A Lovely Train Ride

Sometime you simply can’t let the stupid stuff get to you. I’m sitting in a train traversing Switzerland en route Kaiserslautern Germany from Italy, the second stop for the work week of travel. Magnificent doesn’t come close to describing the view of Swiss Alps with its scenic lakes and breathtaking mountains. Of course they look even better with a wonderful (and expensive) meal in the restaurant car resplendent with a half bottle of wine and an espresso afterward. Sometime travel doesn’t suck.

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.

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.

A Humbling Race

Nineteen years ago at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas I ran my last race; involuntarily. Having run on and off pretty much since school I’m not in bad shape, albeit slower all the time. I was therefore both flattered and a bit leery when a neighbor asked if I’d join a group in the Amberg-Sulzbach Landkeislauf (local county run), an eleven person, 36 mile, relay. Walter insisted it was a “just for fun” group of eleven middle aged men and women with no pressure … right. Although I hate running hills, I didn’t protest when assigned the third, and only uphill, leg of the race … that silly pride thing again.

Anyway, the race took place 16 May and only one word came to mind at the time … humbling. The transfer point was a zoo, way too narrow for 380 reported teams to reasonably hand off; I never saw my teammate cross the line amongst a large throng and only tagged hands after he shouted my name. I was soon passed by perhaps 20 people; the only consolation being only one had ANY gray hair and he still only looked to be thirty. Call me a chauvinist but the five women who passed made it worse still; even if they were half my age. Somehow I did manage to pass six or seven folks and spent most of the race trading places with a yellow shirted young gent … he had a small advantage uphill but the occasional flats were clearly mine. I really expected to have something, anything, left in the way of a kick at the end but couldn’t pass yellow shirt on the upslope and crossed the line completely exhausted a bit over 29 minutes (3.6 miles). Luckily, the next teammate at least spotted me. Lisa claimed I looked “dead”.

It is pleasing to announce that the “Christian August Sprinters” (our street is named after a local 17th century prince who ruled our fare city; I can only assume the last name implying speed was an inside joke) placed 205th among 324 finishing teams. The Amberg Ski Club won; an hour and a quarter ahead of us. In typical German fashion the winners were announced in a large beer tent and we celebrated our showing that evening with a wonderful small barbeque.

Now for the part that confuses me. For the past three years I’ve tracked runs on a spreadsheet and have a clue how well or, more often, poorly I do in distance, time and pace. My best pace is highlighted automatically and historically has always been on the flat as a pancake Katy trail along the Missouri River when visiting my folks. I did not feel like the race had been a good run but … in a huge surprise, it was the fastest pace I’d booked these three years. You tell me what to make of it. I did get a t-shirt.

Boring winters and a longing for Beer Gardens

Yes, I’ve not written much … because the weather here is worse than sub-optimal and has frozen any semblance of creative juices that may have been thinking of leaking to a keyboard. Despite the rain, we’ve had two successive days over 40°F and in self-disgust I’ll try to bring you up to speed.
Of course, catching up shouldn’t be real hard since my last entry: in September I took the train back down to the Alps alone and hiked up the Wendelstein mountain … a very interesting weekend of solitude, I can’t recall ever spending three full days without conversation. Therapeutic, I might do it again. Lisa and I went to London in November, it was a fabulous trip: we saw the musicals We Will Rock You (fantastic!!) and Wicked (pedestrian after We Will Rock You); ate lots of ethnic food, got real good at using the tube and generally played tourist in lousy weather. It is, after New York, the coolest city I’ve ever visited. My pal Chip and I went skiing in January down in Austria … two of seven days were fabulous, the rest sub-optimal at best. I finally gave in to prudence and started wearing a helmet; and with such lousy visibility actually put it to use while auditioning more than once for the Wide World of Sports Agony of Defeat. I’ve made two or three boring and rushed business trips to the states and a few interesting ones in Europe … Vicenza, Italy again proving to be of interest. This time I opted for a hotel on the edge of the UNESCO world heritage city and spent quality time wandering its alleys and parks … yet again, mostly in the rain or snow.
After moving up a league last season and getting clobbered, the old men of Sulzbach basketball finally bit the bullet and joined five other clubs in an over 30 league (alas, no over 40 teams to be had in the entire region). Unfortunately, only two other clubs actually fielded teams or managed to schedule games and we’ve a meager 1:1 record. A much more casual league, the hosts usually bring a case of German beer for the immediate aftermath and the refs crack jokes about giving technical fouls to anybody who tries to do a fast break (who, us?). We’re debating if the fun casual quality of guys closer to our age is better than the quantity of playing kids (ok, young men) less than half our age.
Culturally, work has generally beat out reading or flicks but there have been a few gems to pass on. If you’ve not seen “Slumdog Millionaire” … do so … today! It was a very pleasant surprise during a recent trans-Atlantic flight. Expecting a Bollywood dance flick, it actually had a real edge to it and still remained suspenseful fun. As a birthday present, Lisa got me Tiziano Terzani's “A Fortune Teller Told Me” … a delightful book by an American educated Italian journalist working for a German news magazine in Asia. He decides to head the twenty year old warning of a Hong Kong fortune teller to avoid flight in 1993. He proceeds to travel throughout Asia by land and sea (difficult anymore) for a year checking out all the “best” fortune tellers in an odd attempt to debunk them. The “Reluctant Fundamentalist”, by Mohsin Hamid is short but riveting as it recants the life of a Pakistani Princeton graduate post 9/11 via a discourse with an American stranger in Lahore. Both will make you think. If you’re into a bit longer American history, Robert Morgan’s “Boone” is a long and slow but worthwhile look at the man that conquered Kentucky. At times astonishing, it’ll make most of us 21st century desk jockeys ponder our chances of survival without technology.
What am I up to now you ask? Looking out the window at rain and wishing the wonderful Bavarian Beer Gardens were open with a rush of Spring-like weather! Cheers.