Bike trip

Hello, it's me again!

On Sunday a big group of us took a ferry out to an island south of Stockholm, called Utö. There we rented bikes and spent a wonderful 8 hours on the island. The weather was nice, and it was such a beautiful ride along the water, through trees, past cute little houses, and we even saw some sheep! We packed a picnic and hiked up a hill for lunch and then ended at beach where 3 people were actually brave enough to jump in the freezing water. On the ride back, my bike broke, and after putting the chain back on 3 times in less than 5 minutes, we ended up calling the bike rental place and they drove me out a new one. The delay was going to cause us to miss the ferry we had planned to take back, so most of the group left but 5 of us stayed behind and waited 2 more hours for the next one. But in the end it turned out better, because we ended up at a cafe on the water, enjoying an after biking beer and snack and just sitting and talking in the sun. What a perfect Sunday!

On Friday afternoon, I'll leave on overnight ferry to Helsinki, Finland. We'll arrive on Saturday morning and then leave Saturday evening to be back in Stockholm by Sunday morning, so it will be a short trip, but I'm looking forward to it (AND the ferry is only costing me 180 kronor ~= $25!).

In other news, marathon training hadn't been going so well (i.e. I hadn't been able to get back into training mode and actually train). But I decided to turn it all around September 1st and ran 8 miles yesterday and 10 miles today (very slowly, but 10 nonetheless), so I'm back on track I hope! We're planning on going to Dublin for a long weekend in late September...so far the itinerary includes a half-marathon on the 26th and a tour the Guiness brewery (in that order, I hope).

New pictures: 187-216