Solo

Last week I posted about my training experience in Greece, yet today I want to ramble on about the one day I had there to explore. Because honestly, a day going solo as a tourist in Athens totally sold me on the you should take the time to travel alone theory.

Cue the eye-roll, wow this is cute Kait, so you're an expert travel blogger now huh?

No, I'm realize I'm far from it.  I'm pretty sure getting my wallet stolen because I didn't fully close your purse while trying to hail a cab disqualifies me as a travel expert.

Yet we've all see those "10 places to travel to before you die" and "12 reasons why you should try traveling alone" type of click-bait articles.  This obviously isn't click bait, it's just something that I now believe in, that I never believed in until I actually tried it.

Athens was a very last minute trip - once I got into the training, we booked a somewhat central Air BnB and flights roughly two weeks out.  I did almost no planning, and it was Thursday night with a 6 AM flight the next morning when it occurred to me I had no idea what my plan was for my free day in Athens.

It also occurred to me I couldn't check into my Air BnB until 3 pm, and would be on the ground in Greece by 8 AM.  So it was a shove 3 days worth of apparel into a backpack type of packing, proclaiming to Andrew (he flew in Saturday morning) that we couldn't dine anywhere that required a nicer dress code than gym clothes (typically my preference regardless).

Anyways, my tentative and only plan upon landing was knowing that I had to see the Acropolis - it was the main attraction, and centralized high up in the middle city; I couldn't miss it.

And I have to say, when I stepped off the Metro into the middle of a crowded Athens square on Friday morning, it was a very liberating feeling.  Not like a - WOOHOO I'm gonna run wild because Andrew isn't here - type of feeling, but more of a, I can literally go wherever I want, and do whatever I want with this day.

So I wandered to Starbucks first, because those aren't located here in Israel.  From Starbucks I could visibly see the top of the Acropolis, and so I started meandering in that direction. I wound up weaving through crazy colorful alleys full of great looking restaurants, and so I eventually stopped at one of my choosing and had a delicious omelette.

I couldn't help but wonder what the table full of high school girls next to me thought, as I sat there alone with my backpack, wolfing down my food as they gazed upon me, chain smoking before school. But it was liberating because I also didn't care; I would never see them again.

I saw three main sites, the first being the Acropolis which is fairly large and took some time.  From the Acropolis I could see pretty much the entire city, and so I picked out other sites on the map that looked of interested to me.  Next it was the Temple of Olympian  Zeus, and then finally the Panathenaic Stadium, whose name I'm still unsure how to announce.

The stadium ended up being my favorite site, probably because of it's relation to sports.  There were plenty of other things I could have seen or done - Andrew spent both Saturday and Sunday exploring, and covered pretty much everything.  If there was one thing I would see if ever back, it would be the Olympic complex from the 2004 games, which is located further outside of the city.

Anyways. Solo Kait took plenty of time to take pictures, and just sit and gaze.  I peed (in toilets) as many times as I want to because apparently I have a small bladder which can be annoying when I'm traveling with others, I'm sure.  I sat in the stadium for probably longer than Andrew would have wanted to, and even grabbed a passerby for a random handstand pic on the track.

duh

I stopped at a cafe and ate cake for lunch, and shortly after got my wallet stolen.  But honestly, even with that occurrence, I fully enjoyed my 12 hours as a wanderer in Athens. I met and had to rely on some great people who advised (and helped) me.  And I think having to overcome some obstacles on my own only made me respect my adventure a little bit more, looking back.

In summary, I'm not saying I prefer to travel alone.  Andrew and I travel well together, and I don't enjoy being alone by nature.  However, it was a great learning experience that felt different than any other tourist experiences that I've had so far, and I'm simply recommending if you ever get the chance but you're hesitant because it sounds scary or whatever, give it a try.  Just a day - maybe you'll love it.

Cheers - 

Kait

L1

I'm the worst at self-development.  Literally.  It stems from being lazy about reading, and if there are too many big words or large paragraphs or the topic doesn't fully hold my attention, I ditch it.  So when I sat down at the beginning of this year, I tried to be reasonable about goals.

One goal that has been creeping around my mind for the past few months has been ways to develop my fitness background, professionally.  Then, through a series of cool events, that goal got fast-tracked - and this past weekend in Athens (which was a crazy story in itself) I went through the Crossfit Level 1 Training Course.

Yep, I was in a gym for most of my weekend in Greece.

A massive, beautiful gym for the record.

Crossfit North Zone

I learned way more than I anticipated - covering aspects of nutrition, how to calculate work and power, details around movements, etc. I could go on all day.

But what I really loved, is that I was the only American there (besides the instructors). I got to spend the weekend next to 7 Greeks, 2 Turks, 2 Egyptians, and 1 Cypriot, learning about constantly varied, high-intensity, functional movements.

While the course was in English - it was a second language for everyone but me.  Which wildly impressed me (there was a translator on hand who helped with some of the technical concepts - I really can't imagine learning about 'food blocks' in another language).

Stories were shared - crazy cool stories.  I sat next to a guy who had been doing Crossfit for three months, and loved it so much he decided to MOVE across Cyprus to live closer to an actual gym.  Then two months after that decided to take the L1 course.

Something else that really resonated with me is that we only had 4 females out of 13.  Compare that to the numbers I found for the 2016 Crossfit Open  - 42% female participation - to 31% females in my course.

I don't have numbers to back it up, but I'm pretty confident in suggesting that the female participation rate in Crossfit at an international level drops off big time if compared to just the US. It's more normal than not to find myself as the only female during classes in Tel Aviv.

Yet that doesn't really  discourage me.  It encourages me, because that shows potential for growth.

It also - for some reason - puts a chip on my shoulder to go harder.  Because it's not just that I'm a female in Crossfit - I'm also 5'11'', and I love running - two things that existentially go against Crossfit stereotypes.  I can't even tell you how many times I had to be corrected over the course of the training because I have these long ass femurs that refuse to track over my toes - my body is nowhere near compact - therefore I have a larger margin of error to f*ck up a movement.

Excuse my french.

It's my grind though. I might not "look" like I should be doing Crossfit but man do I love it, and how it's changed my outlook on both fitness and life.  Mentally it's made me stronger than being a Division 1 athlete did.  And I'm convinced I can be good at it, get down all the movements, and eventually coach it.  As a tall, gangly female.

But why?  Why Crossfit - why don't you just stick with running Kait?

Because Crossfit is running.  And rowing, and swimming.  And slamming balls around and swinging around on bars, walking upside - it's everything.  It's being able to move the bookshelf across the room without having to wait for your husband to get home to help, and it's being able to throw your 6 year old over your shoulder when they're having a temper tantrum in public.

It's cliche but it truly is training for life, and

I dig that.

But I think even more - I dig the camaraderie.  When you're grinding through crapiness together day in and day out, you realize that you actually have a team to help you get through.

And at the end of  Day 1 last Saturday, when the instructors (who were rockstars) threw a golden workout of thrusters and burpees at us, we had one classmate teammate struggling through the last set.  So you know what we did?

The rest of us - the 12 who had already finished - started hitting the floor with him.  The words 'I can't' left his mouth and we were like oh hell no, and we were up and down with him, grueling through, until he finished those freaking burpees.

And that's why I wanted a Level 1.

I've seen it change people's lives, I've seen people lose massive amounts of weight, kick habits, take on new hobbies because of it. But it's the knowing that you have people who believe in you - really truly - that's why it works.

Anyways, if you're reading this and rolling your eyes and thinking I'm brainwashed, I promise I'm not.  Or maybe I am, but I also know the facts. I've loved health and fitness for pretty much as long as it's been on my radar.  I jumped from globo gyms to niche gyms, consistently ran my face off through stress fractures and broken toes.  I've bought passes to hot yoga and cycling studios, and it's all great, I've enjoyed it all and still do.  But I've never seen or felt changes like Crossfit - and I've never seen fitness transfer into my other passions like this has.

Anyways, thanks for reading if you got through this whole thing.  I'm excited about what's to come, if you can't already tell.  And huge thanks to my husband & my "boss" -  who both enthusiastically got behind me to pay for the training - that sh*t ain't cheap - and it was one heck of a bday gift/work perk.

Signing off, just in time for the Crossfit Open to kick off.  Oh, and to drag my butt 13.1 miles (21.1 km) tomorrow morning.

Cheers - 

Kait

Eats

Coming up on three months of living in Israel, I can now confidently answer some of the questions like, "What has been the hardest parts of the transition?"

One of the harder parts that is a shorter, more light-hearted answer to give you is, food.

Let me caveat with - Tel Aviv has some amazing restaurants and food - which is part of the problem. The first month and half we were eating out a TON due to:

1. excitement and wanting to try new things 

2. lack of knowing where to buy certain foods

3. not having most of our kitchen stuff yet i.e. blender crock-pot etc.

Some prices were a bit shocking at first - some because of cheapness (produce) and more because of costliness.  Packaged foods are definitely on the higher side; which is why we now order most non-perishable items from Walmart or Amazon.

We live close to Carmel Market, which as I mentioned above has a fantastic array of all kinds of produce.  The exchange of cash initially intimidated me, but I've grown use to the mild pushing  and yelling and force myself to at least buy the majority of our produce there on a weekly basis (they also have great wine deals there on Fridays so that's a plus).

Carmel Market (on a very empty day) - Source

That being said, the emotional experience of grocery shopping also was a shock at first.  

Kait WTF do you mean grocery shopping is not an emotional experience.

For me it is was; I've always LOVED grocery shopping, nothing like finding a quiet evening at Trader Joes or Whole Foods with no lines and tons of samples, know what I mean?

Probably not but that's ok, just don't judge.

So yeah, grocery shopping for awhile (until maybe like.. last week) actually gave me a good amount of stress.  95% of labels are in Hebrew, and while sure I can stand there taking pictures of the labels with my phone and using Google Translate, the self-conscious part of myself simply wouldn't allow it.  And consequently, I brought home some kind of weird tomato salad instead of salsa, butter instead of cheese... the list goes on but we will stop there.

It's just more of a... get in and get out here are your groceries now go type of experience.  There is no 'thank you' from the cashier once you pay, they hand you the receipt and you leave. Which for awhile was hard for me to not take personally, and I always felt like I was leaving the store with my tail between my legs.

However a good indicator that I'm slowly becoming used to the sometimes abrasiveness/bluntness that is part of this culture:

Riding my bike down the sidewalk just yesterday - Israeli man clearly screams at me in Hebrew for riding on sidewalk - I smile and keep riding.

Two months ago that interaction would have sent me close to tears.

But now... sorry bro I'm not looking to ride down a major city street and get sideswiped.

Anyways, back to the food thing.  I think Andrew would agree, as of the past few weeks, we've finally found more of a happy medium with cooking healthy meals, having morning smoothies, etc.  Meals definitely look different than what my go-tos were back in the States, but it was a good change that has forced me to explore the boundaries of healthy eating options.

Having our crock-pot arrive a few weeks ago has been a huge help, sweet potato chili fulfilled my fall craving, and this week I concocted a balsamic veggie chicken stew thing that got the thumbs up from Andrew (and Kai who I found trying to lick some off the counter).

Anyways, there are some rambles on food - here is the link to the sweet potato chili if you're interested - I highly recommend it (it calls for beer but I omitted that).

Cheers - 

Kait

Travel

Up until 2016, Andrew and I wouldn't have really considered ourselves travelers.  Domestic travelers I suppose, as flights to Denver and Chicago were fairly consistent.  Belize this past February marked our first 'international trip' as a couple, then followed by this move.

This past weekend was a three-day for Andrew (Columbus Day) so we jumped on Google Flights a few weeks ago (we love Google Flights - it lays out in a map format what airfares are to what cities, whichever weekends we are looking at) and saw that flights into Larnaca, Cyprus were dirt cheap.

We then snagged an Air BnB for roughly $40 a night, patted ourselves on the backs for finding such a deal, and then were like "Hmmm I wonder what there is to do in Cyprus."

More than you think.  

Northern Cyprus AKA Turkey

Quick fact on Cyprus: the island is divided North and South - The Republic of Cyprus occupies the southern part, and Turkey occupies the North.

The more we take trips together, the more we learn what works for us.  We aren't really the pair who will/can lounge on a beach for hours at a time, sitting still is harder for us unless we are winding down for the evening.

So last week I made a list of everything I thought we might enjoy there (Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor are my BFFs when it comes to planning trips).  We knew we wanted to see both North and South, so research had to be done as to what was involved with the border crossings, etc.

I'm not writing this as a "Why you should visit Cyprus post" but if you are curious, I recommend seeing both parts of the island, as they each have different 'feels' and a lot to offer.  We drove from the North to the South in roughly 2 hours, and the drive is very beautiful along the coast.  The country has everything from ruins, castles, beaches, hikes, wineries, even a brewery (which of course we found).

But really I'm writing this because I think traveling can be stressful, and it's important to find a balance along the way.  I'm usually one for schedules and itineraries, while Andrew is a bit more adventurous fly by the seat of your pants type of guy.  We are slowly finding a great balance right in between the two mindsets for trips, and I would say Cyprus was our most successful weekend away so far in regards to that.

Outside of the fact that Andrew quickly had to learn to drive on the left side of the road, and almost hit a pedestrian within the first hour.

I think a lot of people plan trips with friends and/or their sig other and envision a perfect, happy scenario.  It's never going to be perfect guys, there will always be curveballs when it comes to travel.  They will shut down border crossings and your phone (GPS) will die and your husband will momentarily have to talk you off a ledge.

 Just expect the curveballs, and it makes it a little bit easier.

We are by NO means travel experts, but it's just something that recently became pretty evident to me, and I wanted to share. With flights to Europe so cheap from Tel Aviv, we are definitely going to try to embrace quick weekends away as we find deals, so perhaps more travel posts to come?

Anyways, Happy Friday Eve!

Cheers -