Sultan’s Trail: Preparations start in Totnes

Posted by

0

My big bicycle adventure on the Sultan’s trail from Vienna to Istanbul is still two month away, but given other trips in the meantime, best not to leave key preparations to the last-minute. Most importantly I need a touring bike (my old one is probably still chained up in Canary Wharf) and a bit of cycling outfit as well as repair and safety gear. So I was off to Totnes, Devon.

The bike
SULTANS TRAIL

Totnes is right in the southwest of england, not too far from Exeter. I found a decent hybrid/touring bike on ebay with the caveat to pick it up down here. The chap selling the bike, as his father told me, is currently travelling in New Zealand. Good deal overall. Just the 5 Ortlieb panniers would have set me back the same amount that I got all-in. Well, i needed a few extras which the ‘hot pursuit bike shop‘ in town happily supplied. All sorted apart from the pre-tour overhaul i will do in london (chain, sprocket, etc).

Since the handover was quick and my nightbus not on for a few hours I took the bike for a little spin. First stop at pub for beer and sandwich (which i had to defend from rather aggressive seagull). From there you pass through fields in all their lovely colours, little villages with mostly ancient stone cottages and cosy pubs that invite you for a stop. Very pretty and enjoyable. Fitness levels on the other hand need a lot of work. I hope the Elbe canoeing and more so the hike on the Scottish National trail preceding the bike journey will get me up to speed.

I didn’t leave it too late to get back to town in order to dismantle the bike still in daylight. Taking off wheels and mud-guards and a bike bag were necessary to travel  on the bus. Hanging out in Totnes while and after packing up the bike and waiting for the bus turned out rather full of conversations…  Covering all topics with older and younger folks alike. Hopefully the way to Istanbul will turn out similar.

Advertisements

Russia top, Germany flop… But great world cup!

Posted by

0

And so quickly is my time in St Petersburg over and it’s time to go home… Just like for ‘Die Mannschaft’ 🇩🇪 yet in a completely different mood. I want to express my gratitude to Russia 🇷🇺 for a truly perfect organisation of FIFA18 and to my friends for many moments with great emotions that will life on forever. Ahead lie 2,5w in London, motorbike license and more refurbishing work before I finally get back outdoors. First up is project ‘Canoe 🛶 Elbe: Usti n.l. ➡️ Cuxhaven’. Much to prepare.

School – much to learn still… 🤓

School was ok though it is also clear that from B1 level its gonna be a long and hard way to progress. Textbook suggests 320h towards B2 in total – I have barely 50h behind me. Let’s see how far Skype classes get me. Definitely need more vocab though grammar is beginning to make sense. The improved language skills this time definitely suggest its worthwhile the effort.

An epic thursday night prevented me from any other studies than how to recover. But given it’s the only day I skipped, its ok. Also managed to catch up with my Skype teacher Daria last week in a nice Georgian restaurant (and thankfully with signficantly less impact on my ability to attend school the next day).

More football – WTF Die Mannschaft! 🇩🇪 

Amidst a lively week only one thing remained consistent and was sadly the poor performance of the German national team. No hunger, no pace, no ideas… In a way I am glad its over. It was really hard to watch for any football fan.

Well done to Sweden for a convincing performance against Mexico and to South Korea for laying bare how bad the German side was. Well, at least Colombia 🇨🇴 went through.

Russia 🇷🇺 kicking a$$ – Защищай 🔫 

The complete opposite was the Russian team that gifted me and my friends an unforgettable last night in Russia by kicking out Spain. The level of the game was low. Russia defended with all they had, Spain had few ideas to break that iron curtain… And lost on penalties.

Emotions in our favorite football venue, the corner pub, went wild. Even more on the underground and on Nevskiy Prospekt later on. Memories forever. Bodo & Steve saw the game live in Moscow before taking the night train over to St Pete.

Felix the beast & Russian rugby

Felix plays in a St Pete rugby team for a few years now. To most of my Russian friends the sheer existence of this sport in Russia was surprising. So we took Felix up on his invitation and watched the battle of the titans. Despite our full support they lost. Well, a liter of beer will help Felix to get over it 🍻

Bit of sightseeing as well

It was not all about football, rugby or school though. Apart from hanging out, watching football and school I also managed a bit of sight-seeing. It was a cold saturday morning, but enjoyable to refresh some city facts in the busiest free tour I have come across.

Back in St. Petersburg

Posted by

0

Hello Russia, hello FIFA 2018 world cup, hello friends! The first week flew just past me over here amidst a mix of a heavy school schedule, two live matches, many good friends to catch up with and time with the grandparents of my son. Sightseeing simply has to wait.

Mexicans everywhere…

Arguably i was a little tired on the red eye flight over from Ibiza, a party skewed weekend and an unexpected loss of Germany. It didn’t exactly boost my mood that I had to skip my connection to St Petersburg in Moscow due to luggage transfer delays nor did the Mexican’s everywhere help. Thankfully I was undercover in my Zenit shirt 🙈🙉🙊.

Russian welcome: Olivier & Cognac

I am staying at my son’s grandparents this time. Helps the progress in Russian, time to watch football with Viktor (even Larisa is interested) and gives us some time to talk as far as my Russian capabilties allow. First evening as usual a big dinner including the traditional salad olivier and, of course, cognac. Good to have Russian meals back on the menu.

School – starting at B1 level

I have, at least on paper, by now reached B1 intermediate level in all three languages in have studied since last year July. Arguably I struggled most to get there in Russian despite the tremendous patience and weekly skype efforts of my teacher Daria who I have weekly skype classes with. Thanks to the unnamed soldiers for their help with the tests 😎.

On top of the weekly efforts, the extra exposure to spoken Russian with family, friends and ‘farm’ people in Issad have problably made a difference. Grammar still needs a lot of work, but i am hopeful as progress feels very good and I feel comfortable in class by now despite a certainly narrower vocabulary than most of my classmates.

My group consists of mainly US students (most of which have been at the language for almost 3y). First test (mainly dative & instrumental cases as well as public holidays) also went well with 87% score. I miss my group from last year though. Its not as much fun though more intensive owing to lower student count (partly seasonal, partly due to prohibitively priced accomodation during FIFA18).

Football in large daily doses

First up of course very enjoyable live matches – Russia / Egypt (3:1) with Ekaterina & Hadley and Brasil / Costa Rica (2:0) with Yuri & Daniel. All is very well organised here, transport infrastructure more than capable of dealing with the many visiting fans and athmosphere very nice (especially around Nevskiy and Rubishteina).

Besides live gigs, we meet regularly to watch games together – be it at home, in retaurants or bars. Germany’s last minute win still weighs on my voice. Great times, great guys. Really makes a difference to know people on the ground (eg the complete opposite of my early days in Amsterdam).

Enough for now. Germany 🇩🇪 is playing soon. Auf geht’s Jungs!

Ibiza: Friends & Burglars

Posted by

0

Stag weekends are not something that warrant too detailed blog posts – be it that we were probably way too well-behaved for such a big occasion. Sean is gonna marry his Jen this year and it was a great occasion to meet many of the faces that make up his large group of friends.

Sean & Jen: Picture from our Ascot outing in 2016

Laptop preferred to stay in Barca …

My journey to Ibiza didn’t start off too well, as I somehow managed to leave my laptop in the security area at Barcelona airport. Well, it has thankfully been recovered.

Nice villa, nice vibes…

The flight was only an hour and upon arrival I right away joined the guys at the beach. Most didn’t look too bad after the previous night and many only made it to Ibiza that day (well, apart from one whose plane got hit by a lightning). The beach atmosphere was great as you would expect in Ibiza. A bit of music, drinks and nice weather. Cant ask for a lot more. The boys also picked a nice Villa so we all could stay in the same place, talk, get a few drinks, BBQ and occasionally sleep.

nor
oznor
cof
rpt
frem
rpt
edf

Burglar alarm!

Aside from the party aspects, which I will skip here, the biggest highlight was an attempted burglary at our residence. Thankfully we had a by now heroic fellow staying behind and nothing got stolen. Subsequently police joined us for a while to record details.

dav
mde

What happened here? MEX-GER 1:0

My personal low point of the weekend was certainly Germany’s world cup opening match against Mexico. We played poorly and lost deserved 1:0 (at the time of writing we have at least managed to beat Sweden and now have our fate in our own hands again).

Great weekend! Thanks to the organisers. See you all in Scotland!

dav

Barcelona: Hasta Pronto!

Posted by

0

The second week in Barcelona went even quicker than the first one after an eventful weekend outside the city. Days pretty busy at school, evenings often in either Born or Gracia barrios – usually after a brief and well deserved siesta. Highlights included a really nice dinner at Carpe Diem, visits to Monjuic fortress, Tibidabo and La Boqueria market. Russia was also off to a spectacular start at the world cup. Next stop is Ibiza for Sean’s bachelor party after saying goodbye to Laura who returned home. I certainly need to come back to Barcelona – two weeks don’t do this great city any justice.

cof
cof
edf
edf
edf
edf
cof
edf

La Boqueria Market

I love hanging out in this market be it that its central location make it pricey and a rather popular tourist destination. Felt a little bit like our outdoor spanish class in Medellin’s Minorista market to train fruit & vegetable vocab. You can sample all sorts of fruit, jamon and other artesian stuff at La Boqueria. I wouldn’t recommend coming here for your weekly shopping trip though :o) anyway, a beer with a bit of serrano always lightens up my mood.

cof
fbt
cof
edf
oznor
oznor
oznor

Tibidabo

Tibidabo is the highest mountain in the city (512m) offering superb views. There you find the pretty Sagrat Cor church and, if you are into this stuff, an amusement park (felt pretty deserted compared to the masses of tourists elsewhere in Barcelona).

Monjuic fortress

Hidden well behind the more prominent National Art Museum of Catalonia lies the historically important Barcelona fortress. It is very well maintained, offers great views over port as well as downtown barcelona and it worth a visit.

cof
dav
rpt
dav
oznor
rpt
dav
oznor
edf
oznor
ptr
ptroz
dav

Inside you find pretty informative rooms laying out the history and importance of the fortress to Barcelona and Catalonia overall. There was also an exhibition on the history of education in Spain and Catalunia with some interesting facts. Not quite the size and prominence of my home town fortress, but really well maintained and worth half a day of your time.

This fortress is to Barcelona what the Bastille was to Paris or the Peter and Paul fortress to Saint Petersburg.

– Joseph Kessel, Argentina

Spanish school finished

nor
dav

Admittedly my spanish has come a long way in the past two weeks as grammatical options as well as vocabulary stepped up a level. It was also great fun and well organised… I really recommend Camino Barcelona school!

edf
mde
mde
edf
rpt
rhdr
nfd
mde