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Rudys Winter Break Blog

12/29/2006

One more thing:
http://www.nikigudex.com/
If I can't have her to myself, I might as well share with y'all.

-Rud

12/25/2006 - 12/26/2006

Welcome to my blog. This is definetly the first, and probably the last and (thankfully) the only entry to be.

This is a bike-related website, so lets start with the all-consuming topic- I haven't touched a bike in two weeks. Whoa. I'm going to miss it soon I think. But Italian wine is pretty good too.

Congrats to Jen, Toby and K-face for their awesome showing at nationals. Nice work guys. Jen -- I hope you realize that you will be required to wear your stars and stripes jersey on every and all team rides. I'm really REALLY jealous. And i can't help but wonder if we would have all been wearing stars and stripes jerseys if i was there. Not that i would be carrying the team or anything -- but just one more guy getting even last place points would have been enough i think. Anyway, it's just bike racing. Hope you all had a really fun time.

So Christmas Day is coming to an end. I'm packing up for my flight back tommorow (I'm not actually packing -- i'm sipping some of the best stuff on earth). Vin Santo actually makes a good segway to all the topics of today's entry: Italy, Drinking, and Family. Yes, the rest of this entry is going to be about me. It is my blog, after all.

Italy. I just got back from there a few days ago. I can't describe how great the place is. At least not in words.

Italy is pretty. I'll get back to the bro.

The FOOD is seriously the best in the world.

But it's really something else...

The family!

Seriously -- if you have any Italian heritage, and there is even the possibility of remote family there, look them up.

Call them up, convince them that they are, indeed, part of your family, and go visit.

Seriously.

I love going to see the family in Italy. They say they eat like this all the time. I can't believe it. I have never eaten this much food, ever. Sweet.

Oh yeah, and the country is good to. And so is the wine (i'm bringing some back, so you guys have that to look forward to. sorry to everyone who will be in spain.)

Which bings me to my next point. Brighton, UK. Where my dad, his longtime girlfriend, and my little half-bro live. It's kinda nice here, for a little while. I love hanging out with my little brother.

My little brother, Everett, on the Ponte-Vechio during our day-trip to Firenze. (spelling? i think it means "old bridge" in Italian. K-face feel free to jump in here.)

Everett is such a cool little dude. And he's got an cute little English accent going (and he's not faking it) so that's even cooler.

Okay -- we're back in Italy. It's hard not to go back. But think Brighton. Speaking of going back to Brighton, we had some great weather to fly over the alps. So i took some pictures. Including one that I'm pretty sure is L'Alpe D'huez. But things were getting busy since we were starting our descent, so I only got time to snap the photo after we were mostly past it. Check it out:

Okay, so i couldn't find the one of L'Alpe D'huez right now, but it's not that great a photo anyway. And, well, I'm sure you've all seen it before. But the pictures really don't do it justice. Some of the peaks came up to our altitude, over 11,000ft, and flying through the valleys was amazing (well they did before we got nervous and climbed to 12.5k).

Oh yeah, my dad flies a small airplane.

He doesn't get to fly it to much anymore, since the fuel is so expensive nowadays, but we took it down to Italy, for old time's sake. I love flying in the airplane. We also stopped in Lyon, France on the way back for a couple days, and for fuel. They have a really amazing church there. And a sweet jazz club that is literally underground in what used to be someone's old wine cellar.

The place was called the Hot Club du Lyon. When I first heard about the "Hot Club" i thought it was THE Hot Club du France. But i guess it isn't, i'm not sure where the original is. But it was great, and they sold wine by the glass for 1.40 EUR. That was nice. Which finally does bring me back to drinking, and therefore Brighton...

It's not bad here. And i love hanging out with my little brother, but some of the family is begginning to drive me a little nuts. So i've reverted to a great lesson i learned from my high-school chemistry teacher, Mrs. Krones. She taught me that, when visiting family who drive you nuts, there is only one one way to survive. Drink. lots. It's working so far. Plus the wine here is great (see Vin Santo, above), and the brits love to drink. They even have a day which is, at least according to my cab driver, solely devoted to recovering from the hangover of Christmas. It's called Boxing Day. Looks like they all took the same lesson about visiting family from Mrs. Krones.

So even though my computer clock says it's 7:24 (Eastern time), it's after midnight here, which means time for bed. So goodnight, and sweet dreams, see you all soon.

Rock out with your cock out,
Rudster.

12/27/2006

P.S. I think this photo is really hilarious for some reason. It's the National Airline of Columbia. Reminds me a little bit of the Mexican national team at Amgen Tour of Cali...

I took this photo at the airport in Italy.