What a week! In the past seven days, I’ve slept in my bed three times. Three times! And driven a whole lotta miles. After a great weekend, it’s good to be back!

The Last Days of Pompeii at the Cleveland Art Museum  

My weekend started on Thursday … well, not really. But Thursday night, B and I got an invite to the opening of the Pompeii Exhibit at the Cleveland Art Museum where we got to experience drinks and heavy hors d’oeuvres in the new, gorgeous atrium, along with a free view at the Last Days of Pompeii Exhibit.  If you haven’t been yet, you should definitely check it out. The new atrium is beautiful (my pics below don’t do it justice) and the Exhibit was really interesting. I happen to be a slight Pompeii nerd, as I did my LEP (Learning Enrichment Program … another nerd thing) independent study on Pompeii and the city’s growth and demise  and read more than my fair share of books about the city many years ago. AND when my family went to Italy a few years back, I begged that we visit Pompeii (despite it being somewhat out of the way) — and we did. And it was awesome. So, needless to say, when B asked if I wanted to go, I of course said yes!

The exhibit was interesting – it was basically a bunch of different artists’ portrayals of what the city looked like during its hey day … and afterwards. It wasn’t what I expected though – it didn’t have really any Pompeii artifacts, or anything like that (as I had hoped), and was somewhat … how do I put this … depressing? I mean, looking at imagery of a city’s demise, and even a few quotes and other things that likened the occurrence to Hiroshima and 9/11 – it was powerful, but not quite uplifting. But the Pompeii nerd in me loved it!

Friday = Cincinnati and Bockfest begins!

Friday I spent the day in our Cincinnati office, having some team meetings and getting to see our space there for the first time. It worked out extremely well, because that weekend, B and I were due to be in Cincinnati to celebrate our friend Dave’s birthday at Bockfest.  Being down there on Friday for work meant that we could:

1. Attend the Bockfest Parade

2. Drink a few Bock Beers (And discover I like them more than I thought I would)

Saturday = Bockfest 5k, Jungle Jim’s, Birthday Celebrations and Giant Jenga

Saturday morning, B and I got up early to run in the inaugural Bockfest 5k. I needed just about 5 miles to make it to my goal of 20 for the week, and we ended up running  more than 3 if you count the mile-ish run to the starting line and back. Plus, we got a great medal – a bottle opener!

Saturday afternoon, we found ourselves heading out to Jungle Jim’s International Market in Cincinnati. I had been hearing about this place that is supposedly a food-lovers paradise, and it didn’t disappoint. There were aisles and aisles of food and produce and more from every single region of the world, a whole cheese section, a honey display (I LOVE HONEY!) AND a big candy area. I could’ve easily spent hours just perusing each section. They even boast more than 12,000 labels of wines and 1,200 beers! B and I ended up buying some honey, some candy, some candied ginger for me and some of his favorite cheese –  Epoisses – that we haven’t been able to find since our dinner at L’Albatros.

Saturday night we hung out with Dave and Anson’s families and attended a birthday party for Dave. After the party, we headed back to Bockfest to celebrate the last night of our trip. The night included some arm wrestling, a few games of Giant Jenga, impromptu Les Miserables singing, and of course – a visit to Skyline Chili.

We drove back up to Cleveland Sunday. Phew! A fun, and tiring weekend – but hopefully a great way to ring in Dave’s big birthday!