Sunday, July 31, 2011
A train story
Saturday, July 9, 2011
The isle of Santorini
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The 11th Anniversary of my 39th Birthday
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Heidelberg
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Basketball Update
The rest of the story is our semi-official senior’s league is once again not turning out as we’d hoped. The idea is a more relaxed schedule, no need for neutral refs, beers on the court afterwards … or slightly more emphasis on fun over hard competition. Just as last year, five clubs signed on and again all but two of us have failed to get enough guys together to get schedule games. We lost our first game to Weiden but they soon thereafter dropped from the league. So instead of 20 or 30 games in a season in the competitive normal leagues, we may only see 3 this year. Schwandorf will try for revenge on our home court on the 27 March … be there!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
A Lovely Train Ride
Of course, sometimes it does suck … and earlier in the day would have been one. From Vicenza the plan to Kaiserslautern called for ten and a half hours on four trains. Unfortunately, the train into Milan was seventeen minutes late and the connection to Zürich was missed. After a long wait at the ticket counter a less than brilliant ticket agent gave me an itinerary adding four hours to the trip (he was sticking to my exact itinerary rather than look at the best way to “K-town”). That he also insisted I shouldn’t worry about the “compulsory reservations” didn’t make me feel very … er … comfortable. I called Lisa and a few minutes later she had much better connections off the Internet which only added two hours. After standing through the line again and demanding to speak with the supervisor everything was as good as it was going to get and here I am en route Basel, Switzerland (vice Zürich) and points onward.
The Milan station is one of the biggest I’ve seen; built under Mussolini, grand isn’t an adequate word for the architecture; but pathetic isn’t an adequate word for the overall rating. Hungry, annoyed from the ticket agent and with over an hour to kill, I toured a huge facility under renovation seeing scores of shops ready to open, but all closed; and to my utter amazement, not a single café or restaurant offering seats and food.
OK, enough complaining, if you ever get a chance to take the Cisalpino train from Milan to Basel, do so!!
Now let me backup to earlier in the week to the stay in Vicenza Italy; as you may have noticed previously, Italy is one of my favorite countries despite some real shortcomings in the service department. The train down Sunday, via Munich, was long but uneventful; but when you get off the train and the world is just pleasantly different: fantastic architecture (Jefferson’s Monticello is modeled after a building here) is not always well maintained but still just cool; a beautiful young woman in a stunning sleeveless slit dress and spike heeled sandals riding a bike to work with a baby trailer on the main street (you just don’t see that in St. Louis); a businessman wearing purple slacks that don’t look wrong. And everywhere at night, people of all ages out and about walking the old city (an UNESCO World Heritage City) or enjoying a sidewalk café. Three nights with three great meals just make it that much better. And the mission behind the trip went fairly well too. I’d also decided on an early morning run yesterday through a cool looking ancient arched gate with a very long steep stone stairway up a hill thinking the view had to be gorgeous. It was gorgeous but the real hill was hidden from bottom view. At a pace hardly more than a fast walk (i.e. nearly dying) I reached the third stage in a long climb and started seeing American Soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Infantry Brigade doing physical training. They were running the same hill … with full rucksacks. They’re preparing for deployment to Afghanistan and seem physically ready to me. It always does my heart good to see young stud Infantrymen doing their thing. I ran a lot faster on the way down by the way.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Turkish Riviera
Sun, sand, beach volleyball, a great resort hotel and plenty of the local schnapps “raki” … a wonderful mix for six days in Alanya, Turkey! Lisa and I have been in Turkey several times but this was my first to this particular region and I was favorably impressed. You can see some of the photos clicking here. Early excitement included the bus (large van) transfer from the airport … I was OK with our race driver since we made it before dinner closed down at the hotel; Lisa was just a wee bit concerned with the use of speed limits signs, stop lights, stop signs and lane marking as mere decoration. It should have taken two and a half hours, he pulled it off in an hour and three quarters. Since the driver spoke neither English nor German there probably wasn’t much we could have done about it anyway :-).
We enjoyed a tour of the city, with its fantastic ancient fort/castle; complete with a pleasant boat trip around the peninsula. Released to the market for an hour the guide designated the restaurant TexMex as our rendezvous. It was fascinating to us due to the sombreros on the wall … and huge water pipes on many tables; the nachos weren’t half bad either. We went back downtown to the harbor one evening and found it very pleasant as well.
The Maritim Hotel Club Alantur was great and we had spacious room with large balcony with a view of the Mediterranean and the city’s peninsula in the distance. With over 500 meters of beachfront it was hardly crowded and it boasted a lovely botanical garden with fountains and grassy shade for those that didn’t want sand. The outdoor restaurant was more than adequate as were the beach bars. Our only complaints were the steel planks that passed as mattresses and sparing allowance of air conditioning. Oh, and the entertainment team … wasn’t. We linked up early with an Austrian couple and had many a fine conversation. For my part, beach volleyball was a blast twice a day and there was a long (at least 5 kilometers, I never made it to the end) promenade perfect for morning runs.
Not a huge report since it was a short trip but uneventful isn’t bad for a vacation regardless of length. I was back at work 14 hours after getting home … oh well.