Commando Krav Maga

No, it has nothing to do with not wearing underpants!

Saturday morning we got up and went outside into the lovely 50-degree, cold, damp & cloudy Washington weather to meet with one of Lee's buddies who was going to teach us this CKM phenomenon. Here is a brief description of the "activity" and its origins:

Commando Krav Maga is an eclectic hand-to-hand combat system developed in Israel that involves wrestling, grappling and striking techniques, mostly known for its extremely efficient and brutal counter-attacks, as it is also taught to elite special forces around the world. It was derived from street-fighting skills developed by Imi Lichtenfeld, who made use of his training as a boxer and wrestler, as a means of defending the Jewish quarter during a period of anti-Semitic activity in Bratislava in the mid- to late-1930s. In the late-1940s, following his immigration to Israel, he began to provide hand-to-hand combat training to what was to become the IDF, developing the techniques that became known as Krav Maga. It has since been refined for both civilian and military applications.

Krav Maga has a philosophy emphasizing threat neutralization, simultaneous defensive and offensive maneuvers, and aggression. Krav Maga is used by the IDF Special Forces units and several closely related variations have been developed and adopted by law enforcement and intelligence organizations, Mossad, Shin Bet, FBI, SWAT units of the NYPD and United States Special Operations Forces. There are several organizations teaching variations of Krav Maga internationally. (Wikipedia)

That being said, we spent the next 3 hours learning how to disarm, incapacitate, and "finish" any attacker in real-life situations... Violent, yes. Empowering, sure. Adrenaline inspiring and potentially lethal, you'd better believe it!! We learned all about how to break out of a choke hold, maximize the use of unconventional but nonetheless dangerous fighting techniques, and disarm an attacker in a matter of milli-seconds with bare hands and without allowing any opportunity to actually be injured by the weapon. And all of these techniques were presented & practiced based on real-life scenarios, with examples of how to maneuver to accomplish the desired outcome with any number of variations! Needless to say, we had a great time, despite the intermittent rain showers and the bruises that were discovered after the fact...

So now that the road trip is almost over, we are much more prepared to take on any number of assailants Bruce Lee- style, and we even have a few one-liners we learned from the boys to recite as we leave the club and get in the cab...

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North

After the devastating incident of having our belongings taken, we decided to treat ourselves to a fun night out, which included a new outfit because I didn't have anything left that was nice enough to go out in, and, of course, a new pair of shoes! Gotta look at the positives... :-)

So we got dressed (after a delicious sushi dinner!), and once we were looking fabulous, we headed out. Since we had no idea where to go in the area, we asked the girl at the front desk for some suggestions, and she directed us to her favorite local watering hole which was located conveniently about 5mins away! And to make the night even more enjoyable, it turns out Thursday night was karaoke night! Either the pastime is rapidly coming up in the world, or we are just really good at randomly finding karaoke bars... Either way, we had fun, mingled with the locals, and sang the night away!

The next morning we had to request a later checkout because by the time our eyes cracked open and my head stopped pounding, it was already 11am... So we were back on the road at around 1:30pm. We made a pit stop at a Jack-In-The-Box because we were craving a hot breakfast sandwich, and apparently Dunkin Donuts doesn't exist on the west coast (grumble grumble), and then killed a little time before we headed North to Washington to visit my friend Lee from high school.

The drive only took about 2.5hrs so when we got there, we went out for a bite to eat, and then just chilled and went to bed. We were still pretty beat from partying a little too hard the night before, and Lee was exhausted because he had just returned from military training and had been up since before the crack of dawn!

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B & E

So apparently sometime on Monday night, the Jeep was broken into... We discovered this when we went out to go to dinner, and upon getting into the Jeep, I noticed the bag with our 2 pillows was sitting on the drivers seat, and neither of us remembered putting it there, but we had fished around in the back for some stuff the day before, so maybe we put it there and just didn't remember, no big deal. Then I noticed my straw hat was sitting outside on the hood of the Jeep, and that definitely hadn't been there before, but maybe it fell out when we were pulling other stuff out, and someone had been nice enough to set it there so it wouldn't get run over in the parking lot, again, no big deal. But I had a sinking feeling in my gut, so I asked Heather to check the glove box, where we kept the GPS. It was unlocked, and the GPS was still in there, great! But I still had a bad feeling, so I looked in the back, and instantly realized that my large duffel bag (with allllll my clothes, shoes, and other necessities) was missing- HUGE deal! Seconds later, I see that there is a gap where the zip-up window would normally be attached to the Jeep, so I push on the window and the whole thing falls open! So clearly, someone had unzipped the window, reached in, and grabbed my duffel bag!

So I go inside and speak with the girl at the desk, who assures me that there are cameras on the parking lot, and that her manager will come in to review the tapes tomorrow. She also gives me the phone number for the local police so I can call in and file a report. We then left for dinner, and on further inspection, discovered that not only did they take my huge duffel bag with all my clothes, shoes, & hair dryer, but they also grabbed my smaller duffel bag (that I got when I reached varsity level on my cheerleading squad in highschool and had my name stitched onto it!), which had another jacket, a few hats (one was obtained on my vacation in Costa Rica!), and some other miscellaneous items, including my very expensive and high quality Biolage shampoo & conditioner. They also took another smaller bag with more of my clothes in it, and my cd case with all of my favorite cd's and dvd's in it! The most expensive thing they grabbed, however, was Heather's case with all of her hairdressing equipment in it, valued at well over $500!! Fortunately for Heather, that's all they took of hers... Unfortunately for me, I now only have what was packed in my overnight bag in the hotel room...

I guess, on the bright side, we had both of our laptops and all of our most important personal items with us in the hotel room, but that doesn't even begin to soothe the feelings of violation and loss that we are now experiencing...

Today, during the day, we looked around the nearby area, in hopes that the perpetrators may have looked through our things and discarded anything that didn't have immediate street value (like my clothes!), and in this search, I discovered the campsites of vagrants/transients on the side of the highway behind the hotel parking lot. Thinking I had stumbled upon a lead, I called the local police again, and notified them of this 'squatter' situation, and asked if they could send someone (armed) over to help us investigate the area further... To my dismay, the lady on the other end of the phone informed me that they are "well aware that there are people living back there, but just because I filed a report doesn't mean there is anything they can do to help me get my things back." SO WHAT IS THE POINT OF FILING A POLICE REPORT IF THEY AREN'T GOING TO DO JACK SH*T TO HELP?!?!?!?!?!?!? Please excuse my language, but I find this completely useless and frustrating!!

So this evening, the hotel manager came in to review the video tapes, and he informed me that they do, in fact, show the perpetrators breaking into the Jeep, and also trying to get into other vehicles, and finally making off with our belongings as well as some tools they snagged out of the back of a work truck. They were driving a beat up old car, so it seems as though the local transients are off the hook, but I was more disappointed to find out that one of the two criminals was female, so she must be enjoying her brand new wardrobe of all my favorite clothes right about now... I hope she has an allergic reaction to the laundry detergent I used and DIES!!! Yes, I am THAT angry!!

The police came by to pick up the tape of the incident, but I have absolutely no hope or faith that they will even try to do anything with it at all... So now I have approximately 4 changes of clothes and a few other miscellaneous items to get me from here to Colorado by the 26th of October, when my parents can ship me the winter clothes that I packed away. Although, I may have to wait a while before they arrive, depending on how quickly the USPS works.

All in all, I guess it could have been worse, and the fact that we are both safe and healthy counts for a lot right now... And I am sticking by my resolution that there is nothing we could have done to prevent this from happening. Yes, I know traveling with a soft-top Jeep is not the most secure mode of transportation, but this parking lot is well-lit, fenced in on all sides, with plenty of video cameras in plain sight! We parked in much sketchier areas (like downtown New Orleans on a dark side street in front of a hostel where it's obvious everyone there is traveling), and haven't had any problems until now. And yes, I know we could have brought everything we owned into the hotel with us, but we were smart enough to bring the most important/valuable items, and to the best of our knowledge, none of our personal information is out there to put us at risk for identity theft. So like I said, it could have been much worse, and all I can do now is move forward with a lesson learned.

PS- this lesson STINKS!

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Portland, Japanese Gardens & Bedbugs!

We finally arrived at the hotel around 11:00pm, checked in and went to bed. We decided that the next day would be a relaxation day since we have been on the go and sleeping in less-than-comfortable places for quite a while without a break. I woke up around 9am and went down to the lobby to grab some breakfast that I brought back to the room for later. Unfortunately, I was unable to get back to sleep, so I kept myself occupied until Heather's eyes opened around 1:00pm. We spent the day watching movies and doing nothing, and when our tummies started grumbling around dinner time, we decided that Domino's Pizza and a couple large bottles of wine sounded pretty darn good. We emerged from our cave just long enough to pick up the necessary items, and then holed up again for the rest of the night. It was absolutely perfect!

The next day, we went to a Japanese Botanical Garden. Even though it isn't peak blooming season, the landscaping was still lush and beautiful, and the atmosphere was serene. On our way back, Heather treated us to mani/pedicures, but when she pulled her sleeves up, she noticed some little red bumps on her arms that looked like small insect bites. I had heard from a trusted source (Mom) that many hotels all across the country are currently experiencing bedbug infestations, so when we got back to the hotel, we checked our beds thoroughly. Sure enough, Heather's bed had a bug in it! We brought it to the attention of hotel management immediately, and they moved us to the 3rd floor, far away from the contaminated room. They also washed our clothes for us in the hotel industrial machines.

While our clothes were being washed, we went to a nearby German Pub for dinner, and the food and beer were awesome! We got an appetizer sampler which included chicken schnitzel, shrimp & crab cakes, German sausage, swiss cheese fondue, and potato pancakes! The pancakes were great, but not quite like Mom makes them, of course ;-)

After dinner, we decided to check out the spa and spend some time in the hot tub and sauna. We met a nice old man who joined us and had some great stories of "back when he was our age..." Then when we got kicked out at 11:00 we headed back to our room, watched another movie or 2 and went to bed in clean bug-free beds!

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