Weather reminders and a bit of rambling

Cairo this week, temps range from 57-87. Luxor... similar. Münich, well it'll warm up to freezing temps and snow. Currently, it's snowing as a reminder of what we'll be missing whilst in Egypt. Yesterday I witnessed my first snow thunderstorm. I couldn't see the school across the platz behind our building but there was lightning flashing and thunder booming. Very strange.

Today I have a number of things on my agenda. Finish packing, clean out the fridge, do the recycling like a good American-German or the visa-versa. I need to get some US cash (which is very strange looking after dealing in Euros for this long) as it's needed for tips, our Visas and various other things.

A couple pics found on the web of what we'll be seeing. Think of it as a mini travel photo blog till we post ours. , and .



First is the Nile in Cairo







Next are Camels in the desert which we'll be riding at some point - I'm sure my friends from Albuquerque will think this looks like home







Last is the Nile in Luxor where we'll hope on a sailboat for the ride back to Cairo




Tonight we take Baby to her "Aunt Sara & Uncle Christian". Gonna miss that little rodent while we're gone. Two weeks and I'm sure that she'll have forgotten all about us. Like sending your kid off to college.

Training has been off this week since I've been battling the pre-vacation cold. Ugh! I feel like I should be over it in a day or so. While home, I've been putting together our race schedules for this year. If we wished, we could start early next month as the 1st race of one German series is in the Canary Islands (no, it's not in Germany, just cheap to get there from here). It'll include lot's of marathons (which range from 45 km up to about 140 km) and a solo run at a 24 hour series thrown in just to be obnoxious and my attempt to cheat age. Kera and I are doing one 12 hour race together and she may try one solo sometime during the season.

I went snowboarding again on Tues. with Kit and Tom. Next time.... more lessons are in order. I was fine up on top of the mountain, for the most part. It'd sure be nice to be able to do it properly though. When we decided that it was time to head to the car, that's when things started getting sketchy. Damn, who builds those mountains so steeply. I'm holding on for dear life and 4 & 5 year old kids are doing circles around me and swooshing down the mountain. Little rats!

All the while I had a couple of thoughts going through my pea brain: 1) Next time, lessons no matter what Kit says! 2) Kera will kill me if I end up in the hospital with a broken... fill in the blank 3) Where's my ski bike, this would be a blast?!

My rambling has gone on long enough. We'll post along the way if we're able, but don't really expect anything for a few weeks. Till then, stay well!

etymology

etymology

Main Entry: et·y·mol·o·gy
Pronunciation: -jE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -gies
Etymology: Middle English ethimologie, from Latin etymologia, from Greek, from etymon + -logia -logy
1 : the history of a linguistic form (as a word) shown by tracing its development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing its transmission from one language to another, by analyzing it into its component parts, by identifying its cognates in other languages, or by tracing it and its cognates to a common ancestral form in an ancestral language
2 : a branch of linguistics concerned with etymologies
- et·y·mo·log·i·cal /-m&-'lä-ji-k&l/ adjective
- et·y·mo·log·i·cal·ly /-k(&-)lE/ adverb



Kera and I ventured out to get our German/EU drivers licenses. After having visited the Führerschein Büro we now know the etymology of bureaucracy and (cover your eyes...) clusterf*ck! One other thing that we discovered is that government workers worldwide are the same hippie/apothetic folks. It was an amazing epiphany whilst sitting there that, indeed, we were looking at a certain breed of folks who work for the government. Odd.

I'll keep it short but before anyone else ever moves to Europe, find out what states you can get a license (car only.. not a chauffeurs license) and not have to take any of the tests (Prüfungen). Of course, if you're moving to Germany, make sure that you do this at least two years in advance.







Falls under WTF?




Other revelations... I think if I see one more piece of Pink outdoor clothing I'm going to vomit! Pink should be reserved for really nice bikes and really nice bikes. That's it. I'll give Valentines day a break, but beyond that, it's time to let it die.





This is SEXY!









We drove down to Garmisch last weekend and stayed with Mai and Kit. Unfortunately, Mai had to work so we didn't get to see much of her. Due to traffic on Sat. morning, we showed up at the World Cup ski Downhill race in time to see the last skier. Sunday, we had better luck getting there on time. However, an over zealous ticket guy ran us off the mountain. Instead, we stood in the XC ski field and watched. The announcer could be heard for miles as his voice was echoing off the valley walls.

After watching for awhile, we decided that it was time to attempt skate XC skiing again. It went far better for me this time. It went well enough that Kera and I will probably invest in some equipment at some point. A cool point to go along with this revelation is that there's a German winter triathlon series (run, mountain bike & XC skate ski). Yup, another outdoor addiction.

Lastly, we're planning to head down to Gardasee in Italy for a weekend of mountain biking. We both really need a little warmer weather and the chance to ride our bikes with bike shorts and jackets if necessary. Good times!

The following week, we're off to Egypt! Woopie!!

More pics...

Garmisch Trip for World Cup



Neuschwanstein Castle, etc.

The Spaceship has landed!

We received our car, courtesy of my wife's multi-national corporation, yesterday. It's an Audi A4 Avant (wagon to you and me). Long story, but we wanted Blue or Red but those colors were deemed "too extreme" and we ended up with dark Grey. It's actually a beautiful car. The car has been dubbed "the Spaceship" is because the Navigational system also functions as a DVD Player/TV/Phone/Radio/CD changer/Information center and more. The screen, which is huge, folds down to expose the DVD port and two SD card slots so that you can play zillions of MP3's. Kinda cool!

The wagon, excuse me, Avant option is great as it'll allow us to do all the outdoor things we love to do (i.e. cycling, racing, camping, snow sports, etc.) and not have to plop the stuff in the back seat. I brought my bike race over as well. One worry is that we have one of the hydraulic over/under parking spots and I'm afraid with the rack on the car may not fit in the space. Wish me luck.

Other news! Got my new boots and bindings for the snowboard. My set-up is now as follows... Burton Motion board - 162 cm, Mikey LeBlanc (Red/Leather) bindings from Drake (which it seems is owned by Northwave... Hmmm), and Vans Danny Kass II boots in this same lovely shade of Green www.vanssnow.com/kass/index.html. Now... I just have to learn to snowboard. I have one more week of school and then the following week I may head over to www.spitzingsee.de/ and attempt to learn whilst avoiding killing myself.

Have a charming weekend gang. Looks like we're off to Nass Ramstein... or not, who knows? I get to drive the new car on the Autobahn though. Heheh!

Schoony... I love this pic. Sorry dude!

What?

Yesterday I forgot to turn my cell phone on until I got home from the gym about 4:30. Fist thing I get are a couple of SMS messages from Kera... "Dude, give me a call"... "Dude, cell phones only work when you have them on". You get the picture. Turns out we got an offer on the house. Hopefully, they'll buy it and then one house will be gone.

Then, the other. Eh-hem. :-)


Other news, if I didn't tell you already, I did the mountain bike race last Friday. Got the crap beaten out of me by the ground/ice. It happened because of the tremendous amount of ice on the ground. Had it been just snow, I think that I'd have finished much better. As it was, I was the last person on the long course to get scored. Kinda... DFL. There were a lot of people that didn't finish due to injury or sudden flashes of "I'm gonna die if I continue". Me... I must be damaged as I can't and wouldn't say no.

I still have bruises and scabs... but I'll be back next year.

Our car, finally, arrives on Thursday of next week. The "spaceship" as we've taken to calling it, will be welcome on weekends so that we can take off to various locals within easy driving distance. Also on tap will be trips to Ikea, the junk yard to dispose of the exploding shrank/dresser and many other things. When we get our parking spot, the car will probably sit there most of the time as it really isn't worth driving within the city only to spend 3X as much time finding a spot to park.

Kera seems to be adapting to her job well these days. She's busy but that's obviously much better than being bored. It'll still be a long while before we have any inkling of what the Swiss RE buyout will mean.

School is going o.k. I have to go on Monday to register for Kurs III. Only two more weeks in Kurs II. I'm doing much better but have a long way to go.

Meeting with Marcus, the bike shop owner went well...both times. He's a really nice guy and I'm going to head out to his shop one of these days and chat with him. See if he does indeed have an interest in hiring me or no.

Either way, I'm thinking of looking in to getting my ESL certification as there are so many people here that want to learn English. It will also put me in a better place to put up notice at the Universität that I'm for hire to proofread papers for students. As you know, I'm relatively good at finding work when I want.

That's about it. Have a fantastic weekend.

Howdy 2006!! 'Sup?

Happy New Year everyone.... You've had a week for the newness to wear off. I hope you've all figured out whether or not you'll be able to uphold those resolutions, whether made on New Years or otherwise. I wish you well in that regard.

Next... please send good thoughts and prayers to my friends Catherine and Anne. They can use all the heaping helpings of love, thoughts and prayers (to any deity) that you can send them right now. Yes, I'm thinking of you two. Be well my dears.


Other news.. we had a fun but relaxed New Years celebration with Sara and Christian. Just hung out, did fondue (for hours), talked and watched really, really bad old videos from the late 70's & early 80's. At midnight, or slightly before, we started lighting fireworks. It's a HUGE tradition here. The skies light up for about 3 hours. Every corner is filled with people, young and old sending things in to the heavens.





We're starting to get excited... er, I'm getting there, Kera is giddy about the Egypt trip. Here's the link http://geckosadventures.com/mid_east/trip_overview.asp?trip=2028 It just takes me awhile to get excited. It'll happen about the time that we hit the airport on the way there.

I don't know HTML... someone help me here...
[URL=http://geckosadventures.com/mid_east/trip_overview.asp?trip=2028] Here's the Egypt link[/URL]

Lastly... Ugh! Did the Snow (should have been ICE) Race yesterday. Kind of feel as though I've been beaten up and left in an alley. I did get lucky #13 (my birthday, oddly enough) and that probably dictated how many times that I'd hit the ground.

In 51 km I had somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-13 crashes. Most of them were on the first lap. I had two really hard hits on the second lap. At that point I was going much faster and I was tired. Looks like I'll be buying a new helmet due to one of them. Nothing like sliding on your back/shoulders/head and feeling your head hit a rock. Nice dent in the helmet. Better than my head.

At some point there'll be pics and I'll try to post 'em. No idea how I did, but I was the only one in our group of four to finish the race. Must've been between 200-250 idiots out there with me. A lot were just doing the 26 km or the Duathlon. I think that there were only two single-speeds. One was Tom and then myself.

Think that's about all for now.. Have a great weekend.

Brrrr!

So... it's cold and snow here. This a.m. it was 17 F on our porch and 65 in our apartment (that's normal though). The high today was 21 F. The sun was out though so, in places, it felt much warmer and it was great to see the sun and need sunglasses.

Yesterday I went for 2 hour ride in the snow and 21-25 F weather. It was also windy and couldy. Oddly enough, I was sweating on the upper part of my body and then my toes did their best job protesting the cold. It was nearly an hour after I got home before I could feel them again.... and that hurt!

By talking about it, I may jinx it (if you believe in those sorts of things) but the guy that's driving us to the Snow Race next Friday owns a bike shop. He needs a new employee and apparently, the "friend of a friend" connection is going on. My buddy Tom has talked to him about me. I'm supposed to meet with him next Tues. We'll see what happens.

We got me a new winter Parka. It's a Vaude - Ciampinoi Double Jacket in Neon Green a little like my bike. It's awesome. Way more than warm enough for days like today. I tried to post a link but it didn't work. Look it up if you're interested at http://www.vaude.com.

We've booked our next adventure for my time off of school in February. We're heading to Egypt for 15 or so days. I'll tell you more later. Think jeep/camel safari sort of thing.

Xmas was spent with Kera's Host family outside Stuttgart on Sat. night and then with our friends Sara and Christian on Sun. night. Here are a couple of pics of that fun time...

It's beginning to feel... like er, Weinachts

Weinachts is Christmas to these here folks! Just so you know, Santa has very little to do with Christmas. St. Nikalous (sic) has his own day on Dec. 6th and with the infusion of American culture in to every part of the world (not always such a good thing) Santa is slowly gaining a little ground.

Other news... Teri & Tony came and went. They left in their wake smiles, a few more photos and a beautiful serving platter and the 1st Season of South Park on 3 DVD's. Yippee! Thanks so much you guys. We had a blast having them here and hope we didn't bore them too much as we made them wander one Kristkindelmarkt (Christmas Market) after another.













Kera and I joined a gym. It's in an effort to enter the '06 racing season in some sort of shape. We have 8 locations to choose from to work out, 3 maybe 4 of which are within a 10 minute bike ride from our apartment. Spinning, spinning, spinning! Nothing like riding your bike to spin and then ride home. It actually seems to work as a decent warm-up and cool down though.

Gym's are super expensive here. Think many car payments... that's with a corporate discount. Complete redirect: However, I have found out how much fun it can be to ride a fixed gear in the snow. The trick I'm working on is to spin the cranks a full turn backwards whilst stopping/skidding. Yup, I'm an idiot!

Thanks for the Christmas cards and gifts that people have sent.



We miss y'all. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

The Stewi...have landed!

Our friends Teri & Tony arrived on Sunday morning. They were jetlagged and tired, but we drug them around Münich anyway. They were willing victims as it turned out. We hit a couple of Christmas Markets, a genuine beer hall, y'all and had Tapas at a restaurant a couple of blocks away called Bodega Dali.

Here we are having Glühwein (mulled hot wein) and eating crepes... yummy.

A day in Nurnberg

First.. Nurnberg is about 1:30 by ICE (Inter-City Express) train to the north of Munich. Even on a rainy, mostly cloudy cold day, it's a nice ride. Hell, you don't have to drive and/or worry about much at all.

Our first endevour of the day was to peruse the Christmas Market. It's BIG! Loads and loads of Christmas paraphernalia. It's really hard to imagine all the stuff that you can buy.

Second stop was the museum. O.K., political rant now. If'n you're a Bush fan and completely believe the hype... stop here; otherwise, read on. The more I learn, from the Germans, about Hitler and the way that he and his administration used media, intimidation, retoric, more media and so much more, the more that I'm convinced, someone in the White House has been reading a lot about the way the Reiche came about. "The whole don't think for yourself, do what I tell you", "If you're not with me, you're Anti-American", and so on crap. O.K., some of that off my chest.

Link to the pics that we took in Nürnberg (see if this works)... http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=krnad75.4ndv01e9&Uy=tv99rt&Ux=0

Suffice to say, the museum was cool, but it got Kera and I talking politics a bit. Man, are there a few things about the states that we don't miss. That's one of 'em.




Imagine, we're standing about roof level (there once was one) above where hundreds if not thousands of loyal Nazi's once saluted an incredibly scary Demigod.

Anyway, back to the point of this blog. We had a nice trip to Nurnberg. On the way home, Kera helped me with my homework (Hausaufgabe).

I've just found a stash of old email addresses... therefore, I've added a few new people to the list. As always, let me know if you don't want to see this Blog. FYI, it's usually, not politically oriented. :-)

Frietag...

Well, it's Friday. It's actually beautiful out today. Freakin' cold, but beautiful! The sun is out and it's clear, but when we left the apt. this a.m. it was 22 F. Brrrr. Think I'll attempt to buy a new down/Hollowfill coat this afternoon since Kera has obsconded with mine. Hmph!

Here are some photo links if'n you want to check out my pics...

School stuff..

http://homepage.mac.com/wunnspeed/Schule_Schmeck/


Dinner at Tammy & Carsten's Nov. 21, 2005
http://homepage.mac.com/wunnspeed/Schule_Schmeck/PhotoAlbum5.html

Random Volkschule photos
http://homepage.mac.com/wunnspeed/Schule_Schmeck/PhotoAlbum6.html

Camera Phone photos of class
http://homepage.mac.com/wunnspeed/Schule_Schmeck/PhotoAlbum7.html

Bowling Night
http://homepage.mac.com/wunnspeed/Schule_Schmeck/PhotoAlbum8.html

The apartment
http://homepage.mac.com/wunnspeed/Home/PhotoAlbum10.html

6 Day races
http://homepage.mac.com/wunnspeed/Fahrrader-Bike/PhotoAlbum4.html

We're off to Nurnberg on Sunday. I'll try to take pics and post 'em later.

Have a great weekend!

Not much

Little to report. I've had a 1/2 finished blog sitting in the bin for a week. Just can't seem to find the time or motivation to finish it.

A tad depressed today. Not sure if it's the weather, school feeling too tough or that I already feel my friends in K.C. slipping away. Not a guilt thing at all, I've been there before, when I worked nights. Eventually, since you're out of sight, you're out of mind... people quit calling. Can't blame them. I'm sure, in some cases, it'll work both ways.

We've been running about every other morning. It's good. Dark and cold, but good.

Christmas Markets have opened, we've partaken in 4 just last Saturday. This weekend we're heading to Nurnberg to see the most famous one in the world. I'm sure that it'll be a zoo. Pretty, but a zoo.

Here's my dinner....

Schnee.. schnee!

This is what we woke to this a.m. Nope... doesn't suck! It's now 3:30 p.m. and it's nearly gone. Ah well, it was beautiful while it lasted.


As I've mentioned previously, today was essentially, my last day of Level I Deutsch class. Monday is a play day. Sometime next week I need to go buy books for the next class. It's amazing how inexpensive text books are here compared to the U.S. Both books in total come to about $25.

Here are a couple of pictures from my class.


This is Suhbe and Amien with a couple of girls from class III watching Belly Dancing on Amein's computer.






Here are some of the girls from class gathered around doing.... I'm not sure.





Kera's company announced today that her part of the company had been sold. We'll see what that means for us at some point. Her guess is that we won't know much for many months down the road.

That's it! Have a great weekend!

Wochenende passiert (weekend past... I think)

So, we managed to pull off going to the Track races on Friday night, a road ride on Saturday; kind of and a mountain bike ride on Sunday.

Attached are photos from the track racing event. The highlight of the night for everyone else was that Eric Zabel was racing or the 300 lap "fling" race. Can't remember the real name but two man teams work together and fling each other forward every lap. Hard to explain.

For me though, it was the event that the photos are taken from. This was an event where each rider is coupled with a fat little man on a pedal scooter. He rides behind it and they work together to ride as fast as they can. Odd but a lot of fun to watch. Not on that, when you're sitting up in the stands, you get to breath the 2 cycle exhaust fumes. Woo-hoo!

It's in Deutsch but here's the official 6 day web site... http://www.sechstagerennen.info/ Looks like Zabel and friend won the Munich overall.

Sat. we were planning to go to Garmisch to ride with our friend Kit. However, once he and I spent an hour plus attempting to ride the borrowed rack, I realized that Kera would fret about her/our bikes all the way there. Also, I didn't want to worry about damaging Kit's car.

So, after Kit left Kera and I went on what was supposed to be a road ride in reality, it turned out to be a 120psi road bike gravel road ride. We only went a little over 20 miles in total, but between dodging people, dogs and all the potholes, we were pretty shot by the time we got home. Kera nearly got hit by a car door when a woman threw it open without looking. We were glad we had gone, but it was kind of brutal.

On Sunday, we met our friend Baxter for a mountain bike ride. He took us up the double-track on the west side of the Isar river and then to what's known as Windmill Hill. The "Hill" used to be a landfill many moons ago. It's been long enough that it has fully grown trees on it. You climb up a gravel road with many switchbacks and at the top you're supposed to be greeted with an amazing view which theoretically includes the Allianze Arena, the Alps, the whole city of Munich and a lot me. However, on this day, all we could see was fog/clouds. We couldn't even make out the arena which is only across the road.

From there we went further up the west side river, then crossed and intermittently rode single and double track all the way back to the East side of the English Garden. From there, it's only a couple of miles back to our apartment. By the time we got home, I was hungry and pretty spent. I also realized that I need to change my gearing to be able to effectively ride the really flat trails that are in the city.

Other happenings include that I now only have two 'real' days of Deutsch class left as Monday is essentially a play day. All three language classes are going to spend the day playing games and talking. I then have a week off before Deutsch 2 starts. Guess we need to go get me the books.

We've; mostly Kera has gotten most of our stuff put away in the apartment. We still need a shrank/wardrobe or two for the rest of our clothes. Along with that, we are supposed to be getting at least a temporary storage space to put our patio furniture in. Our balcony is too small to use more than a couple of the chairs and a small table here. However, it'll be really nice to have them come summer. We still need to ask the landlord if she'll let us use the grill here.

That's probably update enough for one day. Talk to you soon.

Little bitty midget update.

Just a note to tell everyone that I managed to get nearly everything put away in the kitchen today/tonight. I think I managed to empty something like 10 boxes and put things in their places throughout the apartment.

Believe it or not, it's slowly starting to resemble something other than a disaster zone.

Got registered for another semester/term of school yesterday. I'm really realizing that it's going to take me getting off my butt and studying for me to get through the next one. I've got two weeks left in Class I and then a week off... again. I think we get 3 weeks off in Dec. and Jan.

Anyway, sat down with my classmate Svjetlana and went over the "infamous" Die/Der/Das nouns. Basically, it comes down to Feminine/Masculine/Neuter classification. It changes the verb/adverb conjagations and more. I won't bore you. Suffice to say, after 2.5 hours of writing down various rules I'm starting to learn them.

Now, it's up to me to actually start using the language which is the best way to plunge in to it.

Kera gets home from London tonight, late. There's flowers in the new kitchen for her. Have to be the good guy once in awhile.

O.K., night.

Lazy Sunday

A couple of pics from the photos I took over the weekend.

I think I've mentioned this before, but nearly everything is closed on Sunday's in Germany. It's mandated by the government. Therefore, it's rather difficult to get anything done outside the house/apt.

That's pretty much happened with Kera and me today. Our shipping container from America arrived on Friday. It looked like a box bomb had gone off by the time the movers left. Tough guys... 4 floors, no elevator and a lot of stuff that included a large number of heavy wood furniture pieces. Almost everything arrived unscathed.

Anyway, my back's been bugging me for some reason and the heavy lifting probably hasn't helped at all. So, today, I tried to take it easy and Kera puttered around putting a few things away. Puttering meant I think she cleared 10 or so boxes. I helped a little but spent a fair portion of the day working on homework.

We went out for a bit to eat a late lunch and walk around a little. Kera got her stuff ready to leave on a 2 day business trip to London and I did more homework. After some serious thought and discussion, I've decided to continue with the next level of class. Along with that, I think I need to force myself to start speaking Deutsch a lot more often. It's tough as I don't like looking like an idiot... except when I mean to.

Kera left around 5:00 for the airport. After she left, I finished homework and the Dave Chapelle DVD's we'd rented. I went out after finishing only to find that the video store is also closed on Sunday night. Ugh. I then took a little walk in the drizzle just to get some fresh air and see if I could dig up a late dinner. I ended up picking up a yummy pizza from the corner pizzeria and playing at home.

Tomorrow, it's school registration and a new kitchen. Wish me/us luck!

test - photo upload gone wrong.

Day or two late but I love the photo. Thought it fitting for my profile pic as I can't seem to get 'real' photos to load.

Hmmm.. little to report actually

Remind me that sleeping on an air mattress sucks if I ever happen to comment otherwise.

I didn't sleep well last night, so Kera got up and did a long run on her own. I woke up slightly before she got home. After that, I did a quick grocery run so she'd have breakfast and then went for a run after she left for work.

The English Garden is only about a 6-8 minute run from our house. A pretty spectacular place to run or hang out. It's basically a long forest running through Munich for miles. I couldn't tell you how many beer gardens or restaurants it contains. At any one time though, there are hundreds of people there doing something (walking dogs, playing with kids, running, laying about in the sun, etc.) like any big park.

Anyway, Kera and I had lunch together and then I went and wandered about the city with my new friend Christian. We were specifically looking for a front brake and lever for my fixed gear. If you've never ridden one or know what they are, think track bike. If the wheels move, the cranks move. Mine's like that with no brakes. In a city where so many people ride and walk, most without a clue; it can be rather dangerous.

We ended up going to a half dozen bike shops and covering a good part of the city on foot. Pretty amazing how a city shrinks as you figure more about it. Munich, proper, seems so much smaller than K.C. when you start wandering around. I think what makes it tough on some levels is that you can't see landmarks when you're amongs all the 5-6 story apartment buildings, which are everywhere in the city.

When you look in bike shops here it's very different than in the states. Most have commuter bikes as their "bread and butter". After that comes mountain bikes and a select few do some road stuff. It's a completely different thought process than in our part of the midwest where bikes are for a select group of people and then it's almost completely mtb or road oriented.

Found out that our furniture is to arrive at 8:00 a.m. on Friday morning. Our washer/dryer and TV are all slated to arrive the same day. Woo-hoo!

Talk to you soon.

Montag and I'm off of school for a week.

I'm off of school for a week due to some unknown German holiday. As most people know, Europeans, in general, love their vacations. Therefore, there are quite a few. Luckily, Kera's off tomorrow and we'll go for a ride and relax.

This past weekend we went for a mountain bike ride with some of the local ex-pats and a few "locals". Kera was doing well, but the pace turned out to be too fast (I don't blame her at all) and she went back about a 1/3 of the way in to the ride. She's a newbie mountain biker and you combine that with wet leaves on unfamiliar trail as well as a super fast tempo and it tends to make even an experienced rider, like me, nervous.

I ended up riding with the boys for another 3+ hours along with a 1 hour beer garden and food stop at the 1/2 way point. This beer garden appeared to be only accessible by riding or walking. Somewhere, I'm guessing, there are roads in to the place as there were just as many road bikes there as mountain bikes. All totaled, I'd say close to 200 bikes. "We're not in Kansas anymore Toto!"

By the time we got done, it was nearly dark, the fog was rolling in and it was getting cold. I still had about a 6 mile ride home and they give tickets for not having lights, reflectors, etc. in this town. I race home and through the English Garden as fast as I could.

While I was gone, Kera went wandering around town. I felt bad when her turning back, but she keeps telling me it was o.k. We just need to go with a slower group or by ourselves next time. We actually have a great time riding off-road together.

Other news... the apartment is coming together. We installed a track system in the hallway yesterday as well as a hanging globe in the dining area. We'd have hung two, but one was bent when we opened it. That means yet another trip to Ikea. We now have a cool TV stand and the TV is to be delivered on Friday of this week. This afternoon they come to finish installing the shower enclosure. Next Monday, they are supposed to install our kitchen (yes, in one day). I'm also supposed to register for Deutsch class level II on the same day. Phew!

Kera will be in London for a business trip for a few days, so I get do wrangle the whole thing solo.

O.K., have to finish installing fenders on Kera's bike, run to the bank and do some other errands. Have a great week and I'll attempt to keep updating this on a semi-regular basis.

The Blog lives...

Nothing to say today... just wait till tomorrow. Then... you'll have more story than you probably want. Really!