Back across the pond.....

Two transatlantic trips in two months! Oh, and one cross country trip for good measure! Yeesh! Since reality needs to set in and our hiatus needed to end we are back in Vienna (finally) now. Anyway, the last 48+ hours went something like this: we left from Chicago O'Crappy at 4pm. Spent 8 hours in the air. Fortunately it was aboard KLM. Not Delta. Delta Sucks. Then spent 10 hours in Amsterdam's Schiphol airport. It's a cool airport, but any 10 hour layover sucks. Still, I'm glad it was in Schiphol and not Heathrow. Especially with the Olympics going on, that would have been a mess. Ok, back on topic, after Amsterdam it was only a 2 hour puddle jump to Vienna. I gotta say, Schiphol was really cool for a international terminal. It' HUGE! plus they have really nice reclining chairs to crash on in some designated quiet areas. I needed to work on mobility after such a long flight so I did that for an hour and got in some pushups - highly recommended after a flight! Which brings me to another cool point: they have showers. So be sure to bring sandals if you ever find yourself here. I didn't. Gross I know but I needed that shower. At least I was smart enough to bring fresh underwear and socks! With both of those amenities (showers & nice reclining chairs) why splurge on a expensive lounge when you can use it for free? (35 euro/$50 pp for 3 hours in a lounge is steep) Oh, and they have two musuem exhibits in there too. One for Gin and one for Art. If you thought I had time to check out the gin one you's be wrong. If you thought I checked out the art one you would also be wrong. It was as nice as a transatlantic flight could be, I'm not jet lagged as bad as I was last time. But I still need some sleep!

Good night North America

Good morning Europe!

Location:Obkirchergasse,Vienna,Austria

Jet lag (again)

Jet lag I hate you. That is all.

Worked on mobility today after working all those squats and pushups yesterday. Plus sitting during all those flights tightened me up. I needed to do some maintenance.

WOD:
Relax, eat right, and focus on mobility.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Another Crossing

Another Trans-Atlantic crossing today! I'm not sure why I posted the exclamation point on that sentence since I'm not looking forward to it. By the time this is posted I'll already be in the air. It's gonna be a long day.....Vienna (6am) to Amsterdam to Detroit to Chicago....Yikes. At least it's on KLM which gets some pretty good reviews. Even if the last leg is on Delta. Delta Sucks. In any case, so much for recovering from my earlier jet lag! I guess it takes a day to adapt to every time zone you pass through so I'll be starting from square one again. And I can think of a lot of other places I'd rather be than Detroit. Even if it's in the airport!

I'm not leaving Vienna for long, I've got to come back to the states for a short intermission. I will be home for a bit during my stay as well. Gotta see family, get a few Island Brews, and check out the new Carpinteria Crossfit Box! The rest of the time I'll be in the midwest.

WOD
No workout today, yesterday, tomorrow, whatever day it is....

Around Town

Our jet lag is almost gone so we've been doing the tourist bit the last few days. Lots of cool landmarks and history! Found some good food but most of what I've seen so far is pretty bland. Vienna sausages taste exactly like a normal hot dog. If it's all like that (I still have hope) then I do have a plan "B" I intend to use anyway: I found a mexican food market here that sells EVERYTHING! So I'm not without my tortillas!

 Lamb chops in the Naschmarkt - these were tastey but not as good as some I had in Como!

Pinot!

State Opera

RingstraBe "streets" built where the city walls once stood

Stephansplatz

Strudel (me) and some sort of cupcake for Heidi

Taking a picture of someone taking a picture of a statue 

Volksgarten

Rathaus (city hall)

WOD:
First time dropping into Crossfit Vienna today and we had a benchmark WOD.....yeesh!
"Kelly"
Five rounds for time of:
Run 400 meters
30 Box jumps, 24"
30 Wall ball shots, 20lb ball

This WOD was fun! I finished in a time of 29:46 scaled with a 17.10 lb medicine ball (8 kilo), not too bad considering I'm not feeling 100%, I still feel a little fatigued both mentally and physically. Heidi completed it in 29:28, with a 13 lb/6 kilo ball.It was done in a park and against the wall of an apartment building, for box jumps we used some concrete blocks in the park. Oh, and it was 90 degrees (31) with 67% humidity - during a heat advisory! HAHA! We got some funny looks from the locals during the workout.

We made it!

We are in Vienna! We had a smooth flight. Well, as smooth as one could ask for when traveling this far. After 17 hours we got a little goofy. For instance: we managed to explode a bag of hazelnuts all over first class between Istanbul and Vienna (We were behaving like idiots). We ran across Ataturk airport because I forgot to adjust my watch to the Istanbul time zone. Thinking we had twenty minutes to connect when we really had an hour twenty. My mistake. Things that were beyond our control include me being sat next to the only dude sawing' logs in first class. Needless to say I didn't sleep. It was a bumpy flight, and a delayed flight from LAX! So yes, we had a smooth trip in comparison to other flights we've done (Heathrow knife incident '08). Anyway, we made it without too many issues.
Today we will just try and adjust to the jet lag, get our phones/Skype working and settle in.

Mullet kid in Istanbul

Istanbul

Home for the next several months

Today's WOD:

Run a 5k

We didn't time ourselves since we were jet lagged, fatigued, and hadn't been eating the best food. We had no intent of setting a PR - we just needed to run! Getting out into the sun really helps adjust to the time zone faster. Vitamin D has a correlation with melatonin production, something we really dont need at 2pm. Solution? Get more sun!