Needless to say, I will not be straightening my hair today. It can go ahead and do whatever it likes.

Sunday, on the other hand, was a gorgeous day, although a bit too sunny for karting. I had to wear my sunglasses, which is not at all comfortable under a helmet. Also, I managed to lumber myself with the smelliest helmet possible. I kept thinking how totally inadequate the standard issure hairnet they make you wear was. To top it off, when I finally got to take the damn thing off, my cheeks were covered with little black bits of goo left behind by the padding.

In fact, the whole experience was not as good as last time. The whole setup was a lot less professional, the track wasn't as big or as good, and the karts weren't as good, either. Mine emitted a high pitched whine everytime I floored the gas. In the end, I decided that I'd rather go a bit slower and not place as high than suffer a headache the rest of the day. All of the karts required a lot of muscle power to steer and gave an exceptionally rough ride. Luckily, nobody slammed into the back of me this time-- I probably would have broken some vitally important bone or another if they had.

When the race was over (much, much too quickly), we all stood around comparing the amount of shakiness in our hands and arms, and vainly trying to get our legs working again. I came in third out of the women, but didn't get a trophy because they only gave out a trophy for First Place when it came to the women. Brenda got it, and it was a hoot -- what looks like an astronaut in a go-kart, after he's gone through the one of those compactors they use to turn junked cars into cubes, all smushed flat and viewed from the front. Very modern. The medals they gave out were pretty chintzy, too, and not dated like the ones at Bombarral.

The overall winner was, once again, a woman. The same woman as last time, in fact, and us girls (there were four of us in our group of friends) cheered her heartily as she shook up her bottle of cheap sparkling barely-wine because she's a woman! Who beats the men at driving! Woo-hoo!! (Later, someone passed us a bottle, and we passed it around like a hot potato, occasionally taking absent minded sips when we got lumbered with it, and wincing.)

Despite all my complaining, we had a grand old time. Big fun, as always, smelly helmet and all. I have to admit, I love the karting, even if I sort of suck at it.

The place did have one advantage: Palmela is much closer than Bombarral, so we made it back into town in plenty of time to have an excellent fried breakfast at the Irish Pub. Except for Elvis, of course, who doesn't like breakfast and went off for a Sunday roast beef dinner instead.

After that, a nap and a shower, and then off to the pub to watch football. In fact, it would have been a near perfect day if only the Packers had won. You can't have everything, I suppose. I just hope the Eagles go ahead and beat everyone else from here on out.

Monday morning, I woke up in pain. Every muscle in my body, which the possible exception of my toes, ached -- unlike last time, when I was warned that they would but nothing did. I made myself a salad on Monday night, and using the crank on the salad spinner to dry the lettuce almost killed me. It's pretty bad when you're too sore to make a salad. It's downright pathetic. My forearms were also incredibly painful -- it hurt just to lift them into typing position, let alone actually type. I was still feeling it yesterday, although the soreness had lessened quite a bit. I also have a variety of odd bruises, which I expected. The only serious one is on my inner thigh, just above my knee, from repeatedly banging into the steering column whilst turning. Still hurts, that one does. It's not in a good spot if you sleep on your side, which I do.

Elvis didn't escape, either. He had all the soreness that I did, plus something I managed to avoid: chest pains. They had started during the race and he figured that he had pulled something. They were bad enough, even then, that he pulled his kart off the track and sat out the last six minutes of the race. On Monday, things were no better, and since the pains were on the left side, a trip to the doctor was in order. Turns out he sprained a rib. The doctor told him it will hurt for 3 weeks or so, and not to plan on karting for a while, although he, himself, thought it sounds and would like to give it a try some time.

I just hope that poor Elvis heals up quickly.