Valentine's Day...RACK style!

February is around the month that the RACK was created I think...my memory stinks though so who knows. I do know that we took a trip to Switzerland the Feb. that we were in Italy. This was not your average..get train ticket, get on train, go to Switzerland, have fun, go home kind of trip.

Oh no, the RACK had to make it interesting. We got on our train and settled into a little cabin all to ourselves. I remember going to the grocery store in Termini in Rome and loading up on out 1.5 Liter Diet Sodas (that probably have sweeteners in them that are illegal in the US but we drank the heck out of them) we would carry the 1.5 liters around and suck them down while wandering the city..they were like 1 Euro...you'd do the same thing. I think we also bough canned green beans to eat cold...on the train...like animals.

I went to the bathroom to drain said can of green beans and almost got molested by a drunk Italian guy. I ran up and down the train screaming for Carrie because me with my terrible sense of direction, couldn't find the RAC to save my life...literally. I found them and remain molestation free to this day thank goodness.

So, we are riding along and somehow realize we should have switched trains at some point. Instead of Switzerland, we end up in Verona at 3 AM on Valentine's Day. It seemed appropriate...Romeo and Juliet...lalala. However, it was frigidly cold and we all had to pee really bad. The problem with this was that the bathrooms were locked. The only thing I will complain about in Europe is the lack of public bathrooms that A. are open and B. are free of charge.

Years later, '08, I went to Europe with my hubby while pregnant and probably spent more money on bathrooms than food while there. Note to self...don't go to Europe pregnant. On the other hand, if I have the opportunity to go to Europe, I don't care if I'm seconds from giving birth...I'm gettin on that plane.

Off track! So, Verona...we hang there for several hours until we can get on an actual train to take us to the actual Switzerland. We had a blast and went snowshoeing which was incredible! Then headed home.

We spent more time in transit than in the country of Svizzera.....is that how those Italians spell it?

The hostel was great with the exception of the world's grossest showers. And I vaguely remember somebody almost getting killed for trying to wake up Rachel with a pillow...mistake!

Girls...any other fond memories of this trip??

25 Random Pregnancy Things

Okay, so in keeping with the whole FB craze of writing 25 random things about yourself ... I have a compiled a list of 15 random things that have begun in the past 17 weeks of being pregnant:

1. Cliche, I know, but I crave icecream. My day is not complete without an icecream cone from Chick-fil-A. I feel like this is a safe vice because 1) they only cost $1.06 with tax 2) they only have 162 calories. Look at me justifying ...

2. I listen to really random music. Example: right now I am listening to Michael Jackson's greatest hits. I have also been known to jam to Daft Punk and Michael Bubble in the same sitting.

3. It is hard for me to get motivated to run. WHAT?! I have never experienced this before ...

4. My memory is GONE. This is not good when it comes to school. I can study for hours and then forget all of the info in a matter of minutes.

5. I take naps .. NAPS .. like a little baby. Even if I get 10 hours of sleep, I can still crash anywhere, anytime. I fall asleep on the couches at school like you wouldn't believe.

6. I can't stop sneezing!! My left nostril is the culprit every single time. Supposedly, the left nostril corresponds to the parasympathic nervous system ... and perhaps since this is constantly aggrivated and clogged, I have problems calming down. Boh?!

7. Hummus is my new best friend. Yes, I eat it for breakfast.

8. I am 17 weeks along and have no baby bump to show for it. I have a mostrous butt bump and two ginormous boob bumps, but no baby bump.

9. I am so coffee deprived that I can get a caffeine high off the smell of Starbucks. I am sitting in one right now taking in the smells ....

10. I have pregnancy-induced ADHD. I can't sit still and pay attention to save my life ...

11. I strained some ligaments in my foot from stepping wrong. STEPPING WRONG. Are you kidding me? I have been running 50+miles/week (and falling on these runs pretty consistently) for the past 6 years and have not even had a stress fracture to show for it.

12. I crave fizzy drinks. I can't drink real water anymore. It's only S. Pellegrino for me.

13. I have become chatty. I always made fun of my mom for how chatty she was and how long our conversations would last. I now call her and she's the one getting off the phone with me!

14. McDonald's smells good. The smell of fast food used to make me want to vomit. I now follow bags of it just to get a whif. Of course there's nothing at those places good and friendly for a veggie like me ... so I'm pretty safe from it's olfactory temptations.

15. My husband is wondering who this new girl is that has taken the place of his wife. This new girl cries a lot and he doesn't know how to handle this. Hint: petting does not help, telling me to calm down does not help, ignoring me does not help.

BONUS #16: The sex drive is in overdrive. Hint to the Husband: enjoy it while it lasts.

Pasta Non Basta!

As part of a RACK Moments Remembered series I am going to initiate....let's begin at the night of the Pasta Non Basta annihilation circa 2003.

There is a restaurant in Rome. At this restaurant a table is given a big plate of pasta. Once this plate has been consumed, another plate of a different type of pasta is given...this continues until the patrons are so stuffed they no longer remember where they are or how they go there.

The RACK can eat. We have gotten a little wussy in our old age (or our metabolism has slowed down rendering us unable to consume the massive quantities of food that we ate while in Rome...think entire pizzas (1 per RACK member) for dinner chased with some gelato...not kidding).

We were challenged by a group we will call the Siena Kids to a pasta eat-off. What better place than Italy to accept this type of challenge. If you want to call it a challenge...because it wasn't.

We smoked them. The four of us out-ate a table of guys without even a burp. (I take that back..I probably burped at some point).

They pasta was flying at us left and right! We ate it and we liked it. We even had the challenge of having a vegetarian on our team.

Whenever a plate would come out that had any type of animal product, the 3 non-veggies would eat even more. When it was a veg plate, the C would eat more to make up for it. Such team work brings a tear to my eye.

I think we ate....8...was it 8? Plates of pasta. Then, after a celebratory "in yo' face" moment, we realized what we had done. It was painful. Pain. Full.

Totally worth it though. However, the Siena Kids had the nerve to challenge our victory. They still haven't given up their weak argument that we somehow were not victorious.

In all actuality, they probably have all forgotten about this event and moved on with their lives. The RACK however, brings it up whenever we get together. We get mad. We start explaining to anyone in earshot that we are indeed the victors and nobody will take that away from us! I also don't think we would say no to a rematch...mmm...pasta...

Example: 6 years after this competition, we are all hanging out at Carrie's parents' house in NY. Somehow pasta non basta (that means pasta non-stop in Italian) comes up. Pretty soon our voices are raised and we are pacing around explaining to nobody in particular the logistics of how we won and why it makes us so awesome.

Then we realize that nobody else cares.

Just another look into the life of a RACK.