Great Urban Race - Austin

Friday afternoon seemed to last forever...tick tock, tick tock. That's usually how it goes when you have something you're looking forward to. I've had a dream for a while of going on The Amazing Race. Annemarie and I tried out for the show last year and I really had my hopes up that we had a chance. It didn't pan out, so when I heard from my awesome friend Dana that The Great Urban race was a micro version of the show + you didn't have to be "selected" + it was in my backyard, in Austin, I was in!!!

I mentioned it last week and Mindi's face lit up…I knew I had my partner! J There was lots of chatting on the way and we got to Austin in no time to meet Dana and Liz for dinner at Shady Creek. The waiter stunk, so we decided to abort those plans and do a little pre-race shopping and grab Olive Garden for dinner.

Dana wasn't feeling well, so she and Liz decided to stay home and recover. Mindi and I sadly left on our own to make them proud on the race. We will definitely do this again with Dana as soon as she's back to her awesome, normal self!

We arrived at Pease Park at about 11:00 and hung out and made new friends until the kick off at noon. They encouraged costumes, so we got into it and dressed for the time of year as Easter bunnies. At 12:00 sharp, they passed out the clues and we were off!

We bolted to a shady spot and worked through the 12 clues. We had most of them mapped and we were so smart to buy a public transportation map to pinpoint lots of the locations! We were a tad confused as we started, jumped on and off the bus, but finally got back on track. We were headed to Whole Foods to get our canned food for one of the challenges, when we saw lots of people over at Waterloo records. We thought, "oh good idea" that they were completing a clue where you had to take a pic with a person wearing a concert tee. We found a guy with a Peter Gabriel shirt and were on our way. We got our canned food, canoed around Town Lake, took a pic at the Reagan High School baseball field and with Peter Pan at the mini golf course, then dropped off our food at the Mary Lee Foundation. After all of this running, we headed toward 6^th Street. Our "phone a friend" buddies Dana and Liz helped us solve a few clues and we took our pic at The Lucky Lizard and the big red mmmpanada stand. We did take a quick stop to dance a little to the tunes blaring on 6^th Street as people partied through the sunny Saturday afternoon. We had 2 clues left. 1) Where did Willie Nelson play on Nov 2, 2000 and 2) Take a pic with the longhorn statue at the co-op. This is when we realized that Willie played at the WATERLOO!! Oh, crap, we had to backtrack all the way to Lamar and take a pic in front of the store instead of inside. Oh, boo!! We ran our bunny tails down there then made our way to the longhorn statue. On the bus, we made friends with 2 girls from NYC and met back up with 2 other friends from the very beginning of the race. We all made our way to the statue and snapped the pic. We got back to Pease Park in just under 4 hours…hot and sweaty, but with big smiles!

It was a really fun adventure and can't wait to do it again…hopefully this season and with a bigger group so we can strategize all together and place in the top 25! Our final rank was 88 of about 230 pairs…which was just awesome for us rookies!

After a stop at Thundercloud Subs, on the way home to Houston Mindi just couldn't resist the cute bluebonnets on the side of the highway, so we stopped for a little photoshoot as the sun set! J

Copenhagen, Denmark

We pulled into port right on time. These Scandinavians aren't playing when it comes to being punctual! It was a beautiful, chilly day when we arrived. We made our way to The Palace Hotel, right on the main square. As we checked in, they played this crazy James Bond music and I felt like someone was going to come slip Alison and me a secret mission to go complete in the city. Our 007 never showed up, so we took the double decker bus from outside our hotel to tour the city.

The major stop on this route was the Copenhagen mermaid. Denmark is the home of Hans Christian Anderson, who wrote the fairytale "The Little Mermaid". She was cute, but it's odd to see which landmarks gain such attention! She is actually such a big deal, we were lucky to see her before she goes to Shanghai for the World Expo 2010! We then hopped back on the bus and decided to jump off again when we saw a big crowd gathered at the Amalienborg Palace. We hit perfect timing to see the changing of the guard. It's lots of ceremony and a cool site to see. We timed it perfectly! It only happens once a day, so pretty cool catch it. We crossed the street to see the impressive Opera House, as well.

The wait for the next bus was about 30 minutes, so we decided to walk for a while. We walked to a cute marina area with lots of outdoor cafes. These crazy people love to be outside on a pretty day, even if it's cold. They will sit outside and the restaurants even provide blankets to keep them warm! We then walked over to Christiania, which was a hippy community that formed in the early 1970s. We couldn't quite find the actual entrance to the community, so we walked to where we "thought" the next stop would be. Umm, no stop to be found, so we ended up walking back to our hotel. We got to see lots of the city and it was all worth the hike. One the way back, we walked along the Tivoli Gardens...an amusement park right in the center of the city that was founded in 1843. Sadly, we had one week until it opened, so that leaves something to look forward to on the next trip. As we walked up to the hotel, we noticed a band setting up…it was a group of Native Americans...that we saw last year in Ljubljana, Slovenia!! What one earth are the chances? Later, we found out there may be more than one group that travels Europe. Has anyone else seen these guys?

We took a quick power nap and tore up the snack bag like a pack of wolves then headed out to look for souvenirs and walk along the busy pedestrian area. My friend from HP Denmark, Lars, met us and showed us around town. Really, Alison ended up giving him a history lesson on the city…all from her keen listening skills on the double decker bus! We talked through a church, the winter palace gardens and met another beautiful pup named Freddy! He was to completely adorable and friendly!

Next, we went to the Hard Rock Café to get a pin for our friend Linda then stopped for yummy 'Danish' treats and visited a local pub to have a few drinks. We capped off the night with an awesome Italian dinner with a really sweet waitress from Bulgaria. Right as we were heading to bed, the sound of car horns blasted from the square below. I ran to the window to take a look and a bunch of guys ran from their cars up to a limo in the front of the caravan and tossed a guy, who I'm assuming was the groom, into the air a few times!! It was crazy!

We took off early the next morning and caught some unbelievable views of Iceland and Greenland on our way home! Another great trip…can't wait for the next tuck n roll!! J

Oslo, Norway

We woke up the next morning to a blizzard…OMG, it looked COLD outside. Before we set out for the day, we went to have the breakfast buffet. It was heavenly! I felt just like I was sitting down to Christmas dinner! There it all was…the cold cuts, cheese, breads, hot dishes, Wasa crackers…it was so delicious and fun to see that our Christmas tradition was legit!

Once we were stuffed, we bundled up and started our walk to the boat dock. Alison had read about a great little boat tour to all the museums with nice views of the city. When we got to the marina and all of the boats were covered in snow, we though...hmmm, we can't see 10 feet in front of our noses, it's freezing and snowing. Is this really the best way to enjoy a boat ride?!? We assumed it wasn't running and were trying to think of a plan b when Bill asked if we had been sledding before. Alison and I had both never been and we got excited for our new adventure!

As we passed the boat office, a lady came out and asked if we were waiting for the boat, it was to arrive any minute. We had gotten kind of excited about our new plan, so we asked if she happened to know of anywhere we could sled. The people throughout Scandinavia were incredible!! They are so helpful, cheery and nice. The 3 people that were in the office called the sled rental place and gave us exact directions of how to get to the hill. We were expecting to do this in the city somewhere on cardboard boxes…not 'real' sledding…but we were up for the fun. I found an adorable little pup along the way too!

We took the train to the second to last stop to rent our sleds. Then hopped back on the train to the Frognerseteren stop and finally found our way to the starting line. The train route we took was on the way to Lillehammer, the site of the 1994 Olympics. We all took off and Alison sat still on her sled, after the first run, Bill and I were pumped up and wondering what happened to Alison?? We called her with our 'hooty hoo' signal and nothing…finally we see her creeping like a snail down the hill. Side note - Alison is good at everything! So seeing the total look of contempt for the sled had us laughing our asses off! This was a lot more work than we had bargained for, but gave us some gorgeous views and once we got the hang of it…it was so much fun!!! Oh, and Alison was zooming past me by the end!

We were all soaked…Bill and I were in soggy shoes, Alison's jeans were wet, so we just raced to get back to the hotel and warm up. We packed up our bags and decided to have another bloody mary in the hotel bar to warm us up for the hike to the boat dock to catch the ferry to Copenhagen. This one was no prez-club bloody, but it was a good thing we tried to warm up a little…it was still frozen outside!

When we spotted the ferry, we realized this was a little more than a dingy, it was a full-fledged cruise ship! We boarded at about 4:30 and expected to take off at 6:00. We dropped off our bags in the teeny room and went up to have a glass of wine before dinner. We pulled away from the dock promptly at 5:00! Good thing we didn't procrastinate too long! The views were beautiful as we left and it was a bonus that we got to watch the coast before our dinner at 6:15. The buffet was another smorgasbord with a crazy selection of foods. We gorged…the highlight were the cold and hot mussels…they were SO yummy. The biggest surprise on the menu was crawfish! They weren't seasoned Cajun-style…but still odd to see them on the buffet. We also learned at dinner that there was a trucker convention on the boat, so of the 1200 passengers, 900 were men. That made for a loud night of hooting and hollering outside our cabin, but lucky me that I'm a really heavy sleeper! I felt so weak going to bed early, but Alison had drugged us to make sure no one got sea sick…it was probably a good thing!! J

Next stop, Copenhagen!