Een, twee, drie, vier, vijf, zes, zeven, acht! On Friday morning I taught my Bodyshape class at Zenden and I counted the reps in Dutch :) The participants really seemed to enjoy my effort and I had fun with it. Later that day we went to a BBQ hosted by a few of Nick's lab mates who won young investigators awards. As part of their win they received some money and decided to use it to host a lab group BBQ. They knew I was coming so they had vegetarian options for me which was really thoughtful. It is very strange to sit in a room full of Dutch speaking people, smiling and trying to interpret what's going on based on body language and the fascial expressions of the people in conversation. The group does try to include us but often I feel like I'm in another world. On Saturday morning I headed out for a 30-min tempo run. I ran up St Pieters hill and into the trails like I usually do but instead of taking the main trail I decided to take one of the off shooting trails. I thought the trail would loop back to meet up with the main trail but an hour later I found myself deep in the woods. I found caves, a lake, a quarry... I was basically scaling the side of a cliff at one point. I found myself a little scared but excited to see what was around the next bend. I wasn't overly worried because there are lots of people on the trails but it was a warm day and I hadn't brought any water and my training plan was for my long run to be 12km on Sunday. I did eventually find my way home 1-hour and 40-min and about 18km later, tired and dehydrated. Needless to say I counted that as my long run this week and did a short one with Nick this morning.
This weekend there was a music and art festival in the city centre. The music wasn't really our style but the atmosphere was fun. They had people dressed as dinosaurs on stilts. Not cute Barnie style dinosaurs but scary Jurassic Park like dinosaurs. I think I actually squealed at one point when one got to close for my liking.
I really enjoy listening to the street performers who regularly play in the city square. There is a young man who plays the guitar and sings that Nick thinks is really good and there are violinists and Saturday there were dueling accordions. Very cool! The art festival featured local artists; painters, sculptors and jewelery makers. There were some really beautiful pieces and it inspired me to get some canvas and paints while I'm here. We had perfect weekend weather - a very sunny, warm weekend - 28 degrees which is the hottest weather we have had here.
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