Saturday night:
Had another fun night at the youth centre. Everyone was looking a bit worse for wear after Friday night, so I took advantage of this and took a few photos:P We played several of my partially invented games including: name the simpsons character; pull out a random hair and compare (the length); and the coolman contest (aka whose saliva freezes first).
Sunday:
After a nice sleep in, I arranged to stay another two days (Friday and Saturday) in Baiersbronn. I was originally going to go back to Frankfurt and stay in the youth hostel, but I think I'll have more fun in Freudenstadt. After we'd wrapped up the negotiations, Mr Keck, my landlord, offered to wax my skis for me.
It was a lot simpler than I'd always thought it would be. This skiing book I'd once read mentioned something about having to choose the right wax for the current conditions and that if you get it wrong, then it's counter-productive (and often the conditions will change in the middle of the ski, so counter productivity would be quite likely). But most of the time you don't actually need to worry about that, because a universal wax works almost as well as the specific ones. He'd built this nifty little waxing table to hold the ski in place, while he ironed the wax across the surface. It turns out that he used to be a professional cross country skiier when he was my age, which is why he knew how to carry out the procedure so smoothly. He still skis a bit now, but he can't do more than an hour at a time because he had operations in his arms to remove a malignant tumor. It would be so heart breaking to have that kind of potential taken away by something you can do nothing against!
I took my newly waxed skis out for a spin that afternoon. It didn't make a huuge difference, but I was definitely gliding for longer without effort and this was on very soft snow. My skis definitely needed a wax in any case, because I've done several hundred kms on them already, and the synthetic undersurface needs 'nourishment' or else it gets ruined. I was starting to slow down after 30km, but then the skiiers from the Baiersbronn ski team that I saw in the first week came past and I latched on. This time, they wore out before I did, so I did the last 5k by myself, but it made it a lot easier skiing with other people. They probably hate me now though because after they stopped, I yelled out 'Thanks a lot!', which I think they interpreted as 'Sayonara suckers!', because they went out really fast and tried to catch me (but couldn't:P).
Monday:
Went for a very slow ski. Wasn't feeling very energetic.
Tuesday:
I wasn't feeling very good at all, but today I had a time trial scheduled, so I did a 5k warmup and then stopped for 10 minutes to steel myself for the effort ahead. Half way through my meditations, this old guy who I see every day on the slopes offered to put my backpack in his car. Without the extra burden, I felt a lot more ready to take on the time trial, and thrashed out the first lap like a mad thing. My technique was very inefficient, but I managed to go a bit faster than last week (8:17) on much slower snow. My first lap is always about 30 seconds slower than my average pace for the whole time trial, so I tried to maintain 8:45 laps. After 5 laps, I was well ahead of the pace, and was expecting to start slowing down, because that had happened every other time. But pleasingly, I was still feeling good and managed to extend the lead even further:) I finished in 1:09:22 (=1:16:30 HM), a 3 minute PB from last week, and I wasn't at all tired afterwards:) 30 seconds after I'd finished, my heart rate was already under 100bpm and I wasn't breathing audibly anymore:) Very good sign.
Afterwards, I was talking to Claus (the old guy) and he asked me if I was going to take part in the 'Coolman' winter triathlon (5k run, 9k mountain bike ride, 7k XC ski). Flushed from the ski, I said 'Yeah! That could be fun!'. I'd thought about doing it before today, but it's fairly expensive (75 euros) and I didn't have a mountain bike I could use (Claus offered to lend me his). He drove me back to his place, and I called the registration office. I was pretty excited about it, because the day I'd be competing in (for under 23 year olds) is run simultaneously with the world championship elite race, so I'd be in the running to be the winter triathlon world champion! Unfortunately when I spoke to the registrar, it turned out the registrations closed the week before:( We tried pulling a few strings through Claus's connections, but they couldn't do a late registration for me because I didn't have an ITU (international triathlon union) start pass, which I would've had to get in Australia. Ah well, I'm going to spectate this year and go back next year and hopefully take part:)
Claus and I were talking about other cross country skiing races (the Engadine ski marathon in Switzerland sounds really cool!), when he mentioned that Feldberg was the cross country skiing mecca in Germany. 'Feldberg..where's that?'
'It's near Freiburg, not too far away... Say, I haven't been to Feldberg in years, would you like to go tomorrow?'
Of course I did!
Wednesday:
Woke up at 6am (to my alarm) with quite a bad cold. It had shown itself on Monday, but I was hoping it would vanish before it really started, because the whole time I'd been in germany I'd only had one cold and that was because I'd drunk soy milk the day before (wreaks havoc with my immune system). Friday night probably had the same effect.
Claus picked me up at 8am, and we made the quite long journey to Feldberg. It's about 2 hours, so almost exactly the same feel as going to Lake Mountain from Melbourne hehe. We talked a bit during the journey, but I find him quite hard to understand because he's fairly sloppy with his german and he often doesn't talk very clearly.
We found a park, and as we got out, Claus remarked 'Gee we've chosen the only park, which is completely covered with ice. No wonder no-one else parked there. I think we'll probably have to push the car off the ice afterwards.'
'Oops. Oh well, maybe the sun will melt it a bit.'
Since Claus hadn't been there for 16 years, and there was no signage for how to get to the cross country trails (it's mainly a downhill resort), we asked this guy at a ski hire place for directions.
'Oh you have to walk for half an hour before you get to the trails.'
'Really? Last time, I only had to walk for about 2 minutes before I could strap on my skis.'
'Definitely!'
We didn't quite believe him, so we asked at the next place.
'The trail starts just over there, 2 minutes away.'
I like that place better:P
So we strapped on our skis and made our way up. I wasn't feeling that great, so I stayed with Claus for the first 10 minutes, even though he goes very slowly. Eventually I'd had enough and went off on my own. It was really nice being able to go for 5km and not have to repeat the same terrain a few times. We wanted to go to Herzogenhorn, which is a plateau a few hundred metres above the rest of the resort. It was very nice up there:). I didn't feel like doing serious training, so instead of tucking into an aerodynamic pose on the downhills, I practised my telemark turns and as a result, fell over quite a few times:P There was this one downhill, which was like the descent for a ski jumping contest. It was probably about 100m to the bottom, 30% grade, and I slotted into the tracks, tucked in, and whizzed down at about 60kph! Super fun:D
Claus only did about half an hour of skiing and then went to the lodge and ate lunch. I was out for maybe 2 hours, and then it started getting windy and cold, so I was glad when he emerged and waved at me. Going back down to the resort was heaps of fun. That 5km uphill became 5km of downhill. A very gentle slope, but because it was so long, you could build up heaps of speed:D Most people took off their skis and walked down (quite a few on the groomed trail, which is my pet hate!!!), but I skiied down. I took a tumble or two after going for one too many telemark turns, but picked myself up and went on. I finished ages before Claus, so I went down one of the proper downhill slopes. I always love the looks downhill skiiers give you, when you do a telemark turn and your heel rises off the ski:P
Getting out of the parking spot took a bit of time, but we didn't have to push luckily:) I was a bit worried at one point when the wheels spun for a few seconds; and at another point when Claus came 1mm close to scraping a huge gouge in a new volvo, but it worked out ok in the end. The trip back was a bit quicker because Claus took advantage of the lack of speed limits on the autobahn and pushed the speedo up to 150kph. I was more than a bit worried at this because it was raining quite heavily, and the car didn't feel like it was used to that kind of speed haha.
Claus dropped me back at my place and I quickly got changed and caught a train to Freudenstadt to catch up with some friends from the youth centre. They showed me a few of the historical monuments that I'd missed and then we went to a cafe and ordered some very opulent drinks that hardly seemed appropriate at this time of year (eg. ice coffees and milkshakes) haha. After that we went to this pub that offered 1 euro drinks of every variety on Wednesday nights.
It was allright, but I was feeling pretty tired and sick, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to.
Thursday:
Woke up feeling worse than yesterday despite all the zinc supplements I've been taking. Went for a pre-ski jog, but felt so lethargic afterwards that I decided to limit my exercise to that. I'm spending the day in Freudenstadt. Martin, Tracey (from the youth centre) and I are going to see American Gangster (in german) at this cool cinema in the Kurhaus tonight.
Until next time!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Aha!
Tuesday (continued..):
Haha when I got home that night I found a cutting from the local newspaper featuring my photo and citing me as saying I dislike Valentines day because it's too commercialised (and every other voxpopee was of the opposite opinion:P). Souvenir and a half!
Wednesday:
Umm nothing particularly interesting. Went for a ski and went out after dinner and played a few games of pool..by myself hah.
Thursday:
See Wednesday minus the pool. My arms were toast from doing 30km classic. I find it so much harder than skating:O
Friday:
Big day:) I decided that since 45k was no longer a challenge, I'd try and do 60k of skating for my long ski. When I got to the loop I heard two Americans talking among themselves and struck up a conversation with them. They were very fit triathletes, who'd decided they'd give the Winter triathlon a shot. The only problem was, they didn't know how to cross country ski and the race was in 2 weeks, so they were trying to get some skating practice in. They were actually not too bad considering they'd never been coached. Although one of them did manage to break his 300 euro skis in half the last time they went out:P (they were covered by insurance, so no biggy). I took them under my wing and took them for a few laps without stocks. They were looking a lot better by the end of it. After 4 laps or so they called it quits because otherwise they were going to lose certain appendages:P I guess they'll know in the future that -10°c plus windchill calls for more than a pair of skins:P So that was 6 laps gone. It's a lot easier skiing with other people. It eases the mental burden I guess. I did another 6 laps to make 30km without stocks and then strapped them round my wrists. Reached the 45km mark without problems, still feeling strong. The next 4 were fairly tough, but after that the finish line was in sight and I got there! I actually didn't feel too bad, I could've done another 10k or so.
Had to wait ages for the stupid bus, so I sat in a cafe, ordered a tea and covertly ate my sandwiches:P
I was still feeling amazingly energetic when I got back to my room (It probably had something to do with the cup of coffee I drank before the ski and the fact that I hadn't had any caffeine for a few months:P) and really could not stand another night of falling asleep in front of the TV. I really wanted to go out, but didn't know where. Martinique was the only place I could think of, but I was quite reluctant to go there after the quick look I took with Ben two weeks ago. Apprehensively, I walked down to the train station at about 10, only to find that there were no trains going to Freudenstadt until 11pm, which would give me about 30 minutes before I had to catch the last train home again lol. There was a train coming from Freudenstadt, so I said screw it, and hopped on, prepared to launch myself into the unknown...and then it started off going back to Freudenstadt haha.
I didn't really have a clear idea of how to get to Martinique, so I just started walking in that direction. A few steps later, I heard music coming from this place opposite the station. I had a look through the window and it looked pretty good: pool table, music, people. So I went in and discovered the youth centre 'Teeny disco'. It was fantastic! I'd started to think that there was a generation issue in Freudenstadt. All the old people are really nice and outgoing, but all the young people I had met were unfriendly, and uninterested. But the people here were great! A charming young lady by the name of Martina introduced me to everyone, and we had great fun compiling a list of obscure german swear words:P In no time at all it was 12 oclock and I went to make my goodbyes, but this young guy called Freddy insisted that I come and sleep over at his girlfriend's house and try what is in his opinion, the best beer there is in Germany. 'Ummmmm'
'Be spontaneous man!' (he started speaking english in this hilarious accent as soon as he heard I was from Australia)
'Heh why not?'
So I went back with them to Charly's (his girlfriend) place, tried the bottle of 'Das Echte' beer (I think Alpirsbacher Speziell is more deserving of the accolade), translated some death metal lyrics into german for him, drank quite a lot of schnaps, and fell asleep... And then woke up about half an hour later and for the first time in my career, was forced to crawl to the bathroom and empty the contents of my stomach (amazing how you really do feel completely better afterwards..I always thought it was an exaggeration) eugh:P I think I'm going to stay away from alcohol for a while lol. It was a really fun night in spite of that. A similar thing is happening tonight, which I'm looking forward to:)
Saturday:
Woke up at 8am or so, lacking a few hours sleep. I wanted to go for a ski and I knew it wouldn't happen if I slept in until everyone else was awake, so I left a note and caught a bus back to Baiersbronn. I got to my room and ate a little breakfast, but wasn't really hungry. It was very hard to leave the room again, but I had no excuse and I had a theory that 30km of skating would be a good hangover cure. It sort of was. I was fairly unco-ordinated and went incredibly slowly at the start, but felt progressively better and by the end, I was feeling good:) But not anymore - sitting at the computer for 2 and a half hours has robbed me of energy haha. I'm going to go back to my room and recuperate for a bit before I go out again.
Haha when I got home that night I found a cutting from the local newspaper featuring my photo and citing me as saying I dislike Valentines day because it's too commercialised (and every other voxpopee was of the opposite opinion:P). Souvenir and a half!
Wednesday:
Umm nothing particularly interesting. Went for a ski and went out after dinner and played a few games of pool..by myself hah.
Thursday:
See Wednesday minus the pool. My arms were toast from doing 30km classic. I find it so much harder than skating:O
Friday:
Big day:) I decided that since 45k was no longer a challenge, I'd try and do 60k of skating for my long ski. When I got to the loop I heard two Americans talking among themselves and struck up a conversation with them. They were very fit triathletes, who'd decided they'd give the Winter triathlon a shot. The only problem was, they didn't know how to cross country ski and the race was in 2 weeks, so they were trying to get some skating practice in. They were actually not too bad considering they'd never been coached. Although one of them did manage to break his 300 euro skis in half the last time they went out:P (they were covered by insurance, so no biggy). I took them under my wing and took them for a few laps without stocks. They were looking a lot better by the end of it. After 4 laps or so they called it quits because otherwise they were going to lose certain appendages:P I guess they'll know in the future that -10°c plus windchill calls for more than a pair of skins:P So that was 6 laps gone. It's a lot easier skiing with other people. It eases the mental burden I guess. I did another 6 laps to make 30km without stocks and then strapped them round my wrists. Reached the 45km mark without problems, still feeling strong. The next 4 were fairly tough, but after that the finish line was in sight and I got there! I actually didn't feel too bad, I could've done another 10k or so.
Had to wait ages for the stupid bus, so I sat in a cafe, ordered a tea and covertly ate my sandwiches:P
I was still feeling amazingly energetic when I got back to my room (It probably had something to do with the cup of coffee I drank before the ski and the fact that I hadn't had any caffeine for a few months:P) and really could not stand another night of falling asleep in front of the TV. I really wanted to go out, but didn't know where. Martinique was the only place I could think of, but I was quite reluctant to go there after the quick look I took with Ben two weeks ago. Apprehensively, I walked down to the train station at about 10, only to find that there were no trains going to Freudenstadt until 11pm, which would give me about 30 minutes before I had to catch the last train home again lol. There was a train coming from Freudenstadt, so I said screw it, and hopped on, prepared to launch myself into the unknown...and then it started off going back to Freudenstadt haha.
I didn't really have a clear idea of how to get to Martinique, so I just started walking in that direction. A few steps later, I heard music coming from this place opposite the station. I had a look through the window and it looked pretty good: pool table, music, people. So I went in and discovered the youth centre 'Teeny disco'. It was fantastic! I'd started to think that there was a generation issue in Freudenstadt. All the old people are really nice and outgoing, but all the young people I had met were unfriendly, and uninterested. But the people here were great! A charming young lady by the name of Martina introduced me to everyone, and we had great fun compiling a list of obscure german swear words:P In no time at all it was 12 oclock and I went to make my goodbyes, but this young guy called Freddy insisted that I come and sleep over at his girlfriend's house and try what is in his opinion, the best beer there is in Germany. 'Ummmmm'
'Be spontaneous man!' (he started speaking english in this hilarious accent as soon as he heard I was from Australia)
'Heh why not?'
So I went back with them to Charly's (his girlfriend) place, tried the bottle of 'Das Echte' beer (I think Alpirsbacher Speziell is more deserving of the accolade), translated some death metal lyrics into german for him, drank quite a lot of schnaps, and fell asleep... And then woke up about half an hour later and for the first time in my career, was forced to crawl to the bathroom and empty the contents of my stomach (amazing how you really do feel completely better afterwards..I always thought it was an exaggeration) eugh:P I think I'm going to stay away from alcohol for a while lol. It was a really fun night in spite of that. A similar thing is happening tonight, which I'm looking forward to:)
Saturday:
Woke up at 8am or so, lacking a few hours sleep. I wanted to go for a ski and I knew it wouldn't happen if I slept in until everyone else was awake, so I left a note and caught a bus back to Baiersbronn. I got to my room and ate a little breakfast, but wasn't really hungry. It was very hard to leave the room again, but I had no excuse and I had a theory that 30km of skating would be a good hangover cure. It sort of was. I was fairly unco-ordinated and went incredibly slowly at the start, but felt progressively better and by the end, I was feeling good:) But not anymore - sitting at the computer for 2 and a half hours has robbed me of energy haha. I'm going to go back to my room and recuperate for a bit before I go out again.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Saturday (continued...):
so I caught the bus up to Kniebis and sat in the sun, reading my book 'Powercourse for Beginners: French' and talking to this nice german guy, while waiting for the race to start. I've decided that I want to start learning french! It was next on my list of languages I want to learn (french, spanish, dutch, mandarin), and I think I've got a fairly good grasp of german now, so it was time to start:) This book is really quite good, I'm already up to modal verbs and perfect past. Only problem is, I have no idea how to pronounce most of the words. The book (which is in german for even more fun:P) came with an audio CD, but I don't have a CD player with me, so I'm going to start with grammar and correct my mangled pronounciation (I tend to make the unfamiliar words sound italian:P) later:P
It kicked off at about 3:30. The competitors had already done a ski jumping contest in the morning and their strength in that discipline decided how long they had to wait after the first guy started before they could start. The guy who won the ski jumping (I think they said he's a national champ in his age group) was so far in front that he didn't have to ski hard at all to win. I thought he was retiring because of injury or something like that because he was going so slowly and no-one clapped for him lol. The younger kids did 5k to the accompaniment of much 'Hop!Hop!Hop!Hop!Hop!'ing as they passed the spectators, while the 16-19 year olds did 10k. Man they're fast! I timed one of them, and he did a 2.4km lap in 6.5 minutes, which is incredible!
I stayed just long enough that I screwed up the bus connection and would have had to wait 2 hours for the next one. It was getting dark and cold, and I really didn't feel like waiting, so I hitchhiked again. The first car I thumbed pulled over. Imagine my surprise when I heard 'I'm just going to Freudenstadt' (in english). My saviour was a 50ish year old Scottish woman with an amazing story. She was once a Rocket Scientist, working for NASA, until one day she had a Damascus Road Moment. She came into her house to discover a 1m wide rainbow reflected on her ceiling with no plausible explanation for its presence. That experience completely changed her life, and she travelled to Germany to study at this bible school in Kniebis, which her twin sister had recommended. It sounds a bit flimsy hearing it second hand, but believe me, she was absolutely rivetting. She's quite anti-clerical, but despite this, she's studying to become a woman pastor (which I thought was an excellent idea). She drove me all the way to Baiersbronn so we could continue the conversation, and we ended up sitting in the car outside a supermarket for about 20 minutes. It was truly an amazing experience, she would make such a good pastor! I'm glad to have met her, but I don't think I'm going to take her up on her invitation to come with her to Strassburg to this weekly bible study evening.
That night I went to Baiersbronn dance party venue: Bar Astoria. It was terrible. I got there at 9.15 or so, and apart from the barkeeper's girlfriend, who I followed in, there was no-one. Things didn't improve as the night went on. About 15 guys rocked up at about 10, drank red bull and vodkas and sheepishly danced with one another. I tried talking to a few of them, but they just weren't interested. I ended up leaving before 11 and swore I'd never go back. An expensive (3 euro entry, 2.50 per pot) yet lame night.
Sunday:
My knee was feeling better, so I went to Kniebis and did 45km. My calves were very sore for some reason, but after 7.5km they loosened up. It was a lot easier than last time, I wasn't tired afterwards and it took me over an hour less:) Marathon time was about 3:20.
Monday:
I got up earlyish and set off on a very slow jog. So slow that this old lady opened her window and asked me what was wrong:P After half an hour of that, I had breakfast, then lazed around for a while. I knew I should get moving if I wanted to go skiing, but I couldn't summon the effort. The reward for my laziness was getting to Freudenstadt at 2pm to discover that the next bus wasn't til 4pm haha. I decided to kill the time by going to Experimenta, Freudenstadt's equivalent of ScienceWorks. After about half an hour I finally found it, only to discover that it was closed on Mondays haha. So I ended up sitting in the sun, reading the french book. This very nervous german girl interrupted me at one point to give me a Valentines day survey and take my photo lol.
I finally got to Kniebis at about 4:30 and did 30km classic. I wasn't feeling very energetic, I'd double pole quite quickly on the flat bits, but as soon as I got to a hill, I'd revert to a plodding hairy leg because I couldn't be bothered diagonal striding properly. The Baiersbronn Ski Team had another of their practices at about 5:30. They did one lap extreeemely quickly, then did a little bit of technique drills and went home. It didn't seem like a very good training session to me. They were out there for less than an hour and didn't do anything that looked like it would build endurance. Oh well, it must work for them because I saw a few guys with jackets from the national team.
Caught the last bus home and got lectured by the bus driver for putting myself in danger for staying out that late and not having a girlfriend who would care if something did happen:P
Ate waaaaay too much for dinner and was in serious pain from my bloated stomach haha. I couldn't even watch TV because having my head in an upright position made it worse:P
Tuesday:
Very happy with today's results:) I went to Kniebis for a time trial and managed to do the 8 laps (which adds up to 19.2km not 20km as I once thought) in 1:12:34, a 17 minute PB from last week! Last week I started off with my fastest lap of 10:30, and today I managed to do every lap at least a minute faster than that! I'm chalking it up to improved fitness, but mainly to better technique. I've started using my arms a lot more effectively and the power from that means I go a lot faster with hardly any more effort. I think there are still a lot more gains to make from improved technique. My left ski still drags a bit and that must add up. I'm going to buy some rollerblades when I get back and go for a spin once a week to keep my technique in good shape.
so I caught the bus up to Kniebis and sat in the sun, reading my book 'Powercourse for Beginners: French' and talking to this nice german guy, while waiting for the race to start. I've decided that I want to start learning french! It was next on my list of languages I want to learn (french, spanish, dutch, mandarin), and I think I've got a fairly good grasp of german now, so it was time to start:) This book is really quite good, I'm already up to modal verbs and perfect past. Only problem is, I have no idea how to pronounce most of the words. The book (which is in german for even more fun:P) came with an audio CD, but I don't have a CD player with me, so I'm going to start with grammar and correct my mangled pronounciation (I tend to make the unfamiliar words sound italian:P) later:P
It kicked off at about 3:30. The competitors had already done a ski jumping contest in the morning and their strength in that discipline decided how long they had to wait after the first guy started before they could start. The guy who won the ski jumping (I think they said he's a national champ in his age group) was so far in front that he didn't have to ski hard at all to win. I thought he was retiring because of injury or something like that because he was going so slowly and no-one clapped for him lol. The younger kids did 5k to the accompaniment of much 'Hop!Hop!Hop!Hop!Hop!'ing as they passed the spectators, while the 16-19 year olds did 10k. Man they're fast! I timed one of them, and he did a 2.4km lap in 6.5 minutes, which is incredible!
I stayed just long enough that I screwed up the bus connection and would have had to wait 2 hours for the next one. It was getting dark and cold, and I really didn't feel like waiting, so I hitchhiked again. The first car I thumbed pulled over. Imagine my surprise when I heard 'I'm just going to Freudenstadt' (in english). My saviour was a 50ish year old Scottish woman with an amazing story. She was once a Rocket Scientist, working for NASA, until one day she had a Damascus Road Moment. She came into her house to discover a 1m wide rainbow reflected on her ceiling with no plausible explanation for its presence. That experience completely changed her life, and she travelled to Germany to study at this bible school in Kniebis, which her twin sister had recommended. It sounds a bit flimsy hearing it second hand, but believe me, she was absolutely rivetting. She's quite anti-clerical, but despite this, she's studying to become a woman pastor (which I thought was an excellent idea). She drove me all the way to Baiersbronn so we could continue the conversation, and we ended up sitting in the car outside a supermarket for about 20 minutes. It was truly an amazing experience, she would make such a good pastor! I'm glad to have met her, but I don't think I'm going to take her up on her invitation to come with her to Strassburg to this weekly bible study evening.
That night I went to Baiersbronn dance party venue: Bar Astoria. It was terrible. I got there at 9.15 or so, and apart from the barkeeper's girlfriend, who I followed in, there was no-one. Things didn't improve as the night went on. About 15 guys rocked up at about 10, drank red bull and vodkas and sheepishly danced with one another. I tried talking to a few of them, but they just weren't interested. I ended up leaving before 11 and swore I'd never go back. An expensive (3 euro entry, 2.50 per pot) yet lame night.
Sunday:
My knee was feeling better, so I went to Kniebis and did 45km. My calves were very sore for some reason, but after 7.5km they loosened up. It was a lot easier than last time, I wasn't tired afterwards and it took me over an hour less:) Marathon time was about 3:20.
Monday:
I got up earlyish and set off on a very slow jog. So slow that this old lady opened her window and asked me what was wrong:P After half an hour of that, I had breakfast, then lazed around for a while. I knew I should get moving if I wanted to go skiing, but I couldn't summon the effort. The reward for my laziness was getting to Freudenstadt at 2pm to discover that the next bus wasn't til 4pm haha. I decided to kill the time by going to Experimenta, Freudenstadt's equivalent of ScienceWorks. After about half an hour I finally found it, only to discover that it was closed on Mondays haha. So I ended up sitting in the sun, reading the french book. This very nervous german girl interrupted me at one point to give me a Valentines day survey and take my photo lol.
I finally got to Kniebis at about 4:30 and did 30km classic. I wasn't feeling very energetic, I'd double pole quite quickly on the flat bits, but as soon as I got to a hill, I'd revert to a plodding hairy leg because I couldn't be bothered diagonal striding properly. The Baiersbronn Ski Team had another of their practices at about 5:30. They did one lap extreeemely quickly, then did a little bit of technique drills and went home. It didn't seem like a very good training session to me. They were out there for less than an hour and didn't do anything that looked like it would build endurance. Oh well, it must work for them because I saw a few guys with jackets from the national team.
Caught the last bus home and got lectured by the bus driver for putting myself in danger for staying out that late and not having a girlfriend who would care if something did happen:P
Ate waaaaay too much for dinner and was in serious pain from my bloated stomach haha. I couldn't even watch TV because having my head in an upright position made it worse:P
Tuesday:
Very happy with today's results:) I went to Kniebis for a time trial and managed to do the 8 laps (which adds up to 19.2km not 20km as I once thought) in 1:12:34, a 17 minute PB from last week! Last week I started off with my fastest lap of 10:30, and today I managed to do every lap at least a minute faster than that! I'm chalking it up to improved fitness, but mainly to better technique. I've started using my arms a lot more effectively and the power from that means I go a lot faster with hardly any more effort. I think there are still a lot more gains to make from improved technique. My left ski still drags a bit and that must add up. I'm going to buy some rollerblades when I get back and go for a spin once a week to keep my technique in good shape.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Thursday (continued..):
Yeah there's no snow, but it was an amazingly nice day anyway:) 10 degrees, sunny, all in all very pleasant:) I finished off a 150km week with an enjoyable 2.5 hour run up to Kniebis. When I turned back, I forgot which way I'd came and went down another trail downhill. I ended up in a completely unfamiliar location and was convinced I'd already run past Baiersbronn and would have to run at least another 10km to get back. I was quite looking forward to the prospect for some reason and was slightly disappointed when I found a sign for Nordic Walkers telling me that Baiersbronn was 1.5km in front of me:P Finished off the run feeling very strong and not at all tired. It's an excellent sign because only a few weeks ago I was struggling to finish the distance:)
I went out to the sports bar that night and had a good conversation with the barman over a few beers. Afterwards I got destroyed in a game of darts, but had a lot of fun:)
Friday:
Rather sluggish day. I went for a morning run, ate breakfast, and then went back to bed with my book...which is where Frau Keck, my hostess, found me a few hours later when she came to bring my washing up, surrounded by junk. She nearly had a heart attack:P
'Jeremy, how can you sleep in this mess!?'
'Oh, gee it is a bit messy. I didn't really notice it.'
'Tsk tsk tsk.'
So I helped her clean it up and promised I'd keep it that way. Which may or may not be a non-core promise:P
Three quarters of the way through my evening run, my right knee started giving me some grief, so I walked it in the rest of the way. I think it's because of the running in snow I did the day before. Not a good sign.
Saturday:
Got up early because there's a XC skiing competition this afternoon at Kniebis. I wasn't going to enter it, but I was hoping to take advantage of the groomed trail (I have no idea how they managed to get enough snow together to cover the loop) before it started. As I walked downstairs, my knee twinged a little, so I decided to take a rest day. Probably a good idea in any case after 20 days straight.
Time to catch the bus up to the ski stadium! Tschus!
Yeah there's no snow, but it was an amazingly nice day anyway:) 10 degrees, sunny, all in all very pleasant:) I finished off a 150km week with an enjoyable 2.5 hour run up to Kniebis. When I turned back, I forgot which way I'd came and went down another trail downhill. I ended up in a completely unfamiliar location and was convinced I'd already run past Baiersbronn and would have to run at least another 10km to get back. I was quite looking forward to the prospect for some reason and was slightly disappointed when I found a sign for Nordic Walkers telling me that Baiersbronn was 1.5km in front of me:P Finished off the run feeling very strong and not at all tired. It's an excellent sign because only a few weeks ago I was struggling to finish the distance:)
I went out to the sports bar that night and had a good conversation with the barman over a few beers. Afterwards I got destroyed in a game of darts, but had a lot of fun:)
Friday:
Rather sluggish day. I went for a morning run, ate breakfast, and then went back to bed with my book...which is where Frau Keck, my hostess, found me a few hours later when she came to bring my washing up, surrounded by junk. She nearly had a heart attack:P
'Jeremy, how can you sleep in this mess!?'
'Oh, gee it is a bit messy. I didn't really notice it.'
'Tsk tsk tsk.'
So I helped her clean it up and promised I'd keep it that way. Which may or may not be a non-core promise:P
Three quarters of the way through my evening run, my right knee started giving me some grief, so I walked it in the rest of the way. I think it's because of the running in snow I did the day before. Not a good sign.
Saturday:
Got up early because there's a XC skiing competition this afternoon at Kniebis. I wasn't going to enter it, but I was hoping to take advantage of the groomed trail (I have no idea how they managed to get enough snow together to cover the loop) before it started. As I walked downstairs, my knee twinged a little, so I decided to take a rest day. Probably a good idea in any case after 20 days straight.
Time to catch the bus up to the ski stadium! Tschus!
Thursday, February 7, 2008
(continued...)
Ahem, sorry about that.
Saturday:
So yeah, I managed to finish off the 45k, didn't really feel tired, just cold and blistered from where my boots had pinched my feet. It was now 9:00 PM, pitch black, -10°c and the buses had stopped running 3 and a half hours ago. I walked down to the Kniebis village to keep from freezing and stuck my thumb out at the passing 'traffic' (read, 1 car every 5 minutes.) The first 4 cars sped past me, but a friendly innkeeper and a young waitress from the hotel were willing to help me out. It was so nice to get into the car! He even put on some rap in english to make me feel more comfortable hahaha:| He dropped us off at his house in the depths of Freudenstadt. Luckily she knew her way around because I really didn't want to spend half an hour trying to work out where the train station was! In the end I still had to spend half an hour in the cold because the trains are fairly infrequent especially at that time of night:(. It was still well below 0 in Baiersbronn and I didn't feel like going home straight away to an empty larder, so I stopped off at the sports bar (don't really recommend it lol) and had a beer and a few games of pool (was beaten soundly by a turkish guy).
Sunday:
Sunday was a lovely day:) The sun was shining and fasching was in full swing. I went up to Kniebis, where the loop was absolutely packed. After 2 laps I got bored of having to constantly overtake people and ventured out onto an ungroomed trail. It was really fantastic:) I'm glad I bought classics now. It seemed like a frivolous purchase at the time since I usually concentrate on skating, but it's good cross training and there are a lot of trails in the Baiersbronn area that are only open for classic. I soon found myself absolutely alone, with amazing views of the Black Forest looking absolutely gorgeous with its blanket of snow:) Ended up doing about 4 hours, at which point my knee started to complain and the pain from my constricted toes was starting to become uncomfortable, so I was glad to stop.
Monday:
On Monday I took my skaters up for a 20km time trial. Did a quick 5km warmup without stocks and then it was on! I gave that hill everything I had. I'd go completely anaerobic for the last km of every lap and didn't really recover until the downhill section gave me a chance to catch my breath. I was aiming for 88 minutes and until the 6th lap, I was on target, but after that I started to slow down. The 7th lap was pretty bad, I was really struggling and dropped at least 40 seconds off the pace. Then serendipitously, the Baiersbronn Ski team showed up for the last lap. They were all standing at the start of the loop blocking the way, and I didn't really have the brainpower to work out how to say 'Get out of my way!' in german, so I just blasted through a small gap in their ranks, breathing like a steam train. I think they took that as a challenge. This girl from the team was onto me within a minute and I paced off her for a while until her superior downhill technique prevailed. The rest of the team caught up with me too and I skiied the rest of the lap with them. I was digging deep trying to keep up while they joked around going at their easy pace lol. It was a good workout, I was pleased with how it went, especially since it was a 6 minute PB on a much harder course (~8km uphill versus ~4km on the kangaroo hoppet course) than the August 07 Kangaroo Hoppet course. I definitely needed a break after that, a chocolate break to be more precise, mmm:)
After the ski, I ate some junk food from my favourite Döner outlet in Freudenstadt and then went and spent quite a bit of money at Müller. I went in because Alice had asked me to get her some Stabilo markers (done and done), but pretty much everything in the store caught my eye and I ended up spending about 60 euros on DVDs, vegan waffles, vocab notebooks and other pretty things lol.
Tuesday:
Miserable weather. I was hoping that what was rain in Freudenstadt would be snow in Mini Siberia (aka Kniebis), but sadly it wasn't the case. I did 27km classic in snow that got a little worse every lap. Had a nice chat with the bus driver on the way back.
Wednesday:
More rain:( It actually started snowing after a while, but 30 minutes later the clouds parted a little and it reverted to rain. Most of the snow in Baiersbronn was washed away. I walked down to the tourist office, skis in hand, hoping that Kniebis was having better luck, but I was soon robbed of that illusion. Went for my second run and got a bit lost and very wet. Stayed up til 5am reading. It's a lot more fun now that I barely have to consult the dictionary anymore:)
Thursday:
There's no snow anywhere:(. And to think I just bought a season pass for Kniebis lol.
Saturday:
So yeah, I managed to finish off the 45k, didn't really feel tired, just cold and blistered from where my boots had pinched my feet. It was now 9:00 PM, pitch black, -10°c and the buses had stopped running 3 and a half hours ago. I walked down to the Kniebis village to keep from freezing and stuck my thumb out at the passing 'traffic' (read, 1 car every 5 minutes.) The first 4 cars sped past me, but a friendly innkeeper and a young waitress from the hotel were willing to help me out. It was so nice to get into the car! He even put on some rap in english to make me feel more comfortable hahaha:| He dropped us off at his house in the depths of Freudenstadt. Luckily she knew her way around because I really didn't want to spend half an hour trying to work out where the train station was! In the end I still had to spend half an hour in the cold because the trains are fairly infrequent especially at that time of night:(. It was still well below 0 in Baiersbronn and I didn't feel like going home straight away to an empty larder, so I stopped off at the sports bar (don't really recommend it lol) and had a beer and a few games of pool (was beaten soundly by a turkish guy).
Sunday:
Sunday was a lovely day:) The sun was shining and fasching was in full swing. I went up to Kniebis, where the loop was absolutely packed. After 2 laps I got bored of having to constantly overtake people and ventured out onto an ungroomed trail. It was really fantastic:) I'm glad I bought classics now. It seemed like a frivolous purchase at the time since I usually concentrate on skating, but it's good cross training and there are a lot of trails in the Baiersbronn area that are only open for classic. I soon found myself absolutely alone, with amazing views of the Black Forest looking absolutely gorgeous with its blanket of snow:) Ended up doing about 4 hours, at which point my knee started to complain and the pain from my constricted toes was starting to become uncomfortable, so I was glad to stop.
Monday:
On Monday I took my skaters up for a 20km time trial. Did a quick 5km warmup without stocks and then it was on! I gave that hill everything I had. I'd go completely anaerobic for the last km of every lap and didn't really recover until the downhill section gave me a chance to catch my breath. I was aiming for 88 minutes and until the 6th lap, I was on target, but after that I started to slow down. The 7th lap was pretty bad, I was really struggling and dropped at least 40 seconds off the pace. Then serendipitously, the Baiersbronn Ski team showed up for the last lap. They were all standing at the start of the loop blocking the way, and I didn't really have the brainpower to work out how to say 'Get out of my way!' in german, so I just blasted through a small gap in their ranks, breathing like a steam train. I think they took that as a challenge. This girl from the team was onto me within a minute and I paced off her for a while until her superior downhill technique prevailed. The rest of the team caught up with me too and I skiied the rest of the lap with them. I was digging deep trying to keep up while they joked around going at their easy pace lol. It was a good workout, I was pleased with how it went, especially since it was a 6 minute PB on a much harder course (~8km uphill versus ~4km on the kangaroo hoppet course) than the August 07 Kangaroo Hoppet course. I definitely needed a break after that, a chocolate break to be more precise, mmm:)
After the ski, I ate some junk food from my favourite Döner outlet in Freudenstadt and then went and spent quite a bit of money at Müller. I went in because Alice had asked me to get her some Stabilo markers (done and done), but pretty much everything in the store caught my eye and I ended up spending about 60 euros on DVDs, vegan waffles, vocab notebooks and other pretty things lol.
Tuesday:
Miserable weather. I was hoping that what was rain in Freudenstadt would be snow in Mini Siberia (aka Kniebis), but sadly it wasn't the case. I did 27km classic in snow that got a little worse every lap. Had a nice chat with the bus driver on the way back.
Wednesday:
More rain:( It actually started snowing after a while, but 30 minutes later the clouds parted a little and it reverted to rain. Most of the snow in Baiersbronn was washed away. I walked down to the tourist office, skis in hand, hoping that Kniebis was having better luck, but I was soon robbed of that illusion. Went for my second run and got a bit lost and very wet. Stayed up til 5am reading. It's a lot more fun now that I barely have to consult the dictionary anymore:)
Thursday:
There's no snow anywhere:(. And to think I just bought a season pass for Kniebis lol.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Hullo all.
I finished WWOOFing a few days ago. It was a bit sad to leave, I had a really good time there. The family were all so nice and I couldn't have felt more at home (except maybe at home:P). I won't bore you with a day by day account (and I can't remember it well enough to do so in any case:P), but I will recount a few of the memorable moments:
A physics experiment:
Martin was home one of the days, so instead of going out to the horses, I helped him out. He wanted to move some timber from behind the barn, because at some stage, he was going to get rid of the sheep, knock down the wall and rebuild it as a stall for the horses. So together we moved the planks one by one (which was bloody hard work - some of the planks must've weighed over 100kg) and piled them up in the tray of his truck. We needed a break to recover from this, so we went inside and had a bit of lunch. While munching on peanut butter and rye bread, I asked Martin what was going to happen with the timber.
'Oh I'll drive the truck round to the other side of the barn and we'll stack it under the roof.'
'How do we get it from the truck up there?'
'I've got a pulley and rope in the attic, we'll get Opa to help us pull it up.'
He went silent for a few moments and then said abruptly 'It won't work.'
'How come?'
'Opa only weighs 80kg. If he tries to pull those really heavy planks up, he'll be lifted into the air!'
We both laughed as we tried to imagine the scene. I wasn't convinced by his reasoning though.
'Aren't you forgetting that Opa can use his muscles to exert force? Won't the work that he performs mean that he really weighs more than 80kg?'
'I don't think that would matter.'
'Hmmph, I guess we'll have to get Opa to take part in an experiment and see who's right.'
So we did the experiment and the results were quite surprising. Can you guess the outcome? Did Opa rise into the air, or was he able to lift the 100kg plank into the loft?
German recycling plant:
Another day (possibly the day after), Martin asked me if I'd be interested in coming to the recycling plant to drop off a few things. Of course I was interested! We put everything in the jeep (which incidentally, along with all of their other vehicles, is powered by salad oil, which means it smells fantastic when you get out!) and drove to the plant, which was close to the town Martin inherited: Martinsmoos (just kidding, he doesn't really own it:P). The germans have a very intricate recycling system. Pretty much everything is recycled in some way. It wasn't always like this. In the old days, everything would go to landfill, but some time ago, all the land that could be filled was filled and so now they have no choice but to recycle everything. As a result, they have about 6 different bins.
This is pretty confusing for someone not accustomed to it. Sigrid (I only realised 2 days before I left that I'd been saying her name wrong the whole time! It's Sigrid, not Sigfried:P) told me at some stage that when the vacuum cleaner was full, I should empty the contents into the black bin. So after dropping the vacuum cleaner and spilling the nearly full container on the stairs, I sucked it up again and then took the container to what I thought was the black bin. Martin had just pulled up in his car as I went to pour the contents into the bin and beeped at me. I thought he was just saying hello, so I waved at him while I finished what I'd started. What followed was like one of those 'Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!' slow motion clips from cheesy movies (but he didn't make it in time to knock the container out of my hands:P). Turns out that this bin, which had a black body, but a yellow lid, was for plastic not for 'Sperrmull' (anything that can't be recycled). So we had to fish the dust out of the bin (which thankfully wasn't at all yucky) and take it to the _real_ black bin next to the barn.
So back to the recycling plant. It was basically the german equivalent of a tip. Which means that it was highly organised and very efficient:P If you thought 6 different bins was bad, the recycling plant would send you screaming into the night. There was a shipping container for every conceivable category of objects. Paper, hard plastic, soft plastic, polstyrene, scrap iron, electronics, electronics with screens, mattresses, used fats, big trees, small trees, food scraps, and many more. And even though this plant was massive (at least 2 square km), it was tiny compared to the real recycling plants. The aforementioned containers are trucked to the large recycling plants, where they're further processed. Most of the stuff that can't really be usefully recycled gets burnt. I was a bit shocked when I first heard this because it's not just paper and banana skins that we're talking about here, pretty much all the plastic refuse goes to the same place. Plastic and burning spells black acrid smoke to me, which then in the confused neural network of my brain, leads to sulfur dioxide and acid rain and the death of the black forest! But the truth is a lot more attractive. The burning plants are very clean, they have very fine filters so that not much gets out of there besides Carbon Dioxide (oh well, you can't have it all) and it's not just like they burn it and that's it. The heat from the burning as well as the methane from the decomposing organic matter is used to generate electricity, which is quite an amazing concept to me. I recently read an article in an Australian science magazine, which had a letter to the editor, saying something like 'It's amazing that humans haven't come up with the idea of burning our rubbish to generate electricity. Most of the things we throw out are extremely flammable and would generate a large amount of heat and therefore electricity. Our ancestors will come across our huge landfill sites and wonder where our brains were that we didn't utilise this rather obvious resource.' Haha it's not just our ancestors that will be thinking that, our coeval european cousins must have the same thoughts when they make the journey over the pond.
Who let the (horses) out?
Fast forward to the day of my departure. I was sitting on the computer, not doing very much, while Sigrid was busy on the phone taking care of some kind of business. She asked me (yelling through the door, while I was on the toilet, so I didn't take as much attention as I should have) to go out to the foals (who were being housed in the barn because it had snowed the previous night!) and give them hay and clean up the under surface and provided some additional advice, which I promptly forgot. So I went out to their stall and started chucking the horse apples out the little door that leads to the compost heap. They were being very nosy and kept trying to grab the pitchfork off me. At this point I should've realised that Sigrid had probably said that I should give them something to eat first so that I could get on with the my work without them interrupting me. But I didn't realise, or maybe she hadn't said that at all. So they stayed at my side peskily nudging me. I was in the process of chucking a load of apples out through the door, when they nudged me aside and went through the door into the compost heap. At first it was slightly amusing because they kept trying to eat the sheep poop infested straw, but then they started walking on a plank and slipping and I started to worry that they might hurt themselves. I called for Opa, but he didn't hear me. I called again and while my attention was diverted, they went past me into the yard. As soon as they sniffed freedom, they went wild and galloped down the cobblestones down to the grass at the end of the yard. Really worried, I yelled at the top of my lungs for Opa and he finally came out. He appraised the situation and told me to try and round them up while he erected a fence so they couldn't go past the barn on to the road. I grabbed one of them by the mane and tried to lead it up to the barn, but it wasn't going to happen. They'd struck the jackpot with the fresh grass they were munching on and weren't going to leave it without some serious convincing. Opa came down and tried to help me but all we succeeded in doing was scaring them enough that they galloped up through the garden beds and into the grape vines, damaging the fence quite badly in the process. Opa cringed and I felt terrible because Oma was going to be quite angry if she found out. At this point (actually as soon as we had the fence erected), I should have gone to fetch Sigrid, but for some reason my brain decided that the phone calls she was waiting on were more important than this situation. Opa found some rope and tied a harness (or whatever the bit that goes around their head is called) onto one of them, and I tried to lead it up to the stall. Another stampede through the garden beds. Opa was looking really upset and for the first time in my stay, his age started to show. Finally I thought rationally enough to decide that Sigrid was needed, and went inside to fetch her. 'The horses got out!' and so was she, leaving the ringing phone behind her. She had the situation under control in no time, all she had to do was stand up at the barn and calmly say 'Come here' and they did.
I felt decidedly sheepish and began to wonder whether there was a leaving curse that meant some misfortune would befall me on the morning of the day of departure (precedents: ski shop in Frankfurt, twisted ankle in Baiersbronn):P They weren't at all angry at me, because, well how could they be? That afternoon one of the foals got out while Marie was cleaning out the stall, so I felt quite a bit better about it after that:P
Back in Baiersbronn:
I got to Baiersbronn without incident and after a quick run, soon had myself nicely snuggled up in front of the TV. At about 8.00, Ben (from the hostel) called and told me he was about to leave Frankfurt and drive down to Baiersbronn, so we could catch up (he was working in the area that weekend). 'Yeah awesome, let's go and celebrate Fasching!' I said, hung up, and promptly fell asleep. At about 10 he called again and told me he was going to be even longer because all the snow on the road was slowing things down. 'What snow on the road?'
'Look outside man, it's snowing like anything!'
And indeed it was. It was pretty much a whiteout outside:) I looked out through the window, hugely pleased and snug in my nicely heated room.
He called me at about 11:30 while driving past my place (it was snowing too much to see the street numbers lol) in his rented merc (he'd reserved a golf, but they ran out, so they gave him a MB for the same price lol). I dashed out, grabbing every item of warm clothing I had, hoping I hadn't forgotten the front door key and jumped in. We drove round Baiersbronn, trying to find a place that was still open, but ended up going to Freudenstadt because Baiersbronn was completely dead at 11.30 on a Friday night during Fasching: It was snowing even harder in Freudenstadt, it looked so cool! We stopped at the Market place to interrogate a 'victim', who cheerily informed us that Martinique was the best place to go at this time of night. A quick trip to McDonalds (where Ben mercilessly teased an employee who was wearing what Ben termed a 'titty twister headset':P) later and we drove to Martinique's carpark and sat in the car for a while munching fries. The place turned out to be a bit of a non event. They were asking for a 4- euro cover charge, and it really didn't seem worth it, so we went to a petrol station instead. In Germany, every petrol station is a 24 hour Bottleo. I grabbed two bottles of Klosterbrau (best beer ever), and while I was blocking the attendant's view (not on purpose!), Ben pulled out two bottles of tequila laced beer and stuck them down his pants (he'd spent the last of his money at Maccers). Then he had the nerve to clumsily walk (the bottles made it hard going) up to the counter and ask for a discount on the filled bread rolls, seeing as they'd been out for so long. The guy ended up giving him one for free lol.
We drove off and while we were in motion, Ben grabbed one of my beers and started opening it. I snatched it back, 'Drive the car you idiot!' lol. We ended up pulling into an alley and talked for about half an hour before Ben fell asleep. I was quite content watching the snow fall and the plough trucks go about their work. At about 3, I tried waking him up. 'Oh sorry, did I fall asleep?' 'Yes'
'Oops'
And then he fell asleep again haha.
I spent the next hour trying to open the other bottle using the other bottle, a key, and my hands. Eventually I succeeded, but not before cutting my fingers in several places lol. I drank the beer (which I didn't really want, but I had nothing else to do) and fell asleep.
At 5am, I was awakened by the sound of a truck load of snow plough workers starting to clear the snow away from the car. 'Ben!' He woke up properly this time and we drove off after telling the guys they were 'geil' (cool) and that they were doing a good job:P Ben ended up sleeping on the floor in my room (I think the merc would've been more comfortable). I woke up at 9, still feeling tired.
It was so beautiful outside. Baiersbronn is a pretty little town whatever the weather, but with a blanket of snow over it and a lovely sunrise, the vista was breathtaking:) I spent the next three hours watching TV, while I waited for Ben to wake up. I was desperate to get up to the slopes, but didn't end up leaving til 3 because he went for a smoke and talked to Tina (who presumably told Peter Keck - the owner of the guesthouse - because he told me off for letting Ben in the next time I saw him) and showered and talked to his girlfriend on the phone and that kind of stuff. Ah well, I enjoyed his company. He gave me a lift to the bus stop in Freudenstadt and went off to another town, where he was serving at a Faschings feast.
So eventually at 4:30ish I got to the loop and started skiing. I did 20km without stocks, feeling pretty sluggish because of the lack of sleep and possibly the alcohol. Blisters didn't take long to form, but I pushed on, enjoying it a lot more after stocks came into the equation. The loop is flood lit, so even though it got dark about 90 minutes after I started, I could still keep going. It was kind of surreal, a monochrome world composed only of the white snow and the pitch black night. Each lap felt a bit harder, and I was tempted to stop, but I had told Ben I was going to do 45km, and for some reason I felt bound to fulfil that quasi-promise. I take back my comment about it being a nice loop. It's horrible!:P There's no chance to get into a rhythm because the terrain constantly changes. I don't mind the first 1km or so because it's a gentle uphill followed by a prolonged downhill, but at the bottom there's a really nasty hill. It's about 400m long and the last 100m is roughly 40% grade. You really have to power up it or else you can't maintain proper skating form, so as you get more tired, you become less efficient and waste more energy and get even more tired. It's a vicious cycle. After 40km, I was starving and feeling a bit glycogen depleted, so I stopped and ate two Laugenbrötchen (yummy bread rolls). It was probably a 2 minute break, but I became incredibly cold even in that short time. It was about -10°c and I was only wearing two layers (I hadn't noticed the cold until that time, even though my top was covered in ice from frozen sweat and artificial snow from the snow cannons). I quickly put on my jacket and managed to squeeze out my 17th and 18th lap.
I'm gonna go now, I reaaaally need to go to the toilet. Will finish it off at some point. Ciao
I finished WWOOFing a few days ago. It was a bit sad to leave, I had a really good time there. The family were all so nice and I couldn't have felt more at home (except maybe at home:P). I won't bore you with a day by day account (and I can't remember it well enough to do so in any case:P), but I will recount a few of the memorable moments:
A physics experiment:
Martin was home one of the days, so instead of going out to the horses, I helped him out. He wanted to move some timber from behind the barn, because at some stage, he was going to get rid of the sheep, knock down the wall and rebuild it as a stall for the horses. So together we moved the planks one by one (which was bloody hard work - some of the planks must've weighed over 100kg) and piled them up in the tray of his truck. We needed a break to recover from this, so we went inside and had a bit of lunch. While munching on peanut butter and rye bread, I asked Martin what was going to happen with the timber.
'Oh I'll drive the truck round to the other side of the barn and we'll stack it under the roof.'
'How do we get it from the truck up there?'
'I've got a pulley and rope in the attic, we'll get Opa to help us pull it up.'
He went silent for a few moments and then said abruptly 'It won't work.'
'How come?'
'Opa only weighs 80kg. If he tries to pull those really heavy planks up, he'll be lifted into the air!'
We both laughed as we tried to imagine the scene. I wasn't convinced by his reasoning though.
'Aren't you forgetting that Opa can use his muscles to exert force? Won't the work that he performs mean that he really weighs more than 80kg?'
'I don't think that would matter.'
'Hmmph, I guess we'll have to get Opa to take part in an experiment and see who's right.'
So we did the experiment and the results were quite surprising. Can you guess the outcome? Did Opa rise into the air, or was he able to lift the 100kg plank into the loft?
German recycling plant:
Another day (possibly the day after), Martin asked me if I'd be interested in coming to the recycling plant to drop off a few things. Of course I was interested! We put everything in the jeep (which incidentally, along with all of their other vehicles, is powered by salad oil, which means it smells fantastic when you get out!) and drove to the plant, which was close to the town Martin inherited: Martinsmoos (just kidding, he doesn't really own it:P). The germans have a very intricate recycling system. Pretty much everything is recycled in some way. It wasn't always like this. In the old days, everything would go to landfill, but some time ago, all the land that could be filled was filled and so now they have no choice but to recycle everything. As a result, they have about 6 different bins.
This is pretty confusing for someone not accustomed to it. Sigrid (I only realised 2 days before I left that I'd been saying her name wrong the whole time! It's Sigrid, not Sigfried:P) told me at some stage that when the vacuum cleaner was full, I should empty the contents into the black bin. So after dropping the vacuum cleaner and spilling the nearly full container on the stairs, I sucked it up again and then took the container to what I thought was the black bin. Martin had just pulled up in his car as I went to pour the contents into the bin and beeped at me. I thought he was just saying hello, so I waved at him while I finished what I'd started. What followed was like one of those 'Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!' slow motion clips from cheesy movies (but he didn't make it in time to knock the container out of my hands:P). Turns out that this bin, which had a black body, but a yellow lid, was for plastic not for 'Sperrmull' (anything that can't be recycled). So we had to fish the dust out of the bin (which thankfully wasn't at all yucky) and take it to the _real_ black bin next to the barn.
So back to the recycling plant. It was basically the german equivalent of a tip. Which means that it was highly organised and very efficient:P If you thought 6 different bins was bad, the recycling plant would send you screaming into the night. There was a shipping container for every conceivable category of objects. Paper, hard plastic, soft plastic, polstyrene, scrap iron, electronics, electronics with screens, mattresses, used fats, big trees, small trees, food scraps, and many more. And even though this plant was massive (at least 2 square km), it was tiny compared to the real recycling plants. The aforementioned containers are trucked to the large recycling plants, where they're further processed. Most of the stuff that can't really be usefully recycled gets burnt. I was a bit shocked when I first heard this because it's not just paper and banana skins that we're talking about here, pretty much all the plastic refuse goes to the same place. Plastic and burning spells black acrid smoke to me, which then in the confused neural network of my brain, leads to sulfur dioxide and acid rain and the death of the black forest! But the truth is a lot more attractive. The burning plants are very clean, they have very fine filters so that not much gets out of there besides Carbon Dioxide (oh well, you can't have it all) and it's not just like they burn it and that's it. The heat from the burning as well as the methane from the decomposing organic matter is used to generate electricity, which is quite an amazing concept to me. I recently read an article in an Australian science magazine, which had a letter to the editor, saying something like 'It's amazing that humans haven't come up with the idea of burning our rubbish to generate electricity. Most of the things we throw out are extremely flammable and would generate a large amount of heat and therefore electricity. Our ancestors will come across our huge landfill sites and wonder where our brains were that we didn't utilise this rather obvious resource.' Haha it's not just our ancestors that will be thinking that, our coeval european cousins must have the same thoughts when they make the journey over the pond.
Who let the (horses) out?
Fast forward to the day of my departure. I was sitting on the computer, not doing very much, while Sigrid was busy on the phone taking care of some kind of business. She asked me (yelling through the door, while I was on the toilet, so I didn't take as much attention as I should have) to go out to the foals (who were being housed in the barn because it had snowed the previous night!) and give them hay and clean up the under surface and provided some additional advice, which I promptly forgot. So I went out to their stall and started chucking the horse apples out the little door that leads to the compost heap. They were being very nosy and kept trying to grab the pitchfork off me. At this point I should've realised that Sigrid had probably said that I should give them something to eat first so that I could get on with the my work without them interrupting me. But I didn't realise, or maybe she hadn't said that at all. So they stayed at my side peskily nudging me. I was in the process of chucking a load of apples out through the door, when they nudged me aside and went through the door into the compost heap. At first it was slightly amusing because they kept trying to eat the sheep poop infested straw, but then they started walking on a plank and slipping and I started to worry that they might hurt themselves. I called for Opa, but he didn't hear me. I called again and while my attention was diverted, they went past me into the yard. As soon as they sniffed freedom, they went wild and galloped down the cobblestones down to the grass at the end of the yard. Really worried, I yelled at the top of my lungs for Opa and he finally came out. He appraised the situation and told me to try and round them up while he erected a fence so they couldn't go past the barn on to the road. I grabbed one of them by the mane and tried to lead it up to the barn, but it wasn't going to happen. They'd struck the jackpot with the fresh grass they were munching on and weren't going to leave it without some serious convincing. Opa came down and tried to help me but all we succeeded in doing was scaring them enough that they galloped up through the garden beds and into the grape vines, damaging the fence quite badly in the process. Opa cringed and I felt terrible because Oma was going to be quite angry if she found out. At this point (actually as soon as we had the fence erected), I should have gone to fetch Sigrid, but for some reason my brain decided that the phone calls she was waiting on were more important than this situation. Opa found some rope and tied a harness (or whatever the bit that goes around their head is called) onto one of them, and I tried to lead it up to the stall. Another stampede through the garden beds. Opa was looking really upset and for the first time in my stay, his age started to show. Finally I thought rationally enough to decide that Sigrid was needed, and went inside to fetch her. 'The horses got out!' and so was she, leaving the ringing phone behind her. She had the situation under control in no time, all she had to do was stand up at the barn and calmly say 'Come here' and they did.
I felt decidedly sheepish and began to wonder whether there was a leaving curse that meant some misfortune would befall me on the morning of the day of departure (precedents: ski shop in Frankfurt, twisted ankle in Baiersbronn):P They weren't at all angry at me, because, well how could they be? That afternoon one of the foals got out while Marie was cleaning out the stall, so I felt quite a bit better about it after that:P
Back in Baiersbronn:
I got to Baiersbronn without incident and after a quick run, soon had myself nicely snuggled up in front of the TV. At about 8.00, Ben (from the hostel) called and told me he was about to leave Frankfurt and drive down to Baiersbronn, so we could catch up (he was working in the area that weekend). 'Yeah awesome, let's go and celebrate Fasching!' I said, hung up, and promptly fell asleep. At about 10 he called again and told me he was going to be even longer because all the snow on the road was slowing things down. 'What snow on the road?'
'Look outside man, it's snowing like anything!'
And indeed it was. It was pretty much a whiteout outside:) I looked out through the window, hugely pleased and snug in my nicely heated room.
He called me at about 11:30 while driving past my place (it was snowing too much to see the street numbers lol) in his rented merc (he'd reserved a golf, but they ran out, so they gave him a MB for the same price lol). I dashed out, grabbing every item of warm clothing I had, hoping I hadn't forgotten the front door key and jumped in. We drove round Baiersbronn, trying to find a place that was still open, but ended up going to Freudenstadt because Baiersbronn was completely dead at 11.30 on a Friday night during Fasching: It was snowing even harder in Freudenstadt, it looked so cool! We stopped at the Market place to interrogate a 'victim', who cheerily informed us that Martinique was the best place to go at this time of night. A quick trip to McDonalds (where Ben mercilessly teased an employee who was wearing what Ben termed a 'titty twister headset':P) later and we drove to Martinique's carpark and sat in the car for a while munching fries. The place turned out to be a bit of a non event. They were asking for a 4- euro cover charge, and it really didn't seem worth it, so we went to a petrol station instead. In Germany, every petrol station is a 24 hour Bottleo. I grabbed two bottles of Klosterbrau (best beer ever), and while I was blocking the attendant's view (not on purpose!), Ben pulled out two bottles of tequila laced beer and stuck them down his pants (he'd spent the last of his money at Maccers). Then he had the nerve to clumsily walk (the bottles made it hard going) up to the counter and ask for a discount on the filled bread rolls, seeing as they'd been out for so long. The guy ended up giving him one for free lol.
We drove off and while we were in motion, Ben grabbed one of my beers and started opening it. I snatched it back, 'Drive the car you idiot!' lol. We ended up pulling into an alley and talked for about half an hour before Ben fell asleep. I was quite content watching the snow fall and the plough trucks go about their work. At about 3, I tried waking him up. 'Oh sorry, did I fall asleep?' 'Yes'
'Oops'
And then he fell asleep again haha.
I spent the next hour trying to open the other bottle using the other bottle, a key, and my hands. Eventually I succeeded, but not before cutting my fingers in several places lol. I drank the beer (which I didn't really want, but I had nothing else to do) and fell asleep.
At 5am, I was awakened by the sound of a truck load of snow plough workers starting to clear the snow away from the car. 'Ben!' He woke up properly this time and we drove off after telling the guys they were 'geil' (cool) and that they were doing a good job:P Ben ended up sleeping on the floor in my room (I think the merc would've been more comfortable). I woke up at 9, still feeling tired.
It was so beautiful outside. Baiersbronn is a pretty little town whatever the weather, but with a blanket of snow over it and a lovely sunrise, the vista was breathtaking:) I spent the next three hours watching TV, while I waited for Ben to wake up. I was desperate to get up to the slopes, but didn't end up leaving til 3 because he went for a smoke and talked to Tina (who presumably told Peter Keck - the owner of the guesthouse - because he told me off for letting Ben in the next time I saw him) and showered and talked to his girlfriend on the phone and that kind of stuff. Ah well, I enjoyed his company. He gave me a lift to the bus stop in Freudenstadt and went off to another town, where he was serving at a Faschings feast.
So eventually at 4:30ish I got to the loop and started skiing. I did 20km without stocks, feeling pretty sluggish because of the lack of sleep and possibly the alcohol. Blisters didn't take long to form, but I pushed on, enjoying it a lot more after stocks came into the equation. The loop is flood lit, so even though it got dark about 90 minutes after I started, I could still keep going. It was kind of surreal, a monochrome world composed only of the white snow and the pitch black night. Each lap felt a bit harder, and I was tempted to stop, but I had told Ben I was going to do 45km, and for some reason I felt bound to fulfil that quasi-promise. I take back my comment about it being a nice loop. It's horrible!:P There's no chance to get into a rhythm because the terrain constantly changes. I don't mind the first 1km or so because it's a gentle uphill followed by a prolonged downhill, but at the bottom there's a really nasty hill. It's about 400m long and the last 100m is roughly 40% grade. You really have to power up it or else you can't maintain proper skating form, so as you get more tired, you become less efficient and waste more energy and get even more tired. It's a vicious cycle. After 40km, I was starving and feeling a bit glycogen depleted, so I stopped and ate two Laugenbrötchen (yummy bread rolls). It was probably a 2 minute break, but I became incredibly cold even in that short time. It was about -10°c and I was only wearing two layers (I hadn't noticed the cold until that time, even though my top was covered in ice from frozen sweat and artificial snow from the snow cannons). I quickly put on my jacket and managed to squeeze out my 17th and 18th lap.
I'm gonna go now, I reaaaally need to go to the toilet. Will finish it off at some point. Ciao
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Hah so much for blogging every 3 days. Now I've forgotten what happened.. But now it comes back:)
Wednesday:
I went into the forest again with Opa, but only for about 3 hours because Martin needed me to help when the chicken delivery truck arrived ostensibly at 2:30. So I stripped a few more logs and then walked back. Since there was still 25 minutes or so til the chicken guy was meant to come, I went for a 20 minute run (but got slightly lost, so it turned into a 28 minute run:P). I dashed upstairs to get changed, but he wasn't there, so I had a chance to eat a bit of lunch...which stretched on for about 90 minutes and involved me finishing off a loaf of bread and most of the margarine:P I cleaned up the table and vacuumed for a bit..still not there. We called his number to no avail, and Martin decided he wasn't coming and went for a drive to see if the engine was running smoothly...which was exactly the time the guy showed up, 2 hours late:P I explained that Martin had gone for a drive, and we waited a bit, and then when Martin came back, the guy had the nerve to say that Martin was late hahaha (and was then promptly told that it was in fact he who didn't show up at the right time). Confrontation over, we bundled the chickens into their new home, 4 at a time. These ones were a lot more docile, perhaps because they'd already spent a few hours confined to crates.
That night, I went with Martin to his tai chi class. I went allright in the first part, where you just had to copy what the instructor was doing and saying (and he constantly condescended to me by repeating it in english - it wasn't that I couldn't understand the german, I'm just unco grr:P!). But then in the second part, I was completely lost because they just went through the whole routine without stopping and explaining entirely from memory. In spite of that, I still found it a nice, very relaxing experience. It was interesting to watch the poses and see how obviously they were derived from martial arts. At one stage, the instructor showed us this move, which you could practically use in a fight, to demonstrate how the chi was moving down into the lower body or something like that.
As soon as the routine was finished, we dashed out of the room and into the car and headed for this farmer's conference a few towns away. An associate of Martin's was screening a film entitled 'Du arme Sau' (You poor pig) protesting the recent development in the US, where Monsanto patented the porcine genetic sequence (and is now attempting to extend that patent to all countries around the world). It painted a pretty bleak (and at times, one sided) view of GM, with which I didn't necessarily agree (although I do find Monsanto despicable). Afterwards a representative from the farmer's union in Tubingen talked for quite a long time (and very eloquently although quite a bit was lost to me because everyone present was speaking in strong swäbisch) about GM, urging the people present to do something about it. It's a very current debate in Germany, where the Chancellor is calling for the ban on GM food to be lifted, despite 80% of the consumers and producers being against such a move.
Personally, I see GM as a tool, albeit a very dangerous one. It could do a lot of good (case in point: golden rice to combat widespread Vit. A deficiency in Africa), but it could also put the entire food supply chain in the hands of one corporation (which is Monsanto's goal - they don't want market share, they want the market). I really don't think we can afford not to use it though. Martin is firmly against it, he believes that organic farming without GM plus a reduced meat intake is a complete solution to the problem of feeding a growing population. I really don't think organic farming as it currently stands will ever be able to feed the world. The fact is, the yields are generally quite a bit lower than conventional farming, and although this is achieved without damaging the environment to the same extent, we still need those large yields. GM could be a way to achieve the yields of conventional farming without using as much fertiliser and pesticides. The problem is, that GM can't be performed on a small scale. It needs the resources of a massive organisation like Monsanto just to develop new breeds of crops. What we need is a lot more government sponsored impartial research into GM to develop new crops and test whether the proteins contained within the new plants could be dangerous to organisms that ingest them (apparently there's a suspicion that GM corn can lead to infertility in swine). This is an area that really interests me, and I think I'll probably centre my studies around it.
Thursday:
Can't really remember what I did on Thursday, I think I was just out with the horses collecting apples and possibly cooking in between. Nothing especially exciting happened.
Friday:
I was out with the horses until 12ish, then went back to the house and cooked pizza (=yum, but only Friedreke and I were around to eat it straight out of the oven, and I rationed myself to 2 pieces because I was going for a run soon afterwards). After another two hours of picking apples, I went running with the horses:D Siegfried, Marie and one of their riding students showed me round some of the walking/horse tracks (turns out Alt Bulach isn't that bereft of running routes after all, you just have to know where to find them). I didn't bother trying to keep up with them even when the horses were only trotting (which is about tempo run pace for me lol) let alone galloping , but I still managed to beat them to the end of the trail hehehe. The horses had to walk on the relatively thin, grassy trails, so I built up a lead that they couldn't take back even though they were galloping for the last 5 minutes:P
Saturday:
I got up early and went for a (very slow) 2 hour run. It was absolutely freezing! It took all my willpower to get started, and I didn't feel properly warmed up for about half an hour lol. All the fields were covered in frost (which looked tantalisingly like snow from a distance), which made for a nice scenery:) I had to run on asphault for most of the time (which is all I've been running on for the last week actually to save my ankle) because it was still too dark to run on the trails (I tried for a few minutes and turned my ankle at least 3 times in that short period lol). I got home, feeling pretty good and looked at the thermometer: -5°! I'm hoping all the clouds were hanging over Baiersbronn that night!
Had a quick breakfast, then went out with the scraper and picked apples for the rest of the day. When I got back, Franz had arrived after hitch hiking for about 6 hours from Freiburg (probably like 2 hours by car/train lol). He was over because Martin's mother's birthday is today (Sunday). He seems like a nice guy. From the sounds of it, he's working a lot harder at uni (studying info tech) than I ever had to. I experimented with dinner and made kitchdiri with quinoa instead of rice (because they only had brown rice and quinoa had a shorter cooking time:P). It was pretty good, but needed a stronger stock. Went to bed bone tired at 10:30 after watching the second half of a german film, whose name I didn't catch.
Today, aka Sunday:
I woke up early of my own accord (purposely switched off the alarm so I'd get a decent sleep in lol) and went for a quick run. The wind was freezing, it was a huge relief to run along the forest path, where I was shielded from the worst it could do. Everyone else was going to a chinese restaurant to celebrate Martin's mother's birthday (I was invited but decided I'd rather not go, since I wouldn't be able to eat anything, and instead arranged to go cycling with Opa), so while they got ready, I relaxed:P Then Opa came in to tell me he wanted to leave at 11:30 instead of 1:30, so I had to get my skates on too lol.
I borrowed Marie's bike and after agreeing that we'd go pretty slowly (suited me, I was feeling pretty sore after the run), Opa shot downhill at about 30kph. We cycled along this lovely bike path along a river, stopping to look at a water purification plant. After a while, we got to Wildberg, and Opa showed me the 'Hexenturm' (Witches Tower). Apparently, during the german inquisition, alleged witches were imprisoned here before being hanged or burnt. And guess where it was located..right next to the local primary school hahaha. Next we walked our bikes up to the remains of the Wildberg castle. It was built in 1200, burnt down in 1453, was rebuilt and then destroyed by allied bombers in 1945. Apparently at the end of the war, french troops were meeting heavy resistance in the Wildberg valley and were being pushed back, so bombers were called in and most of the town was destroyed. Sad that cultural icons like this had to be lost.
Then we headed out of Wildberg and followed a scenic route home. Along the way, Opa stopped to show me this stone device, where in the old days, farmers carrying loads of fodder on their heads would stop for a breather and rest their burden on the stone table hehe. Then he showed me their three private forests (where you have pretty much free reign to fell trees and do whatever you want). The first one I found very interesting, but the next two were really just repetitions of a theme, and tired (can feel a cold coming on) and cold, I really just wanted to go home. The last 3km home were not very comfortable. The strong wind chilled me to the bone (really should've worn tracksuit pants over my skins lol) and threatened to push us off the road lol.
So now I'm home alone, waiting for the others to get back. Time to go feed the ducks and see if I can get them to go into their house for once (otherwise they could get eaten by foxes:S, but they just don't want to go in while I'm there).
Ciao
Wednesday:
I went into the forest again with Opa, but only for about 3 hours because Martin needed me to help when the chicken delivery truck arrived ostensibly at 2:30. So I stripped a few more logs and then walked back. Since there was still 25 minutes or so til the chicken guy was meant to come, I went for a 20 minute run (but got slightly lost, so it turned into a 28 minute run:P). I dashed upstairs to get changed, but he wasn't there, so I had a chance to eat a bit of lunch...which stretched on for about 90 minutes and involved me finishing off a loaf of bread and most of the margarine:P I cleaned up the table and vacuumed for a bit..still not there. We called his number to no avail, and Martin decided he wasn't coming and went for a drive to see if the engine was running smoothly...which was exactly the time the guy showed up, 2 hours late:P I explained that Martin had gone for a drive, and we waited a bit, and then when Martin came back, the guy had the nerve to say that Martin was late hahaha (and was then promptly told that it was in fact he who didn't show up at the right time). Confrontation over, we bundled the chickens into their new home, 4 at a time. These ones were a lot more docile, perhaps because they'd already spent a few hours confined to crates.
That night, I went with Martin to his tai chi class. I went allright in the first part, where you just had to copy what the instructor was doing and saying (and he constantly condescended to me by repeating it in english - it wasn't that I couldn't understand the german, I'm just unco grr:P!). But then in the second part, I was completely lost because they just went through the whole routine without stopping and explaining entirely from memory. In spite of that, I still found it a nice, very relaxing experience. It was interesting to watch the poses and see how obviously they were derived from martial arts. At one stage, the instructor showed us this move, which you could practically use in a fight, to demonstrate how the chi was moving down into the lower body or something like that.
As soon as the routine was finished, we dashed out of the room and into the car and headed for this farmer's conference a few towns away. An associate of Martin's was screening a film entitled 'Du arme Sau' (You poor pig) protesting the recent development in the US, where Monsanto patented the porcine genetic sequence (and is now attempting to extend that patent to all countries around the world). It painted a pretty bleak (and at times, one sided) view of GM, with which I didn't necessarily agree (although I do find Monsanto despicable). Afterwards a representative from the farmer's union in Tubingen talked for quite a long time (and very eloquently although quite a bit was lost to me because everyone present was speaking in strong swäbisch) about GM, urging the people present to do something about it. It's a very current debate in Germany, where the Chancellor is calling for the ban on GM food to be lifted, despite 80% of the consumers and producers being against such a move.
Personally, I see GM as a tool, albeit a very dangerous one. It could do a lot of good (case in point: golden rice to combat widespread Vit. A deficiency in Africa), but it could also put the entire food supply chain in the hands of one corporation (which is Monsanto's goal - they don't want market share, they want the market). I really don't think we can afford not to use it though. Martin is firmly against it, he believes that organic farming without GM plus a reduced meat intake is a complete solution to the problem of feeding a growing population. I really don't think organic farming as it currently stands will ever be able to feed the world. The fact is, the yields are generally quite a bit lower than conventional farming, and although this is achieved without damaging the environment to the same extent, we still need those large yields. GM could be a way to achieve the yields of conventional farming without using as much fertiliser and pesticides. The problem is, that GM can't be performed on a small scale. It needs the resources of a massive organisation like Monsanto just to develop new breeds of crops. What we need is a lot more government sponsored impartial research into GM to develop new crops and test whether the proteins contained within the new plants could be dangerous to organisms that ingest them (apparently there's a suspicion that GM corn can lead to infertility in swine). This is an area that really interests me, and I think I'll probably centre my studies around it.
Thursday:
Can't really remember what I did on Thursday, I think I was just out with the horses collecting apples and possibly cooking in between. Nothing especially exciting happened.
Friday:
I was out with the horses until 12ish, then went back to the house and cooked pizza (=yum, but only Friedreke and I were around to eat it straight out of the oven, and I rationed myself to 2 pieces because I was going for a run soon afterwards). After another two hours of picking apples, I went running with the horses:D Siegfried, Marie and one of their riding students showed me round some of the walking/horse tracks (turns out Alt Bulach isn't that bereft of running routes after all, you just have to know where to find them). I didn't bother trying to keep up with them even when the horses were only trotting (which is about tempo run pace for me lol) let alone galloping , but I still managed to beat them to the end of the trail hehehe. The horses had to walk on the relatively thin, grassy trails, so I built up a lead that they couldn't take back even though they were galloping for the last 5 minutes:P
Saturday:
I got up early and went for a (very slow) 2 hour run. It was absolutely freezing! It took all my willpower to get started, and I didn't feel properly warmed up for about half an hour lol. All the fields were covered in frost (which looked tantalisingly like snow from a distance), which made for a nice scenery:) I had to run on asphault for most of the time (which is all I've been running on for the last week actually to save my ankle) because it was still too dark to run on the trails (I tried for a few minutes and turned my ankle at least 3 times in that short period lol). I got home, feeling pretty good and looked at the thermometer: -5°! I'm hoping all the clouds were hanging over Baiersbronn that night!
Had a quick breakfast, then went out with the scraper and picked apples for the rest of the day. When I got back, Franz had arrived after hitch hiking for about 6 hours from Freiburg (probably like 2 hours by car/train lol). He was over because Martin's mother's birthday is today (Sunday). He seems like a nice guy. From the sounds of it, he's working a lot harder at uni (studying info tech) than I ever had to. I experimented with dinner and made kitchdiri with quinoa instead of rice (because they only had brown rice and quinoa had a shorter cooking time:P). It was pretty good, but needed a stronger stock. Went to bed bone tired at 10:30 after watching the second half of a german film, whose name I didn't catch.
Today, aka Sunday:
I woke up early of my own accord (purposely switched off the alarm so I'd get a decent sleep in lol) and went for a quick run. The wind was freezing, it was a huge relief to run along the forest path, where I was shielded from the worst it could do. Everyone else was going to a chinese restaurant to celebrate Martin's mother's birthday (I was invited but decided I'd rather not go, since I wouldn't be able to eat anything, and instead arranged to go cycling with Opa), so while they got ready, I relaxed:P Then Opa came in to tell me he wanted to leave at 11:30 instead of 1:30, so I had to get my skates on too lol.
I borrowed Marie's bike and after agreeing that we'd go pretty slowly (suited me, I was feeling pretty sore after the run), Opa shot downhill at about 30kph. We cycled along this lovely bike path along a river, stopping to look at a water purification plant. After a while, we got to Wildberg, and Opa showed me the 'Hexenturm' (Witches Tower). Apparently, during the german inquisition, alleged witches were imprisoned here before being hanged or burnt. And guess where it was located..right next to the local primary school hahaha. Next we walked our bikes up to the remains of the Wildberg castle. It was built in 1200, burnt down in 1453, was rebuilt and then destroyed by allied bombers in 1945. Apparently at the end of the war, french troops were meeting heavy resistance in the Wildberg valley and were being pushed back, so bombers were called in and most of the town was destroyed. Sad that cultural icons like this had to be lost.
Then we headed out of Wildberg and followed a scenic route home. Along the way, Opa stopped to show me this stone device, where in the old days, farmers carrying loads of fodder on their heads would stop for a breather and rest their burden on the stone table hehe. Then he showed me their three private forests (where you have pretty much free reign to fell trees and do whatever you want). The first one I found very interesting, but the next two were really just repetitions of a theme, and tired (can feel a cold coming on) and cold, I really just wanted to go home. The last 3km home were not very comfortable. The strong wind chilled me to the bone (really should've worn tracksuit pants over my skins lol) and threatened to push us off the road lol.
So now I'm home alone, waiting for the others to get back. Time to go feed the ducks and see if I can get them to go into their house for once (otherwise they could get eaten by foxes:S, but they just don't want to go in while I'm there).
Ciao
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
I'm thinking I'll blog every 3 days from now on, it seems to work well. Otherwise I have nothing to say lol.
Soo I guess I'm up to last Sunday. We pretty much did nothing but relax on Sunday because it's traditionally the day of rest and everyone's happy to deal with that:) Everyone got up late and had breakfast together. The table was a bit fuller than usual because the girls were babysitting their horse riding instructor's children. It was like being in Colac with all my cousins - they were so energetic! Apparently they woke Maree up at 4:30 because they wanted to play lol. For some reason I found it weird to see little kids speaking german probably as well as I can haha. I lounged around on the couch and started reading James Lovelock's 'The ages of Gaia' (in english, another WWOOFer had given it to the family), which is extremely interesting but also sometimes frustrating. Martin gave me a few options for what I might want to do if I got sick of the kids, including going for a bike ride, so wanting the exercise, I went for a quick ride around the countryside. He lent me a road bike, which was good at first, up to the point where I wound up on a highway because there were no other paved roads to ride on. I got shouted at a few times by overzealous german motorists:P When I got back, I quickly fed the ducks and then hopped into the car with Martin and Sigfried to go visit Martin's mother.
I was a bit sceptical about this. Martin had seemed really positive about inviting me to come, telling me that his mother was really interesting, and I said 'Why not?'. But then later, Sigfried seemed a bit surprised that I was coming, and I remembered that this was the woman who wasn't in the best of health as of late. And indeed after buying some milk from Sigfried's brother, when we rocked up to his mother's house, the first hour was spent discussing her ailments, whether she should move into a retirement home, how to write a will and these sort of things and again I had the feeling that I shouldn't be listening in (even though I couldn't understand much due to the dialect and the fact that they were talking about kind of complicated medical and legal issues:P), but no-one seemed to mind. Sigfried had brought her knitting gear and proceeded to finish off a pair of socks that she said had taken her 2 years to make (she only knits when she's at other people's houses so she has something to do with her hands), and then would occasionally drop something in to the conversation, which never ceased to surprise me:P After about an hour, Sigfried noticed my gaze wandering around the room and my non-listening expression and announced loudly 'This must be very boring for you, huh Jeremy?' (I think it was a bit for her too:P) and after that we had a more interesting conversation and Martin's mother brought out a photo album, which had everything from overseas trips to the construction of the pond in their backyard. So in the end I was glad that I had come:)
On Monday, my tasks were cleaning out one of the stalls, where the sheep were, so that the foals could be kept away from the wet weather that's forecasted (two of them have lung infections and cough incessantly, poor things); picking up horse apples; cooking (I made cowboy hotpot); vacuuming and then I was free. My foot was feeling a lot better, so I went for a run. I had to be careful about not running on slippery or unstable surfaces, but apart from that my ankle felt fine the whole time and I logged an easy 65 minutes.
When I got back, Martin was home, but everyone else was elsewhere. This was a problem because I was extremely hungry, but we couldn't have dinner until everyone was there! So I ate a banana and read for a while. Sigfried showed up after a while, but Maree had phoned to say that her train had been delayed. Poor thing had to wait 2 hours at the train station because of a fault with the tracks in the cold with a cold. In the end we started without her and I finally got to sate my appetite:)
Today I was to work with Opa. I woke up late because I'd stayed up late (which for me is now 11pm:P) surfing the net, so I rushed outside, locking myself out in the process to find out when he wanted to leave for the forest. He helped me back inside and told me to chill out for a while because he had woken up late too and in any case it was raining a bit and it's not much fun working in the forest when it's wet. So I had a relaxed breakfast and got everything ready and then because it was still raining, we went to his workshop and set about filing and planing a piece of wood so it would serve as a handle for a shovel blade. We were about halfway through when it stopped raining, so we set down the tools, grabbed our things and hopped on the tractor and headed out to the Black Forest. When we got to the road he normally takes, we discovered a red and white caution tape stretched across the road, so we hopped out with the tools to find out what was up. First we had to stop to divert a stream fed by the recent rains that was eroding away the path. Building dams is such fun:) A forester came walking along and chatted with us while helping us with our diverting manoueveres. After we'd taken care of that, we walked down and decided the big log blocking the road was probably the reason for the caution tape.
The purpose for our visit was to salvage bits of wood from the trees that had been felled by the professional foresters (they're the only people who are allowed to actually chop down trees on public land), which were surplus to their needs, for use in the wood fired heating oven back home. There was plenty of wood we could use, but first Opa wanted to give me a bit of a history lesson. First he showed me this stone lean-to, where a wandering violinist was rumoured to have lived during summer a long time ago. Then there was a rock, where a gallows was once erected to execute crims. And finally the piece de resistance, an almost fully intact castle! It was really cool:) You walk through the forest into a clearing and suddenly there's this castle in front of you. It was built in the 1100s for this Robber Baron, who extorted the local people by threatening to kidnap their daughters unless they paid him a ransome in advance. Then when the holy roman empire arose in Germany, the Kaiser had the castle dismantled and the Robber Baron executed (maybe even on the rock I saw).
So history lesson finished, we set to work. I had a small axe, with which I stripped logs of their branches and threw them onto a pile. We did that for 5 hours solid, stopping every now and then to talk. Opa's amazingly fit for his age. When we were walking to the castle, I had to struggle to keep up with him, and when we were working, he'd heft these massive logs on his own over to the side of the road. At about 5, we stopped for the day, which pleased me greatly. Not because I was tired, the work wasn't that tough, but my hands and feet were freezing! Mental note: don't wear business socks in gumboots:P After the tractor ride home, I quickly fed the ducks and then pulled on my running gear and went for a run. Again, no problems, though it wasn't that pleasant a run because it was dark by 10 minutes in and I had to run on asphalt next to the road. AltBulach is nowhere near as good as Baiersbronn for running even during the day. Oh well, I'm really enjoying being here:) It's so good having people to talk to. My german's getting more fluent every day, and I'm even picking up a bit of schwäbisch:P (which Opa told me today contains quite a few french words - no wonder I find it hard to understand!).
This evening Opa came around after dinner with a few photo albums. He'd been telling me about his travels and I said I'd love to see some pictures, so for about 3 hours, we relived his adventures in Hungary, Denmark, Norway, Mallorca, Madeira, Germany and many other countries I've neglected to remember. It was good, but after a while I developed album fatigue and was willing the pages to turn faster:P
Only 9 more days as a WWOOFer now:( I'd like to spend more time here, but I also really want to get back to Baiersbronn and go skiing. Wish I could do both at the same time!
Soo I guess I'm up to last Sunday. We pretty much did nothing but relax on Sunday because it's traditionally the day of rest and everyone's happy to deal with that:) Everyone got up late and had breakfast together. The table was a bit fuller than usual because the girls were babysitting their horse riding instructor's children. It was like being in Colac with all my cousins - they were so energetic! Apparently they woke Maree up at 4:30 because they wanted to play lol. For some reason I found it weird to see little kids speaking german probably as well as I can haha. I lounged around on the couch and started reading James Lovelock's 'The ages of Gaia' (in english, another WWOOFer had given it to the family), which is extremely interesting but also sometimes frustrating. Martin gave me a few options for what I might want to do if I got sick of the kids, including going for a bike ride, so wanting the exercise, I went for a quick ride around the countryside. He lent me a road bike, which was good at first, up to the point where I wound up on a highway because there were no other paved roads to ride on. I got shouted at a few times by overzealous german motorists:P When I got back, I quickly fed the ducks and then hopped into the car with Martin and Sigfried to go visit Martin's mother.
I was a bit sceptical about this. Martin had seemed really positive about inviting me to come, telling me that his mother was really interesting, and I said 'Why not?'. But then later, Sigfried seemed a bit surprised that I was coming, and I remembered that this was the woman who wasn't in the best of health as of late. And indeed after buying some milk from Sigfried's brother, when we rocked up to his mother's house, the first hour was spent discussing her ailments, whether she should move into a retirement home, how to write a will and these sort of things and again I had the feeling that I shouldn't be listening in (even though I couldn't understand much due to the dialect and the fact that they were talking about kind of complicated medical and legal issues:P), but no-one seemed to mind. Sigfried had brought her knitting gear and proceeded to finish off a pair of socks that she said had taken her 2 years to make (she only knits when she's at other people's houses so she has something to do with her hands), and then would occasionally drop something in to the conversation, which never ceased to surprise me:P After about an hour, Sigfried noticed my gaze wandering around the room and my non-listening expression and announced loudly 'This must be very boring for you, huh Jeremy?' (I think it was a bit for her too:P) and after that we had a more interesting conversation and Martin's mother brought out a photo album, which had everything from overseas trips to the construction of the pond in their backyard. So in the end I was glad that I had come:)
On Monday, my tasks were cleaning out one of the stalls, where the sheep were, so that the foals could be kept away from the wet weather that's forecasted (two of them have lung infections and cough incessantly, poor things); picking up horse apples; cooking (I made cowboy hotpot); vacuuming and then I was free. My foot was feeling a lot better, so I went for a run. I had to be careful about not running on slippery or unstable surfaces, but apart from that my ankle felt fine the whole time and I logged an easy 65 minutes.
When I got back, Martin was home, but everyone else was elsewhere. This was a problem because I was extremely hungry, but we couldn't have dinner until everyone was there! So I ate a banana and read for a while. Sigfried showed up after a while, but Maree had phoned to say that her train had been delayed. Poor thing had to wait 2 hours at the train station because of a fault with the tracks in the cold with a cold. In the end we started without her and I finally got to sate my appetite:)
Today I was to work with Opa. I woke up late because I'd stayed up late (which for me is now 11pm:P) surfing the net, so I rushed outside, locking myself out in the process to find out when he wanted to leave for the forest. He helped me back inside and told me to chill out for a while because he had woken up late too and in any case it was raining a bit and it's not much fun working in the forest when it's wet. So I had a relaxed breakfast and got everything ready and then because it was still raining, we went to his workshop and set about filing and planing a piece of wood so it would serve as a handle for a shovel blade. We were about halfway through when it stopped raining, so we set down the tools, grabbed our things and hopped on the tractor and headed out to the Black Forest. When we got to the road he normally takes, we discovered a red and white caution tape stretched across the road, so we hopped out with the tools to find out what was up. First we had to stop to divert a stream fed by the recent rains that was eroding away the path. Building dams is such fun:) A forester came walking along and chatted with us while helping us with our diverting manoueveres. After we'd taken care of that, we walked down and decided the big log blocking the road was probably the reason for the caution tape.
The purpose for our visit was to salvage bits of wood from the trees that had been felled by the professional foresters (they're the only people who are allowed to actually chop down trees on public land), which were surplus to their needs, for use in the wood fired heating oven back home. There was plenty of wood we could use, but first Opa wanted to give me a bit of a history lesson. First he showed me this stone lean-to, where a wandering violinist was rumoured to have lived during summer a long time ago. Then there was a rock, where a gallows was once erected to execute crims. And finally the piece de resistance, an almost fully intact castle! It was really cool:) You walk through the forest into a clearing and suddenly there's this castle in front of you. It was built in the 1100s for this Robber Baron, who extorted the local people by threatening to kidnap their daughters unless they paid him a ransome in advance. Then when the holy roman empire arose in Germany, the Kaiser had the castle dismantled and the Robber Baron executed (maybe even on the rock I saw).
So history lesson finished, we set to work. I had a small axe, with which I stripped logs of their branches and threw them onto a pile. We did that for 5 hours solid, stopping every now and then to talk. Opa's amazingly fit for his age. When we were walking to the castle, I had to struggle to keep up with him, and when we were working, he'd heft these massive logs on his own over to the side of the road. At about 5, we stopped for the day, which pleased me greatly. Not because I was tired, the work wasn't that tough, but my hands and feet were freezing! Mental note: don't wear business socks in gumboots:P After the tractor ride home, I quickly fed the ducks and then pulled on my running gear and went for a run. Again, no problems, though it wasn't that pleasant a run because it was dark by 10 minutes in and I had to run on asphalt next to the road. AltBulach is nowhere near as good as Baiersbronn for running even during the day. Oh well, I'm really enjoying being here:) It's so good having people to talk to. My german's getting more fluent every day, and I'm even picking up a bit of schwäbisch:P (which Opa told me today contains quite a few french words - no wonder I find it hard to understand!).
This evening Opa came around after dinner with a few photo albums. He'd been telling me about his travels and I said I'd love to see some pictures, so for about 3 hours, we relived his adventures in Hungary, Denmark, Norway, Mallorca, Madeira, Germany and many other countries I've neglected to remember. It was good, but after a while I developed album fatigue and was willing the pages to turn faster:P
Only 9 more days as a WWOOFer now:( I'd like to spend more time here, but I also really want to get back to Baiersbronn and go skiing. Wish I could do both at the same time!
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Soo quick entry tonight. Since I last checked in, I went skiing again. It was really good. I did 20km without stocks (skaters), another 10km with stocks and then walked back to Freudenstadt (10km) with skis because I couldn't be bothered waiting for the bus heh. The next morning I got up early to go for a run because I was leaving that afternoon. It was good up to 3 minutes before it was scheduled to finish. And then, on a tricky descent, I twisted my ankle badly, heard a loud crack and yelled an expletive. My first thought was obviously that I'd broken a bone. But I was able to walk back (400m) even if it hurt quite badly, so that was a good sign. At worst it was sprained, probably not even that.
I had lunch with the owners of the Gästehaus where I was staying in Baiersbronn and then caught a few trains to Alt Tublach, where my WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms = you work on a farm in exchange for a bed and food) hosts live. They have a nice big house with stalls to the side where they keep chickens, sheep, ducks and geese. They also own a field about 1km from the house, which holds about 10 horses (and another field next to it, which I think they cultivate vegetables in, but nothing's happening there at the moment). They gave me a quick tour of the house, then after dinner I went straight to bed (I'm sleeping in their son's room while he's at uni) and slept for 12 hours lol.
The next day, Sigfried..at this point I need to describe the household. There're 2 girls (Maree and Friedreke) slightly younger than me, their mother (Sigfried), their Father (Martin), and next door live Oma and Opa (I think they're Sigfried's parents, but am not entirely sure)...strapped my ankle (she's a nurse) and I went with her out to the horse field. For a few hours, I picked up (with a scooper!) what are euphemistically called 'Horse apples'. That wasn't too bad, I was just very careful to avoid standing behind the horses after seeing one of the bigger ones buck and kick at another horse!
We went home after that, had a quick lunch, and then Sigfried went out to take Friedreke to the dentist. I stayed home and made dinner (Green lentil soup with random vegies), which was fun:) Everyone got back at 4:30ish to eat dinner (seemed a bit weird to me, but everyone was hungry, me included, so why not), and then I went out with Sigfried and the girls again for more apple picking. That night there was a bit of an intense supper conversation, which I didn't really follow too well because they reverted into Schwabisch (a strong german dialect), but which seemed to revolve around whether they were going to have to look after another Oma, who suffered from a mental illness and had had some kind of accident that day. I felt a bit like an intruder, so I went to bed asap, and read for a few hours.
This morning Sigfried asked me why I'd gone to bed so early, and when I haltingly explained, she said it was fine and they liked having me there, so I felt a lot more at home after that:) Today I helped Martin clean out the mobile chicken hutch. First we had to manhandle the 90 chickens into another stall. I was worried I was going to break their legs or injure them in some way, so thanks to my sympathy, two chickens managed to escape from my grasp and had to be recaptured by Opa:P Before that, the door to the chicken wagen blew open and about 10 chickens escaped! After trying in vain (we got a few, but the rest were too hard to catch) to recapture them by blocking them into a corner and then trying to grab their legs with this long hook contraption (man I didn't know chickens could run that fast!), we left them to chill out for a while and moved the others. Opa and I set up a chain (obviously because he realised if he let me carry them all the way on my own, more would escape:P), while Martin hunted the chickens inside the hutch, and it went fairly smoothly after that. We eventually managed to trap the renegade chickens and it was on to the next part of the operation. I was in charge of scraping the befouled straw from the bottom of the van into a wheelbarrow waiting below, at least I was until the girls called us in for a quick lunch, while Opa finished off the scraping for me. We collected the eggs from the roosts and then I got to use a high pressure hose to scour off the inground gunk. That was pretty fun apart from the few times when I accidentally sprayed into a corner and all the chicken shit flew up into my face, eurgh:P Then I put on a facemask and sprayed the whole wagon with this chalk mixture (using an air compressor, wheee:D), which supposedly 'kind of' acts as a disinfectant.
I was in serious need of a shower after all that, but at least I was done for the day:) I made samosas for dinner tonight, which went down well:). Almost the whole left side of my foot is covered in a massive bruise, but in spite of that, my ankle is almost completely pain free, I can walk around normally now:) I'll probably be able to start running again on Monday:)
I had lunch with the owners of the Gästehaus where I was staying in Baiersbronn and then caught a few trains to Alt Tublach, where my WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms = you work on a farm in exchange for a bed and food) hosts live. They have a nice big house with stalls to the side where they keep chickens, sheep, ducks and geese. They also own a field about 1km from the house, which holds about 10 horses (and another field next to it, which I think they cultivate vegetables in, but nothing's happening there at the moment). They gave me a quick tour of the house, then after dinner I went straight to bed (I'm sleeping in their son's room while he's at uni) and slept for 12 hours lol.
The next day, Sigfried..at this point I need to describe the household. There're 2 girls (Maree and Friedreke) slightly younger than me, their mother (Sigfried), their Father (Martin), and next door live Oma and Opa (I think they're Sigfried's parents, but am not entirely sure)...strapped my ankle (she's a nurse) and I went with her out to the horse field. For a few hours, I picked up (with a scooper!) what are euphemistically called 'Horse apples'. That wasn't too bad, I was just very careful to avoid standing behind the horses after seeing one of the bigger ones buck and kick at another horse!
We went home after that, had a quick lunch, and then Sigfried went out to take Friedreke to the dentist. I stayed home and made dinner (Green lentil soup with random vegies), which was fun:) Everyone got back at 4:30ish to eat dinner (seemed a bit weird to me, but everyone was hungry, me included, so why not), and then I went out with Sigfried and the girls again for more apple picking. That night there was a bit of an intense supper conversation, which I didn't really follow too well because they reverted into Schwabisch (a strong german dialect), but which seemed to revolve around whether they were going to have to look after another Oma, who suffered from a mental illness and had had some kind of accident that day. I felt a bit like an intruder, so I went to bed asap, and read for a few hours.
This morning Sigfried asked me why I'd gone to bed so early, and when I haltingly explained, she said it was fine and they liked having me there, so I felt a lot more at home after that:) Today I helped Martin clean out the mobile chicken hutch. First we had to manhandle the 90 chickens into another stall. I was worried I was going to break their legs or injure them in some way, so thanks to my sympathy, two chickens managed to escape from my grasp and had to be recaptured by Opa:P Before that, the door to the chicken wagen blew open and about 10 chickens escaped! After trying in vain (we got a few, but the rest were too hard to catch) to recapture them by blocking them into a corner and then trying to grab their legs with this long hook contraption (man I didn't know chickens could run that fast!), we left them to chill out for a while and moved the others. Opa and I set up a chain (obviously because he realised if he let me carry them all the way on my own, more would escape:P), while Martin hunted the chickens inside the hutch, and it went fairly smoothly after that. We eventually managed to trap the renegade chickens and it was on to the next part of the operation. I was in charge of scraping the befouled straw from the bottom of the van into a wheelbarrow waiting below, at least I was until the girls called us in for a quick lunch, while Opa finished off the scraping for me. We collected the eggs from the roosts and then I got to use a high pressure hose to scour off the inground gunk. That was pretty fun apart from the few times when I accidentally sprayed into a corner and all the chicken shit flew up into my face, eurgh:P Then I put on a facemask and sprayed the whole wagon with this chalk mixture (using an air compressor, wheee:D), which supposedly 'kind of' acts as a disinfectant.
I was in serious need of a shower after all that, but at least I was done for the day:) I made samosas for dinner tonight, which went down well:). Almost the whole left side of my foot is covered in a massive bruise, but in spite of that, my ankle is almost completely pain free, I can walk around normally now:) I'll probably be able to start running again on Monday:)
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
I went skiing today:=)
Hallo liebe Zuhörer und Zuhörerin,
I haven't written in a while, because..nothing much exciting has happened hah! Here are some of the highlights of the last 5 days:
- Going to the local pub, playing pool against a few young german guys, beating them soundly (4-2) and getting happy drunk off 2 amazingly good pints of local beer (I mean I know I'm a lightweight, but 2 pints!)
- Going to the coin launderette in Baiersbronn, paying 9 euros ($15!!!!) for the privilege of washing my laundry. Deciding never to do this again.
- Going iceskating, being intrigued by a german girl with a jumper with the slogan 'It feels so good to be an outlaw in your perfect world' (where were the concerned members of public with pitchforks and rifles to drive this outlaw back into the deep dark forest where she apparently takes pleasure in living???)
- Going to the local pub again, meeting an old guy who called himself 'Cowboy', losing to him in pool 2-1 (with a premature black ending for each game:s), arranging for a rematch when I come back in February.
- Finding a cheaper place to stay in February (3 euros cheaper would've been 60 euros over the course of the stay!), ringing up, being met with utter confusion (
'Could I make a reservation?', 'huh?',
'I would like to rent the room you are advertising on the baiersbronn website',
'No.',
'What?',
'Thankyou, goodbye.'
*hangs up*
*calls back*
'Hello, I am calling again to say that if you don't want to rent the room, maybe you should remove the advertisement from the website',
'I am renting the room, but it is not available at the moment.',
'I don't want it now, I want it in 3 weeks.',
'No.' *hangs up*
....fine then?), resorting to booking another 3 weeks at the place I'm staying.
So yeah, not much has happened. It's been good though, very relaxing. A typical day for me has been:
- Waking up whenever I feel like, feeling happily rested.
- Walking down to the shops to pick up a loaf of delicious german bread (a different one each day:D) and a litre of multivitamin juice (heh)
- Eating breakfast, while watching cartoons
And then, depending on how energetic I'm feeling and whether there's anything good on TV, I'd either go for a walk or do some other activity for a few hours, or watch TV for a few hours.
German TV is awesome! There're like 25 free to air channels (every house has a satellite dish), and in the last few days EuroSport Live has been broadcasting the Wintersport World Championships. So I've been watching the Biathlon (best spectator sport ever. XC skiing plus shooting) and ski jumping (there was one guy whose skis came off 100m in midair...owwwch!). The world Snooker Masters were on last night too. It was fun trying to work out the rules lol.
And then at about 3pm, I'd go for a run. This week has been really great. Baiersbronn is such a great training location. I've run on a different trail each time and I've never had to backtrack or run in a loop, which makes it a lot easier psychologically. In all, I managed to meet my goal, which was to run for 10 hours in total for at least 100km. By my reckoning, I did 110km (+/- 5km), all of it on steep trails, which I'm very pleased with. My long run yesterday was really great (and hard). I did 2.5 hours up to Kniebis Dorf (500m altitude gain) rain and snow (both on the ground and falling from the sky). I was a bit sore from the mileage I'd done in the 6 days before, but I did allright until about 2:00 in. After that it was tough (as it should be). Now the test is whether I can do it again for another two weeks.
After seeing for myself that there was actually some decent snow up on Kniebes (950m above sea level), and because I was a bit sore, I decided to go for a ski for the first time today. I'd held off until today because it didn't really seem worth it since there were only 2.5km of trails available and the reported snow quality was always 'mediocre'. But I went up today and I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either. It was a bit icy, but the whole trail was covered with no nasty rocks sticking out to scratch my new skis on:) I took my classics because I didn't think there'd be enough snow for skating (there was, I'll take my skaters out for a spin tomorrow). The first time around I was a bit rusty, so I wasted quite a bit of energy trying to remember how to diagonal stride (haven't done it for 2 years lol). But the second lap was good, I got some decent speed going. The course is very nice. The first 500m is flattish and then there's about 1km of straight downhill, which is a lot of fun:) Then of course you have to do 800m of uphill to round it out. I did 15km before taking a break, which I needed because by the end my form was absolutely terrible. Turns out you need strong quads to diagonal stride and after running a sizeable portion of my 110km downhill, mine were fairly trashed lol. By the end of the 6th lap I was barely managing walking pace up the uphill section lol. I took a chocolate break after that, and then thrashed out another 2 laps with pure brute force to round out the workout at 20km in 2:02ish. I'm definitely looking forward to skating, classic just didn't feel natural to me. It was a good upper body workout, but didn't do much for me Cardiovascularly.
I'm hoping that while I'm away, there'll be a massive blizzard for three weeks straight and the whole of Baiersbronn will be carpetted in snow:D I like running, but skiing is so much more fun and convenient workout wise. It was nice not having to worry about getting stitch even though I started skiing about an hour after eating breakfast:)
Tomorrow is my last day in Baiersbronn. I'm actually not sure about that. I want to leave on Thursday (and indeed have arranged my WWOOFing plans for that) but I'm not sure whether I'm booked in to stay in Baiersbronn Wednesday night or whether I have to leave Wednesday morning:S So I need to call Herr Keck to check up on that. Actually I think I do have to leave Wednesday because I only paid for 9 nights. Ah well, it's not a problem, I'll just start the WWOOFing part of the trip one day earlier.
The WWOOFing is taking place at a farm quite close to Baiersbronn, it should be good. I'll have a lot more human contact than I've had in Baiersbronn at least:)
Time for me to go, I'm feeling pretty tired (at 6:20pm hah!).
Tschuss from Freudenstadt!
I haven't written in a while, because..nothing much exciting has happened hah! Here are some of the highlights of the last 5 days:
- Going to the local pub, playing pool against a few young german guys, beating them soundly (4-2) and getting happy drunk off 2 amazingly good pints of local beer (I mean I know I'm a lightweight, but 2 pints!)
- Going to the coin launderette in Baiersbronn, paying 9 euros ($15!!!!) for the privilege of washing my laundry. Deciding never to do this again.
- Going iceskating, being intrigued by a german girl with a jumper with the slogan 'It feels so good to be an outlaw in your perfect world' (where were the concerned members of public with pitchforks and rifles to drive this outlaw back into the deep dark forest where she apparently takes pleasure in living???)
- Going to the local pub again, meeting an old guy who called himself 'Cowboy', losing to him in pool 2-1 (with a premature black ending for each game:s), arranging for a rematch when I come back in February.
- Finding a cheaper place to stay in February (3 euros cheaper would've been 60 euros over the course of the stay!), ringing up, being met with utter confusion (
'Could I make a reservation?', 'huh?',
'I would like to rent the room you are advertising on the baiersbronn website',
'No.',
'What?',
'Thankyou, goodbye.'
*hangs up*
*calls back*
'Hello, I am calling again to say that if you don't want to rent the room, maybe you should remove the advertisement from the website',
'I am renting the room, but it is not available at the moment.',
'I don't want it now, I want it in 3 weeks.',
'No.' *hangs up*
....fine then?), resorting to booking another 3 weeks at the place I'm staying.
So yeah, not much has happened. It's been good though, very relaxing. A typical day for me has been:
- Waking up whenever I feel like, feeling happily rested.
- Walking down to the shops to pick up a loaf of delicious german bread (a different one each day:D) and a litre of multivitamin juice (heh)
- Eating breakfast, while watching cartoons
And then, depending on how energetic I'm feeling and whether there's anything good on TV, I'd either go for a walk or do some other activity for a few hours, or watch TV for a few hours.
German TV is awesome! There're like 25 free to air channels (every house has a satellite dish), and in the last few days EuroSport Live has been broadcasting the Wintersport World Championships. So I've been watching the Biathlon (best spectator sport ever. XC skiing plus shooting) and ski jumping (there was one guy whose skis came off 100m in midair...owwwch!). The world Snooker Masters were on last night too. It was fun trying to work out the rules lol.
And then at about 3pm, I'd go for a run. This week has been really great. Baiersbronn is such a great training location. I've run on a different trail each time and I've never had to backtrack or run in a loop, which makes it a lot easier psychologically. In all, I managed to meet my goal, which was to run for 10 hours in total for at least 100km. By my reckoning, I did 110km (+/- 5km), all of it on steep trails, which I'm very pleased with. My long run yesterday was really great (and hard). I did 2.5 hours up to Kniebis Dorf (500m altitude gain) rain and snow (both on the ground and falling from the sky). I was a bit sore from the mileage I'd done in the 6 days before, but I did allright until about 2:00 in. After that it was tough (as it should be). Now the test is whether I can do it again for another two weeks.
After seeing for myself that there was actually some decent snow up on Kniebes (950m above sea level), and because I was a bit sore, I decided to go for a ski for the first time today. I'd held off until today because it didn't really seem worth it since there were only 2.5km of trails available and the reported snow quality was always 'mediocre'. But I went up today and I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either. It was a bit icy, but the whole trail was covered with no nasty rocks sticking out to scratch my new skis on:) I took my classics because I didn't think there'd be enough snow for skating (there was, I'll take my skaters out for a spin tomorrow). The first time around I was a bit rusty, so I wasted quite a bit of energy trying to remember how to diagonal stride (haven't done it for 2 years lol). But the second lap was good, I got some decent speed going. The course is very nice. The first 500m is flattish and then there's about 1km of straight downhill, which is a lot of fun:) Then of course you have to do 800m of uphill to round it out. I did 15km before taking a break, which I needed because by the end my form was absolutely terrible. Turns out you need strong quads to diagonal stride and after running a sizeable portion of my 110km downhill, mine were fairly trashed lol. By the end of the 6th lap I was barely managing walking pace up the uphill section lol. I took a chocolate break after that, and then thrashed out another 2 laps with pure brute force to round out the workout at 20km in 2:02ish. I'm definitely looking forward to skating, classic just didn't feel natural to me. It was a good upper body workout, but didn't do much for me Cardiovascularly.
I'm hoping that while I'm away, there'll be a massive blizzard for three weeks straight and the whole of Baiersbronn will be carpetted in snow:D I like running, but skiing is so much more fun and convenient workout wise. It was nice not having to worry about getting stitch even though I started skiing about an hour after eating breakfast:)
Tomorrow is my last day in Baiersbronn. I'm actually not sure about that. I want to leave on Thursday (and indeed have arranged my WWOOFing plans for that) but I'm not sure whether I'm booked in to stay in Baiersbronn Wednesday night or whether I have to leave Wednesday morning:S So I need to call Herr Keck to check up on that. Actually I think I do have to leave Wednesday because I only paid for 9 nights. Ah well, it's not a problem, I'll just start the WWOOFing part of the trip one day earlier.
The WWOOFing is taking place at a farm quite close to Baiersbronn, it should be good. I'll have a lot more human contact than I've had in Baiersbronn at least:)
Time for me to go, I'm feeling pretty tired (at 6:20pm hah!).
Tschuss from Freudenstadt!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Last few days
So once again I'm behind a few days. But this time it wasn't out of laziness, rather parsimoniousity! Internet cafes in Baiersbronn are soooo expensive! The cheapest one is 4 euros (~$7) per hour! But I made a trip to Freudenstadt to buy a knife and fork (which are also incredibly expensive in Baiersbronn) and noticed that this internet cafe was only 2 euros/hour (which is still fairly expensive compared to Frankfurt).
So anyway, to summarise: I made it to Baiersbronn without any major problems (apart from a bit of confusion at Karlsruhe trainstation. My travel guide indicated that I should be getting on another train, but I couldn't see any trains at the place it directed me to go. Turns out what looked like trams were actually what we'd call 'light rail'), was picked up by my hosts, shown round the house, then paid my 'Guest tax' and collapsed into bed. The house where I'm staying is quite nice. It's a three storey traditional style house and I've got quite a sizeable room to myself. It's got a bed, wardrobe, TV, and a free standing shower, (which is a bit of a weird concept, but it works).
My first day, I woke up lateish and feeling quite hungry, I went for an explore through Baiersbronn in search of food. I raided a few bakeries, 'drug stores' and supermarkets (they have one named after Marilyn Monroe heh) and amply supplied with pretzels, donuts and biscuits, I went for a 3 hour walk along the country side. It was rather a nice day, probably 5° or so, with blinding sunshine. I followed the Murg (a big river fed by snow melt) and was fascinated by the numerous hydro-electric plants along its length and the small remaining outcrops of ice. Eventually got back to the house (and finally worked out how to open the front door lol. I'd tried to get in before and couldn't, which is why I went on the walk) allowed myself a 30 minute rest and then went for a run. I found this great trail through the forest with great views out onto the countryside. I think you can ski along it when there's snow. After a bit over an hour, I was back in my room and had a tinned dinner of kidney beans and mexican mix vegies, which I drank out of a cup, lacking suitable utensils. Went to bed at 10ish after reading for a little while.
The next day, I woke up earlier and walked down to the town in search of bread and juice. I bought them and then asked around at a few camera places to see if they could help me. At some point in my travels, I'd lost the cord for my camera's battery charger and it was now warning me that I didn't have much time left before it expired. I didn't have much hope of finding it in a small town like Baiersbronn, but lo and behold, the local elektro-Laden had a multitude of such cords and I bought a replacement for 2 euros:)
I walked home and tucked myself in bed, in search of warmth. Next thing I knew, it was boiling hot and 2 hours had passed. I was feeling quite weak, my cold had worsened, but I forced myself to go for a run. I felt better almost immediately as I knew I would. The fresh air is really invigorating, completely free of pollution. I followed the trail I'd found the day before, but as I had a longer run scheduled, I kept going, climbing higher and higher into the mountains. After a while I was no longer running on a trail proper, instead I ran on an old disused logging track that had long been overgrown with ferns. I was delighted to find proper snow here and there, ever more frequent as I climbed higher and higher. On quite a few occasions, I had to run on the snow to avoid the slippery ice on the trail, and it felt wonderful underfoot. Soon I was completely alone, away from all signs of civilisation. The forest was completely silent, the only thing I could hear was the sound of my own footsteps. It was really a beautiful place. When my watch told me to turn around, I wanted to keep going. I felt like I could run forever and never tire or grow bored. I did turn around though because I knew I had a longer run scheduled in 5 days. On the return journey I sped down the trail. I had climbed at least 500m on the way up and now it was time to reap the rewards. Halfway down, I thought I heard a car behind me skidding slightly on the damp road. I moved to the side of the road and looked over my shoulder, but saw nothing. This happened a few times before I realised it was the wind whistling through the trees (or was it one of the fighter jets that periodically tear through Baiersbronn's airspace at supersonic speeds?). I ran back along a different trail, which transected a few of the fields, which are used for downhill skiing when mother nature permits. Without the snow cover, you could see the devestating effect downhill skiing has on the environment. Deep scars had been torn in the earth by the skiiers and the grooming machinery. I ran past the guest house and made one final circuit to bring the total up to two hours and then went inside. Truly an epic run:)
I read for a while and ate a little for dinner and then went to bed. By 8:30, I was fast alseep. I woke up at 7:30 this morning, feeling a bit better than I had the previous two mornings, but still quite sick. Like I said before, I'm in Freudenstadt at the moment. I was very pleased to find a 'Reform' shop, which sold some vegan food. I've been finding it very hard to find things to eat here. There are lots of fresh ingredients available, but lacking a kitchen, I have to resort to eating out or eating out of tins. There's basically nothing I can have at most of the restaurants, whose menus I've perused. I could pay 4 euros for fried potatoes, but it doesn't really seem worth it with no-one to eat with. At the supermarkets, all the ready to eat tinned meals have meat in them, so for the last two nights I've just been eating bread with kidney beans and vegies. But at this shop, there were heaps of different vego tinned meals as well as some rice milk, so I bought enough to keep me fed for the next week:) Now I just need to find a knife, fork, spoon and I'll be set:)
Until next time,
seeya
So anyway, to summarise: I made it to Baiersbronn without any major problems (apart from a bit of confusion at Karlsruhe trainstation. My travel guide indicated that I should be getting on another train, but I couldn't see any trains at the place it directed me to go. Turns out what looked like trams were actually what we'd call 'light rail'), was picked up by my hosts, shown round the house, then paid my 'Guest tax' and collapsed into bed. The house where I'm staying is quite nice. It's a three storey traditional style house and I've got quite a sizeable room to myself. It's got a bed, wardrobe, TV, and a free standing shower, (which is a bit of a weird concept, but it works).
My first day, I woke up lateish and feeling quite hungry, I went for an explore through Baiersbronn in search of food. I raided a few bakeries, 'drug stores' and supermarkets (they have one named after Marilyn Monroe heh) and amply supplied with pretzels, donuts and biscuits, I went for a 3 hour walk along the country side. It was rather a nice day, probably 5° or so, with blinding sunshine. I followed the Murg (a big river fed by snow melt) and was fascinated by the numerous hydro-electric plants along its length and the small remaining outcrops of ice. Eventually got back to the house (and finally worked out how to open the front door lol. I'd tried to get in before and couldn't, which is why I went on the walk) allowed myself a 30 minute rest and then went for a run. I found this great trail through the forest with great views out onto the countryside. I think you can ski along it when there's snow. After a bit over an hour, I was back in my room and had a tinned dinner of kidney beans and mexican mix vegies, which I drank out of a cup, lacking suitable utensils. Went to bed at 10ish after reading for a little while.
The next day, I woke up earlier and walked down to the town in search of bread and juice. I bought them and then asked around at a few camera places to see if they could help me. At some point in my travels, I'd lost the cord for my camera's battery charger and it was now warning me that I didn't have much time left before it expired. I didn't have much hope of finding it in a small town like Baiersbronn, but lo and behold, the local elektro-Laden had a multitude of such cords and I bought a replacement for 2 euros:)
I walked home and tucked myself in bed, in search of warmth. Next thing I knew, it was boiling hot and 2 hours had passed. I was feeling quite weak, my cold had worsened, but I forced myself to go for a run. I felt better almost immediately as I knew I would. The fresh air is really invigorating, completely free of pollution. I followed the trail I'd found the day before, but as I had a longer run scheduled, I kept going, climbing higher and higher into the mountains. After a while I was no longer running on a trail proper, instead I ran on an old disused logging track that had long been overgrown with ferns. I was delighted to find proper snow here and there, ever more frequent as I climbed higher and higher. On quite a few occasions, I had to run on the snow to avoid the slippery ice on the trail, and it felt wonderful underfoot. Soon I was completely alone, away from all signs of civilisation. The forest was completely silent, the only thing I could hear was the sound of my own footsteps. It was really a beautiful place. When my watch told me to turn around, I wanted to keep going. I felt like I could run forever and never tire or grow bored. I did turn around though because I knew I had a longer run scheduled in 5 days. On the return journey I sped down the trail. I had climbed at least 500m on the way up and now it was time to reap the rewards. Halfway down, I thought I heard a car behind me skidding slightly on the damp road. I moved to the side of the road and looked over my shoulder, but saw nothing. This happened a few times before I realised it was the wind whistling through the trees (or was it one of the fighter jets that periodically tear through Baiersbronn's airspace at supersonic speeds?). I ran back along a different trail, which transected a few of the fields, which are used for downhill skiing when mother nature permits. Without the snow cover, you could see the devestating effect downhill skiing has on the environment. Deep scars had been torn in the earth by the skiiers and the grooming machinery. I ran past the guest house and made one final circuit to bring the total up to two hours and then went inside. Truly an epic run:)
I read for a while and ate a little for dinner and then went to bed. By 8:30, I was fast alseep. I woke up at 7:30 this morning, feeling a bit better than I had the previous two mornings, but still quite sick. Like I said before, I'm in Freudenstadt at the moment. I was very pleased to find a 'Reform' shop, which sold some vegan food. I've been finding it very hard to find things to eat here. There are lots of fresh ingredients available, but lacking a kitchen, I have to resort to eating out or eating out of tins. There's basically nothing I can have at most of the restaurants, whose menus I've perused. I could pay 4 euros for fried potatoes, but it doesn't really seem worth it with no-one to eat with. At the supermarkets, all the ready to eat tinned meals have meat in them, so for the last two nights I've just been eating bread with kidney beans and vegies. But at this shop, there were heaps of different vego tinned meals as well as some rice milk, so I bought enough to keep me fed for the next week:) Now I just need to find a knife, fork, spoon and I'll be set:)
Until next time,
seeya
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Sunday
Today I made my first big mistake of the trip.
I woke up at 6am to the sound of at least 4 snorers (and apparently I was doing it that night too lol). In my room, there are two really chronic snorers: Mark and this other guy, who never showers and had revenge taken upon him. If you're not asleep by the time they are, then you've got no chance at all. I looked over at Vaki and he was sleeping with his pillow wrapped around his head lol. I stayed in bed til 7 and then went down and had breakfast. When I got back and opened the door, Vaki woke up.
"Du gehst heute Morgen?" (Are you leaving this morning?)
"Ja, ich muss nur meine Skie abholen und dann gehe ich zum Hauptbahnhof" (Yeah, I just need to pick up my skis, and then I'll go to the station)
(Did you leave your skis at the station?)
(No, I mean I have to pick them up from the shop.)
(But today is Sunday, the shop is not open)
($%&!**************!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) (hence the facebook message)
(I told you this already, why didn't you pick them up yesterday man!)
(Because I'm a ****ing idiot)
On top of this, I could feel that I was developing a cold, and a headache started straight away. I sulked in the corner for a little while and then went downstairs to find out the shop's phone number in the tiny hope that someone might be there anyway. I sulkily ate breakfast with Vaki and then called the shop..No luck, answering machine. I felt better after that, I accepted my fate, rang up the place where I was meant to be staying tonight and the next 9 days, and told them I wouldn't arrive til tomorrow. The woman on the line was really nice and told me they'd pick me up from the station if I told them what time my train would arrive, so I was feeling positive again by the time I hung up the phone. We went for a walk along the Main, talking about the training he did for soccer (they did 3 hour long runs, nuts!) and dodgem cars and other random stuff, then went down to the train station to change my ticket. It turned out, I didn't even need to do that because my ticket is valid for tomorrow as well lol.
We went back to the Hostel and played chess for a while, then grabbed lunch and took it upstairs in my tupperware containers (I wanted to go for a run, so I wanted to keep it for later). The path was really crowded! It seemed like everyone was spending his day outside! I had to duck and weave a little to get around. I raced a few people (I don't think they realised though:P) but there wasn't really any competition besides the cargo ship. It seems like only really old people run in Frankfurt. Vaki told me that's because the good runners don't like running on the asphalt path (I've been running on the grass next to it), so they go to dirt trails in the outskirts of the city. I'd really like to go to his home city, Kassel. It's the second biggest city in the state (behind Frankfurt), but it has a lot more in the way of nature reserves. Apparently there are 80km of running trails:O
Afterwards I showered for the second time this trip (I know gross, but you don't sweat in this weather, and when you wear at least 4 layers at all times, you don't smell either:P) and managed to get all my clothes wet because the showers at the hostel are really stupid. They turn off after 10 seconds, so you have to keep pressing the button and the shower head has a crap nozzle that sprays everwhere! At least I was warm though:)
Vaki and this other guy in our room had been smok(iff)ing, and hence were too chilled out to talk about anything interesting, so I went internet caffing (ICing) and managed to remember what I did the last 3 days and wrote about it in my blog. And then I wrote about writing it in my blog. And then I wrote about writing about writing about it in my blog. And then I wrote about writing about writing about writing about it in my blog. Lame:P
When everything goes well, I'll be in Baiersbronn tomorrow afternoon with my skis and maybe have time for a quick ski before it gets dark (5pm):)
-ciao
I woke up at 6am to the sound of at least 4 snorers (and apparently I was doing it that night too lol). In my room, there are two really chronic snorers: Mark and this other guy, who never showers and had revenge taken upon him. If you're not asleep by the time they are, then you've got no chance at all. I looked over at Vaki and he was sleeping with his pillow wrapped around his head lol. I stayed in bed til 7 and then went down and had breakfast. When I got back and opened the door, Vaki woke up.
"Du gehst heute Morgen?" (Are you leaving this morning?)
"Ja, ich muss nur meine Skie abholen und dann gehe ich zum Hauptbahnhof" (Yeah, I just need to pick up my skis, and then I'll go to the station)
(Did you leave your skis at the station?)
(No, I mean I have to pick them up from the shop.)
(But today is Sunday, the shop is not open)
($%&!**************!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) (hence the facebook message)
(I told you this already, why didn't you pick them up yesterday man!)
(Because I'm a ****ing idiot)
On top of this, I could feel that I was developing a cold, and a headache started straight away. I sulked in the corner for a little while and then went downstairs to find out the shop's phone number in the tiny hope that someone might be there anyway. I sulkily ate breakfast with Vaki and then called the shop..No luck, answering machine. I felt better after that, I accepted my fate, rang up the place where I was meant to be staying tonight and the next 9 days, and told them I wouldn't arrive til tomorrow. The woman on the line was really nice and told me they'd pick me up from the station if I told them what time my train would arrive, so I was feeling positive again by the time I hung up the phone. We went for a walk along the Main, talking about the training he did for soccer (they did 3 hour long runs, nuts!) and dodgem cars and other random stuff, then went down to the train station to change my ticket. It turned out, I didn't even need to do that because my ticket is valid for tomorrow as well lol.
We went back to the Hostel and played chess for a while, then grabbed lunch and took it upstairs in my tupperware containers (I wanted to go for a run, so I wanted to keep it for later). The path was really crowded! It seemed like everyone was spending his day outside! I had to duck and weave a little to get around. I raced a few people (I don't think they realised though:P) but there wasn't really any competition besides the cargo ship. It seems like only really old people run in Frankfurt. Vaki told me that's because the good runners don't like running on the asphalt path (I've been running on the grass next to it), so they go to dirt trails in the outskirts of the city. I'd really like to go to his home city, Kassel. It's the second biggest city in the state (behind Frankfurt), but it has a lot more in the way of nature reserves. Apparently there are 80km of running trails:O
Afterwards I showered for the second time this trip (I know gross, but you don't sweat in this weather, and when you wear at least 4 layers at all times, you don't smell either:P) and managed to get all my clothes wet because the showers at the hostel are really stupid. They turn off after 10 seconds, so you have to keep pressing the button and the shower head has a crap nozzle that sprays everwhere! At least I was warm though:)
Vaki and this other guy in our room had been smok(iff)ing, and hence were too chilled out to talk about anything interesting, so I went internet caffing (ICing) and managed to remember what I did the last 3 days and wrote about it in my blog. And then I wrote about writing it in my blog. And then I wrote about writing about writing about it in my blog. And then I wrote about writing about writing about writing about it in my blog. Lame:P
When everything goes well, I'll be in Baiersbronn tomorrow afternoon with my skis and maybe have time for a quick ski before it gets dark (5pm):)
-ciao
Saturday
Arrgh, it was not fun getting up this morning. We promised the japanese guys, we'd escort them to the train station, so we got up at 7:00, ate a quick breakfast and found them in the lobby. They needed to catch a train to Heidelberg at 8:34, so they were in a bit of a rush, but when I went to leave with them, I couldn't find Vaki! I looked everywhere for him and in the end, decided we'd have to leave without them, even though I didn't really know the way to the train station. But a few metres from the Hostel, he came bursting through the doors and told me he'd been looking for ME everywhere hahaha. We caught a train with them to the Hauptbahnhof and found their platform. It was a bit dejavuish finding them seats and saying goodbye to them lol.
The South Koreans were leaving that morning as well, but not til 10am we thought, so we went back to the Hostel quickly so that Vaki could pay for another night in the hostel, and then went to Woolworth to buy a few things. When we got back at 9.30, they were already gone:( We felt a bit bad about that, they must've meant they were catching a train at 10am. Oh well. They left a nice note, saying they had a good time with us, so we felt a bit better:)
Mark had just woken up, and he announced that he wanted some more games for his computer because the chess version he had, had run out of evaluations. So we went sniffing for an unsecured wireless network and ended up resting the laptop against the window of a pub to escape the rain. We downloaded a few games and then scattered because the owner of the pub kept looking through the window at us and gesturing for us to piss off, and obviously our smiles weren't enough to reassure her, because she picked up the phone and dialled a number lol. When we got back, we discovered that the games hadn't downloaded properly, so it was all in vain!
We had lunch at the hostel, which we hadn't realised existed. It's amazing value - all you can eat buffet for 5 euros. There wasn't much for me from the bainne marie, but I had a few roast potatoes and loaded my plate up with salad and beans:) Healthiest and tastiest meal I've had so far:)
Mark's girlfriend came after that, and they went away to try and download the games again, so Vaki and I went to an internet cafe. I wanted to blog, because I'd fallen behind, but I was feeling so tired that I just gave up, and gave the computer over completely to Vaki. He was chatting to his friends on Skype. All the internet cafes in Germany have webcams and headsets you can use with Skype. It's a really cheap way to stay in touch with people when you're far away, when you consider that you can find quite a few internet cafes for 1 euro ($1.70 AUD) per hour.
I was so tired by that stage, that I just went straight to bed, even though it was only 7pm. Mark woke me up at 12:30 to tell me that he'd beaten Vaki in Kicker (aka Foosball) 4-3 and would I like to play chess with him now. I didn't even bother replying apart from turning to the other side of the bed and immediately went back to sleep and didn't wake up til 6am.
The South Koreans were leaving that morning as well, but not til 10am we thought, so we went back to the Hostel quickly so that Vaki could pay for another night in the hostel, and then went to Woolworth to buy a few things. When we got back at 9.30, they were already gone:( We felt a bit bad about that, they must've meant they were catching a train at 10am. Oh well. They left a nice note, saying they had a good time with us, so we felt a bit better:)
Mark had just woken up, and he announced that he wanted some more games for his computer because the chess version he had, had run out of evaluations. So we went sniffing for an unsecured wireless network and ended up resting the laptop against the window of a pub to escape the rain. We downloaded a few games and then scattered because the owner of the pub kept looking through the window at us and gesturing for us to piss off, and obviously our smiles weren't enough to reassure her, because she picked up the phone and dialled a number lol. When we got back, we discovered that the games hadn't downloaded properly, so it was all in vain!
We had lunch at the hostel, which we hadn't realised existed. It's amazing value - all you can eat buffet for 5 euros. There wasn't much for me from the bainne marie, but I had a few roast potatoes and loaded my plate up with salad and beans:) Healthiest and tastiest meal I've had so far:)
Mark's girlfriend came after that, and they went away to try and download the games again, so Vaki and I went to an internet cafe. I wanted to blog, because I'd fallen behind, but I was feeling so tired that I just gave up, and gave the computer over completely to Vaki. He was chatting to his friends on Skype. All the internet cafes in Germany have webcams and headsets you can use with Skype. It's a really cheap way to stay in touch with people when you're far away, when you consider that you can find quite a few internet cafes for 1 euro ($1.70 AUD) per hour.
I was so tired by that stage, that I just went straight to bed, even though it was only 7pm. Mark woke me up at 12:30 to tell me that he'd beaten Vaki in Kicker (aka Foosball) 4-3 and would I like to play chess with him now. I didn't even bother replying apart from turning to the other side of the bed and immediately went back to sleep and didn't wake up til 6am.
Friday
That morning, we all got up early, because Theo decided he'd leave a day earlier than expected so as to maximise his use of his EuroRail Pass. Vaki kept trying to convince him to forget the idea and go back to sleep (I think his advice lacked partiality, considering he'd stayed up til 4am drinking with some Spaniards and Braziallians and was suffering from a rather bad case of 'Tomcat'), but he wouldn't be swayed, so we ate breakfast and took him to the train station. The '20 minute walk' ending up lasting quite a bit longer because we took a scenic tour of Frankfurt, including the Town Hall and the more disreputable quarters (I waited outside in disgust, while they captured their mocking antics on camera:S).
At the train station, I bought a ticket to Baiersbronn for Sunday, while Theo tried to work out whether he wanted to go to Berlin or Köln first. He eventually decided on Berlin, and we escorted him to his train and sat with him for a little while before bidding him goodbye. He was great to be around, full of energy and curiousity. I'm glad I met him, and I'm sure he'll have fun in Paris, Barcelona, Prague and all the other cities he's visiting.
We went back to the Hostel and played chess on Mark's laptop for a while and then I went for a run, which was once again very nice. I raced a cargo ship back to the start and won hehe.
There were two new guys in our room from South Korea, so we talked with them for a little while (it was a bit hard though because apart from Korean, they only spoke very limited english). We showed them round Frankfurt a little and helped them work out how to call home. I felt a bit protective of them because they seemed to be really quite helpless. It's allright in Germany, where you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't speak at least some english, but in Paris, Spain and Prague, I suspect they'll have quite a hard time of it. Mark doesn't agree though, he thinks they are a lot more capable than they let on.
He told me about this theory he has about why Asian tourists travel to Europe, but don't really go to the cultural attractions, but instead spend their time taking millions of photographs of shop windows, etc. According to him, travelling to Europe is a massive adventure for them, a test of courage. The photographs and the passport stamps are evidence to show back home and when it passes muster, they are revered as heros among their peers. It is a massive generalisation, but it probably has some merit.
I think the same is true for westerners travelling to Asian countries. It's very hard to appreciate the intricacies of a culture vastly different from your own that you know little about. You look for similarities and when you don't find enough, you resort to this 'Blitzfahrt' style of travel. It is also probably a reflection of time constraints. The South Koreans were college students, so they had 2.5 months of holidays or something like that, but they said full time jobs are very limiting in the amount of time you can take off. With a maximum of two weeks at your disposal, you'd want to cram in as much as you could. You can't get anywhere near to understanding a city like Frankfurt or Paris in two weeks, but you can gain a glimpse into what they're like and later, when you have more time, you can go back to the places you like the most.
We took the South Koreans out for pizza (oops we should've taken them somewhere more german:P) and beer (they preferred apple wine heh). Vaki and I talked for a long time about his past. He has a bit of a sad history. His family moved to Germany when he was one to escape the war and his father didn't cope well with the change. He ended up running away from home to escape the beatings he received and spent most of his childhood and adolescence in a children's home. He's turned out allright in spite of that. He has millions of friends and they're his family now. What's really sad is that he had a dream and the talent to achieve it, but has let it slip out of his grasp. He was an amazing soccer player as a child, and when I say amazing, I mean easily the best on every team he ever played on. He had an ambition to play for Germany one day, or at least play at a high enough level that he could live off it. For a while, it looked like he'd achieve it. He was playing at a very high level (I didn't really understand the league systems, but it would probably be analogous to the reserves for the A-league in Australia - they got paid for big matches, but normally nothing), training hard, really enjoying it...and then he just fell off the rails. He started drinking, started smoking, stopped going to training and showed up to matches late. Eventually his coach had had enough and they had an altercation and Vaki stormed off never to return. He kept playing but not seriously, and now he doesn't play at all. He decided he needed to prioritise work. I suggested he should play night football once a week, but he told me, for him it was everything. If he plays, it has to be with his whole heart and playing once a week would be worse than not playing at all. And now, apparently it's too late for him to get back into training because the top class players have a lifespan from about 18-31 and he's too old now. It made me really sad, because I could tell he loved it so much, and was angry at himself for letting it go.
Back at the hostel, we had quite a few drinks with this Japanese guy and girl, who were very different from the other Japanese people I've met abroad. Normally, they're very shy, but these guys were quite the opposite and could speak very good english courtesy of having studied in Portmouth in England for a year. A french guy called Pierre also came along and he was a lot of fun.
I went to bed very drunk that night and fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow, so I didn't bear witness to the revenge attack that was going on in the bunk next to mine (hilarious story, but I'll save it for parties).
Some photos from Frankfurt: http://monashedu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=81217&l=d0e2a&id=639895031
At the train station, I bought a ticket to Baiersbronn for Sunday, while Theo tried to work out whether he wanted to go to Berlin or Köln first. He eventually decided on Berlin, and we escorted him to his train and sat with him for a little while before bidding him goodbye. He was great to be around, full of energy and curiousity. I'm glad I met him, and I'm sure he'll have fun in Paris, Barcelona, Prague and all the other cities he's visiting.
We went back to the Hostel and played chess on Mark's laptop for a while and then I went for a run, which was once again very nice. I raced a cargo ship back to the start and won hehe.
There were two new guys in our room from South Korea, so we talked with them for a little while (it was a bit hard though because apart from Korean, they only spoke very limited english). We showed them round Frankfurt a little and helped them work out how to call home. I felt a bit protective of them because they seemed to be really quite helpless. It's allright in Germany, where you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't speak at least some english, but in Paris, Spain and Prague, I suspect they'll have quite a hard time of it. Mark doesn't agree though, he thinks they are a lot more capable than they let on.
He told me about this theory he has about why Asian tourists travel to Europe, but don't really go to the cultural attractions, but instead spend their time taking millions of photographs of shop windows, etc. According to him, travelling to Europe is a massive adventure for them, a test of courage. The photographs and the passport stamps are evidence to show back home and when it passes muster, they are revered as heros among their peers. It is a massive generalisation, but it probably has some merit.
I think the same is true for westerners travelling to Asian countries. It's very hard to appreciate the intricacies of a culture vastly different from your own that you know little about. You look for similarities and when you don't find enough, you resort to this 'Blitzfahrt' style of travel. It is also probably a reflection of time constraints. The South Koreans were college students, so they had 2.5 months of holidays or something like that, but they said full time jobs are very limiting in the amount of time you can take off. With a maximum of two weeks at your disposal, you'd want to cram in as much as you could. You can't get anywhere near to understanding a city like Frankfurt or Paris in two weeks, but you can gain a glimpse into what they're like and later, when you have more time, you can go back to the places you like the most.
We took the South Koreans out for pizza (oops we should've taken them somewhere more german:P) and beer (they preferred apple wine heh). Vaki and I talked for a long time about his past. He has a bit of a sad history. His family moved to Germany when he was one to escape the war and his father didn't cope well with the change. He ended up running away from home to escape the beatings he received and spent most of his childhood and adolescence in a children's home. He's turned out allright in spite of that. He has millions of friends and they're his family now. What's really sad is that he had a dream and the talent to achieve it, but has let it slip out of his grasp. He was an amazing soccer player as a child, and when I say amazing, I mean easily the best on every team he ever played on. He had an ambition to play for Germany one day, or at least play at a high enough level that he could live off it. For a while, it looked like he'd achieve it. He was playing at a very high level (I didn't really understand the league systems, but it would probably be analogous to the reserves for the A-league in Australia - they got paid for big matches, but normally nothing), training hard, really enjoying it...and then he just fell off the rails. He started drinking, started smoking, stopped going to training and showed up to matches late. Eventually his coach had had enough and they had an altercation and Vaki stormed off never to return. He kept playing but not seriously, and now he doesn't play at all. He decided he needed to prioritise work. I suggested he should play night football once a week, but he told me, for him it was everything. If he plays, it has to be with his whole heart and playing once a week would be worse than not playing at all. And now, apparently it's too late for him to get back into training because the top class players have a lifespan from about 18-31 and he's too old now. It made me really sad, because I could tell he loved it so much, and was angry at himself for letting it go.
Back at the hostel, we had quite a few drinks with this Japanese guy and girl, who were very different from the other Japanese people I've met abroad. Normally, they're very shy, but these guys were quite the opposite and could speak very good english courtesy of having studied in Portmouth in England for a year. A french guy called Pierre also came along and he was a lot of fun.
I went to bed very drunk that night and fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow, so I didn't bear witness to the revenge attack that was going on in the bunk next to mine (hilarious story, but I'll save it for parties).
Some photos from Frankfurt: http://monashedu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=81217&l=d0e2a&id=639895031
Saturday, January 5, 2008
thursday
Oh dear, I've already started falling behind. I didn't blog yesterday or the day before and now I can hardly remember what I did.
Aha, it comes back to me. Theo and I got back to the hostel to discover a new guy in our room. He went by the name of Mark (or Marc?) and came from Tel Aviv. A futures trader by trade (hah), he was spending a few months in Frankfurt in the youth hostel because he likes the place so much. We were talking about business and he was saying that the most important thing about making money was being a spendthrift. "I will do anything for money" he said.
"Oh yeah? Would you go walk outside in your underwear?" (He was walking around in his underwear in spite of the cold)
"For 50 euros, I will do that yes"
I laughed and remarked that I couldn't waste 50 euros on such a frivolous exercise, and then Theo walked in.
Straight away, Mark announced "Hey friend, I have a proposition for you: if you can swim from one bridge on the Main to the next, I will give you 1000 euros. In return, you will give me the exclusive rights to film the episode and I will put it on youtube and make my money back."
"Bullshit, as if you´d do that"
"No, I am not lying. I will go and get 1000 euros from the ATM immediately if you agree to do it. I am rich man, see look, I have 7 credit cards." (and threw the credit cards at Theo)
Theo was seriously considering it "I mean it's not that far, only like 500m right? I'm a strong swimmer, I could do that in 5 minutes max easy!"
At that point I interjected "Dude, you realise the water is about 1 degree celsius - that's as cold as the arctic and people die in 5 minutes in there!"
"I don't believe you, it can't be that cold! I'll go and dip my finger in."
While Theo was gone, Mark expanded on his plan. In addition to the exclusive rights to the video, he would also be able to harvest Theo's organs if he died in the attempt. In this manner, he decided he'd make his money back 100 times.
Unfortunately Mark's grand plan fell through when Theo got back a lot less confident about his chances to withstand either the temperature or the swim (there's quite a strong current this time of year) hahahaha.
Aha, it comes back to me. Theo and I got back to the hostel to discover a new guy in our room. He went by the name of Mark (or Marc?) and came from Tel Aviv. A futures trader by trade (hah), he was spending a few months in Frankfurt in the youth hostel because he likes the place so much. We were talking about business and he was saying that the most important thing about making money was being a spendthrift. "I will do anything for money" he said.
"Oh yeah? Would you go walk outside in your underwear?" (He was walking around in his underwear in spite of the cold)
"For 50 euros, I will do that yes"
I laughed and remarked that I couldn't waste 50 euros on such a frivolous exercise, and then Theo walked in.
Straight away, Mark announced "Hey friend, I have a proposition for you: if you can swim from one bridge on the Main to the next, I will give you 1000 euros. In return, you will give me the exclusive rights to film the episode and I will put it on youtube and make my money back."
"Bullshit, as if you´d do that"
"No, I am not lying. I will go and get 1000 euros from the ATM immediately if you agree to do it. I am rich man, see look, I have 7 credit cards." (and threw the credit cards at Theo)
Theo was seriously considering it "I mean it's not that far, only like 500m right? I'm a strong swimmer, I could do that in 5 minutes max easy!"
At that point I interjected "Dude, you realise the water is about 1 degree celsius - that's as cold as the arctic and people die in 5 minutes in there!"
"I don't believe you, it can't be that cold! I'll go and dip my finger in."
While Theo was gone, Mark expanded on his plan. In addition to the exclusive rights to the video, he would also be able to harvest Theo's organs if he died in the attempt. In this manner, he decided he'd make his money back 100 times.
Unfortunately Mark's grand plan fell through when Theo got back a lot less confident about his chances to withstand either the temperature or the swim (there's quite a strong current this time of year) hahahaha.
After that, Mark bet me 5 euros that he could do 60 pushups. I was very surprised and impressed when he managed 58, especially when Vaki and I only managed 35 hahaha. Theo talked himself down so much that Mark and I both put 5 euros on the table for the same bet and he cleaned us out haha. Some of his pushups were a bit suspect though:P Mark gave the money back afterwards because he decided I was a nice guy and Theo followed suit, so that made things very amiable:)
And because having my whole upper body torn to shreds wasn't enough for me, I went for a run that evening. Frankfurt is a fantastic place to run. There's a path by the Main that stretches for at least 30km, which is very popular with joggers, walkers and cyclists alike. I really enjoyed it. There's something about running in cold air, which is very refreshing. It was also my first pain-free run in a week:) My back hurt a bit at the start, but I noticed the pain wasn't getting any worse, so I kept running and it went away completely:D I managed a good 12-13km (1:00).
That night, we went back to this old style bar that we saw in our guided tour the night before. I had fried potatoes, which were quite good and the others had some traditional german dishes. We were all in a good mood thanks to the beers we had back at the hostel (which are amazingly cheap - $2.50 for a pint - and very nice by Australian standards), so it was a very enjoyable evening. Theo kept trying to talk to these two German girls who were sitting at the table next to us (under the pretense that he wanted their advice for the menu) but managed only to anger the waiter (and it must be said, me too). Before the meal, we were all saying we'd go out on the town with Vaki and get back right on the curfew (2am, which is ok I guess), but after the meal and the beers, we were all quite sleepy.. Theo and I promised we'd get up in two hours, but..it didn't end up happening hahaha.
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