The Swingset Goes International - Pt. 1

Two months ago - oh it hurts to say that - Kyle and I, along with my parents, took our first international trip. After months of planning and telling my Mom, "Yes, I did read the travel disclaimers and refund polices" (shh, don't tell her I didn't, muhaha), we finally took off on an 8 hour flight across the Atlantic. Our trip was 10 days and 900+ miles in the southern part of the country - Bavaria, the Black Forest, medieval cities missed during WWII and let us not forget Heidelberg, the city of small child thievery!

 Now, sit back and relax because Swingalingadingdong is proud to present:

PART ONE: HIS PANTS ARE DOWN IN MUNICH

Yup, I wasn't kidding... they're really down! Hofbrauhaus, ftw!

Okay, okay... that didn't actually happen on our first day. Our first day was more like exhaustion and overload but I thought I'd rope you in with that. Did it work?

After landing in Munich we rented our beautiful Volkswagen Caddy which was incredibly small by American standards but try parking that silver elephant in Europe. Do you have 20 minutes? Because it took Mom 20 minutes to park that sucker in the lot of our hotel. However, I digress because parking in Europe could be it's own post... so, we drove out of the airport to our first destination - LANDSHUT (Lands-hoot [phonetic pronunciation for you, Dad])!!

Don't be fooled by my size. I am a European minivan.

Landshut is a Bavarian town about 35 minutes from Munich and is home to a medieval castle called the Trausnitz Castle. It was founded in 1204 and is now home to.... nothing, haha. You can wander through the grounds, viewing the architecture and can also eat at the handy dandy restaurant they so nicely provided for the tourists in the middle of the courtyard.

The view of Landshut from the castle grounds

We didn't really spend a lot of time here in Landshut. Personally, I think we were all really tired from the overnight flight and ordering pizza in German can make people turn into a crankapotamus. So, after a couple of hours we headed back to Munich for a nice nap, a view of the town hall in the Marienplatz and our first biergarten of the trip.

The town hall of Marienplatz.

Um, yeah... this is the new town hall of Munich. Yup, new. Construction started in 1867, finishing in 1909 and it became and is now home to all government officials in the city. Personally, I think the building could use a serious power wash but some people might whine about the history of all that dirt. Yeah, because dirt has a history and the clean freak inside me is crying.

But I guess even I could get past a little bit of dirt if you sit me in a biergarten with a giant hefweizen, a German cheese plate and a pile bratwurst with saurkraut, and so... it begins...

Random and amusing side story of Munich: Our hotel was located in the Turkish section of the city. So, if you felt so inclined to smoke a hookah on the way to your beer guzzling, you can do it practically on every corner. However, no matter how much hookah you smoke, you cannot purchase a toothbrush in the Turkish supermarket. Don't even try! Kyle's teeth were diiiirty, eww.

Back from the ABYSS

It sure has been a long time since I last posted but at least I didn't let a full year go by, right? RIGHT! Excuses, excuses, excuses. Those are my reasons for not updating the world on my life; that or I'm just not that interesting. So, what has happened since July 2012? Well, I haven't been back to Hawaii yet - wahhh! - and I think about it every day. I also haven't been back to Disney - double wahhh! I guess more importantly than both of those is that my sister had her second baby, Juliet Teresa, in February. This kid is the spitting image of her father (whereas Miranda is a McLoughlin girl through and through).

OMG SO DARN CUTE.

Since Juliet was born her sister, Miranda, has gotten really animated and turned into a little walking, talking person. She'll run around my front yard screaming "EMBER! THERE'S A CAR COMING! COME HERE NOW!" at my dog or she'll tell her mother to "FaceTime Christine?" You're two, not twenty... haha, she knows what FaceTime is. Is that sad or awesome? I'm not sure yet.

She also enjoys the occasional picture-text war:

Follow the picture text leader!

Anyway, back to me! Since the beginning of the year I've started running 5K races throughout the area. It all started randomly with the ThinMint 5K because it came with an (ugly) shirt and a box of cookies! Who wouldn't run for cookies!? I ran that race without training; just doing my normal walk a lot (about 90 minutes a day) and stairclimbing at the gym. Somehow, I managed to finish the 5K with a decent pace of 12:30 per mile -  YOU GO SHORT LEGS - and on a runner's high decided to do more, more, more.

Give me all of the cookies!

For the next race, I enlisted Kyle and my sister, Teresa, to join me. It was the Paws For Life race in Chesapeake City, MD where you get to run with your dog! Woohoo!! I didn't actually run with her because she'd pull me over, but Kyle did. They ran the entire thing in 27 minutes and the dog was still hyper.

This was Teresa's first 5K in years, she also popped out two kids, so hooray for running!

Oh look at those hips, they don't lie!

Before Picture: Ember has no idea she's about to run 3.1

The run itself was harder than I expected. It was trail running and the trails were incredibly muddy from the week of rain we had right before the race. There were sections of trail where your shoes would actually sink about 1 - 2" into the mud. Just a little bit dangerous, no biggie! But in the words of Teresa, "I'm never running again!" and "Oh god, my expensive shoes are a mess!" I'm not so sure she had fun.

Next up? The B+ 5K which raises money for kids with cancer, the Color Run in Philadelphia and probably 800 more because I've turned into a running monster. I'm currently hovering around 5 miles in 55 minutes which is pretty awesome for someone who just decided to pick this up a month ago.

A big reason I keep going is because I, honestly, cannot believe that I am this good at it. I've never been athletic and always hated the gym so why do I love running? Who knows.

I have a secret though... and I'm not telling yet! Holla!

WE STILL ARE PENN STATE

I'm a huge talker... I never shut up. It's a problem. I am also highly opinionated. This is also a problem (sometimes). But because I am emotional and have a tendency to get hyper and/or excited about things I'm not exactly articulate.

This is especially true when it comes to the Jerry Sandusky scandal and the subsequent fallout at Penn State. I've had family members ask me what I think on multiple occasions but at the time I was conflicted and dumbfounded. I really just didn't want to talk about it; not because I was supporting the football program or mad at the country for bashing Joe Paterno, but because PSU is like a family and this was a huge blow.

My college roommate, Michele, sent me this article last week and and it is everything I wanted to say to people when I was asked, "what do you think." This person read my mind along with all other alums, current students and lovers of all things Penn State.

WE ARE MORE THAN THIS TRAGEDY 

(click link)

 "The actions of a few do not define us. The knee-jerk reactions of others will not end us. Our school taught us more than organic chemistry and music theory. It taught us to persevere. To overcome. To succeed – with honor. That is who WE are. That is what WE are."