bunch…

 

 

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Pretty fly for a couple of Gringos

This vacation has been pretty amazing.  We are definitely fans of Zihuatanejo and will be sad to leave on Sunday.  Since we last blogged DawnO and I have had some pretty cool experiences including a couple of bucket list items that have now been checked off.

On January 1, DawnO went fly boarding.  If you haven’t  heard of it, I suggest you google it and watch a few videos.  It’s a board that allows you to hover over the water like the Green Goblin.  Dawn said the experience was comparable to bathing the elephant in Nepal.  In both cases she got a face full of water that was salty for different reasons.

This morning I got to take a turn and it was quite fun.  I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get up, but once I got the hang of it, it was quite easy to manoeuvre around.  I would definitely recommend it.


DawnO also took a surfing lesson.  She got up on her first attempt.  Nailed it.  She then proceeded to get up 80% of the time after that.  I don’t know if being a yoga Jedi helps, but it definitely doesn’t hurt.

All-in-all we have had a great trip.  We head back to the great white north tomorrow afternoon, but we will be back in Mexico at the end of January.  We will be in Huatuco with my extended family for an Olson wedding!  We will probably blog then.

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Zihua

We’ve spent the last couple of days getting our bearings around Zihuatanejo, Mexico. RobO and I rented a condo just up (“north” as the grinch would say) from Playa La Ropa. As you can see from the photos, we’ve got the million dollar view, complete with 2 infinity pools. The weather has been perfect, which means it’s hot enough that even I have swam, both in the pool and the ocean!
Yesterday we went into town for groceries, made some delicious huevos rancheros, swam/read in the afternoon, walked the beach, and had dinner at a beachside restaurant.
Today we went to the beach early and spent an hour on stand up paddle boards. For obvious reasons we couldn’t bring our camera, so I took some pictures of another couple. Just picture us in their places, looking much cooler of course. We went into town for the afternoon to soak in some culture, complete with tacos from a roadside stand. We’ve had lots of chances to practice our Spanish, with mixed results! We’re looking forward to homemade fish tacos tonight as we ring in the new year. Feliz año nuevo!

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Sports Weekend in Chicago

Hey blog fans.  We just had an incredible sports-filled weekend in Chicago with our friends Nick and Meg.  One of the few things on my bucket list was checked off today when I went to a tailgate party followed by a Bears game at Soldier Field.  If that wasn’t enough, we went to the Madhouse on Madison to watch the Blackhawks play the Oilers 4 hours later.  But that’s not all… I got to play hockey with Nick last night on his rec league team.  I may have gotten my first penalty of the year due to a rather weak call.  DawnO wants to note that she agreed with the call.  Traitor.  Anyway, as you can probably imagine I’m a bit exhausted so I will leave you with some pictures.  Tomorrow we fly home!
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SFO –> YYC


We are heading back to Calgary this afternoon after spending a few days in Palo Alto with friends.  I thought I’d write a quick blog showing you some of the highlights.

We took a trip to the Great Basin to see some giant redwood trees.  We rode bikes around Stanford and saw some amazing Rodin statues.  We also went to the top of the bell tower and got a pretty nice view of Palo Alto.  Last but not least, we got to test out our español skills at a taqueria and ordered up some amazing Mexican food.  We’ll be back in the Hat until next month when we head to Chicago!