This past weekend I went down to Gotheburg to cheer on/at/for my eldest sister who was partaking in her very first ½ marathon. Dunno if there's a proper word for that distance *scratches head* Anyway. The plan was to stand somewhere along the way and cheer as she passed by. Younger sister would take on the role of #1 (*giggles at Star Trek reference*) assistant while I and the elder sister had in mind to position ourselves near the finish line.
But let's start at the beginning of the day so you guys'll get an idea of how the day went. Because I'm trying to make an effort with this post here >.> Gotta work on my sluggishness when it comes to getting around to doing things and doing them more than half-assed!
My sister was set to start roughly 4 in the afternoon, so I hopped on a train to Gothenburg around 1 o'clock. Had to switch trains once which forced me to wait 40 minutes for the connecting train. No biggie. The only setback with the ride was a group of youngsters who I'm guessing had been to a party during the night and was now on their way to another one. They weren't rowdy by any means but there was constant sounds from them. For example, two girls spent quite some time with a "I'll sing and you guess the song" game. It would've been fun to listen to if they'd picked good songs >.>
Upon arrival in Gothenburg dad called and suggested, through very bad reception, a route to get to my elder sisters' apartment. I managed to find the right tram station pretty fast, though getting to it was a challenge in itself since the road was blocked off for the runners.... Called dad in hopes of finding out how he'd gone about getting around. Bad reception and no real insight had my anxiety rising a notch or two... Thankfully there was a helpful functionary on hand to explain how to get across. "Across" meaning a good 10 minute detour going in a large half circle (which was actually more like a bent ellipse) o.O
Following that hurdle was knowing which tram number to catch.... and in which direction, since many had been re-directed due to the event xD Another phone call with dad (with more "I can't hear you!" from me) had me somewhat more confident that I'd be able to reach my destination but it wasn't until my stop was called out that the feeling of "phew" settled.
Though seeing a rad marching band playing sweet tunes helped me feel better, because it reminded me of many people around theOtaku, lol. (There was a lot of music played live in various places. Cool idea to keep the runners going.)
Dad met me at the stop and we walked up to the apartment. The sister had gone out to cheer on an acquaintance so she wasn't there but her cats were!!! .... And I now realize I don't know where my camera is. Or wait, I do. Can't be bothered to upload the photos right now. Or maybe it'll get done somehow later... Bah. Tomorrow! zzzzzzz.....
So yeah. Said hello to the sleeping kitties, sent dad off with my camera so he could hopefully snap a picture of the running sister at an earlier point, then hung at the computer playing Solitaire Mahjong until the elder sister came back. Though the younger sister managed to get there before her, haha. She had some time to kill before heading to the finish line and the three of us sat down to look at photos of my jewelry, with me picking their brains on how to price the stuff. Right now I'm gonna stick with selling directly to people* in an attempt to probe the market, if you will. Then we'll see about looking into some kind of internet operation :p
* ie, to people at mom's workplace, friends of my sisters and if anyone here is interested ^^;
Then it was finally time to go cheer on the mad woman sprinter sister. Younger sister made her way to the finish line, while I and the elder sister + her boyfriend assumed the waiting position where we'd calculated she'd run past and waited. Dad was on his way over, thinking he'd be able to make it there in time to snap a photo, but he never made it. Scouring the mass of people flushing past us we were first side-tracked by two friends of my sisters and then some woman in front of me decided to pick up her kid and rock back/forth, essentially blocking my view completely. And just as I turned to my sister to complain I hear her boyfriend shout "Hey!! Over here!!".
........ Yep. I missed her by a split second -.-;;
It took some time to get over the bitterness of going through an ordeal for what amounted to slightly more than nothing but then I realized that it didn't matter too much that I didn't see her. Important thing was that she knew we were cheering her on /sap
The very uphill climb back prolonged that thought, though >.> It's something like a 30 degree incline. It also felt kind of awkward waiting around in the apartment since the sister who lives there had invited people over for a get-together. My poor brain wasn't quite up to the jumble of events >.> Other two sisters showed up (the sprinting one showing off her battle scars (bleeding ankles o.O) before hitting the shower) and then it was more or less time for dad and me to hit the train back home.
Because there was such a vast amount of people, coming in and out of town for the half marathon, the train company had attached a second train to the one we were going on. Going down the cars it looked pretty filled up everywhere but we got some nice seats with a decent group of people. No screaming kids or annoying drunks *bliss* Talked with dad during the ride, surprising myself by actually partaking in conversation about math xD!!! It was more about mathematicians working on Pythagoras and Fermat's theorems than the usual "hey daughter here's a problem how do you solve it lol?" though, otherwise I'd cut him short >.>
We got home in one piece (and with my sanity intact despite having subjected it to math for a longer period of time!), got some grocery shopping done before the store closed and happily settled into our dwelling shortly after 10 in the evening. The End :p
This has been a messy post and I'll make up for it tomorrow with pictures of the kitties and a gift dad got me :o
