After a great snowboarding trip I only worked a few days and went off on a trip again on the 18th of Dec.

I had a direct flight to Phoenix, AZ and after waiting for quite some time for my taxi to the dropzone in Eloy, I finally arrived there at around 21:00h. The only thing left open was the Bent Prop, the DZ's bar, and when I walked in, Binxy, a friend from Weston, was the first one to great me. We had a pint and another and then a few more and before I knew it I was climbing the outside wall of the pub?! It was a great way to start the holiday.

The jetleg was stronger than the hangover and I woke up around 8ish the next morning. I checked in with manifest and there was my shiny new rig! After sorting out everything the jumping began. I did a solo jump to get used to my new canopy, a Saber2 170 in a Vector 3 and a few 2,3 and 4 ways. Then I decided to try to sit-fly. So I talked to Matt Hill, the load organizer of the day and my tunnel coach. He took his time to fully brief me as I have never tried to sit-fly before. I went to the shop, got me a free-fly suit and then we went up. To my surprise I sat almost all the way down. I continued to do more sits to practice before my tunnel coaching started. The next day, Doug, another friend from Weston, his Dad and Anna, Binxy's girlfreind arrived and we did a few jumps together. For the next few days were all jumping and tunnel, drinking at the brent prop, sleeping in the bunkhouse, getting up early and repeat!

I started the tunnel on my 3rd day and had only booked an hou, which at first seemed plenty. I soon discovered that I wanted more and then more again, so I ended up with 3h of coached time in the tunnel. It was fantastic and a big thanks goes out to Matt for his patience with me and teaching me so much cool stuff. We started with some back-flying and learned to walk in the tunnel. Then I went on to learn some transitions from front to back, back to front and back to sit on the net. Finally I was ready to try to fly my first sit. From there on it practicing more transitions, taking docks, moving around in the tunnel in all directions... I usually had 15-30 min of tunnel time in a day, so there was enough time to get at least 5 jumps in as well. It was quite hard work but it was great fun.

On the 24th I flew over to California to see my host family from when I was an exchange student way back in 1994. I hadn't seen them for about 4 years now and it was great to catch up with everyone. Unfortunately I only stayed a couple days and went back to Eloy on the 26th for more jumping and tunnel.

Now the Christmas Boogie had started, jump tickets were cheaper and the evenings were filled with activities, like a big bond fire night, a talent show with people singing, playing guitar, belly dancing, ... I even learned how to breathe fire and by the end of the night we were all dancing like crazy. This is the reason why we got an insurance for extreme sports, its not the jumping that is dangerous!

The days, again, were filled with lots of jumping, I mostly did sit flying, because I really wanted to get good at it. But I did a few flat jumps with the other guys from Weston. Besides jumping out of the usual planes, the Skyvan and the Otter,

I had a chance to jump out of a Porter, a DC-3

and an old Beech!

One afternoon we booked ourself a balloon jump.

I had never flown in a balloon before and the feeling of floating above the ground silently is fantastic.

We were at about 5000 feet and you watch the others fall straight down and you think: "Dude! Time to pull! Uhm, pull? Ok, honestly, I think its time to pull!" And then I stept onto the side of the basket with my back to the outside and just let myself fall backwards. After a few backloops I checked my altitude and saw that I still had quite a bit of time left, more than I expectde, so I did some few turns, watched the balloon and eventually pulled...

... and landed somewhere in the desert where some of the other were already waiting. What a jump!!!

Soon the boogie was over and it was time to go back home.

My goal for the year was to reach 100 jumps, I am now 3 short of 200, my sit flight is not bad and I am sure it won't be long before I get back to Eloy. Besides being broke, I am not sure what the plan for this year is gonna be, hopefully take part in the nationals with a free-fly team, learn to fly head down and maybe get up to 400 jumps !? Lets just see. One thing is for sure, I am a tiny bit addicted!

My sister, Urte, and I decided to go snowboarding in Austria for my birthday. So, I flew over to Hamburg on the 5th where, to my surprise, my parents picked me up at the airport. We spent a great evening at my sisters, having a little pre-christmas celebration before Urte and I took off for a long drive to the Austrian Alps.

My sister drove for the first half and I did the last part. We arrived in  Stubaitahl around 9-10ish, found ourselves a little apartment in Gasteig and went snowboarding.

We had fantastic weather for the first few days and there were hardly any people on the slopes. Then it started snowing quite a bit and the winds picked up too.

On my birthday it was so windy that they closed the lifts and we decided to go sled riding instead. But only after a wonderful cake breakfast my sister had prepared.

I got a great Japanese Shun vegetable knife, which is made from a very impressive folded steel. My mom made me a beautiful coffee cup which my dad made a sugar holder for, so I can enjoy some Feuerzangenbowle (by myself!). There were yummy sweets, the obligatory boxer shorts and not to forget a Spanish girlfriend! She was quite puzzling and completely head and legless.

So, after the breakfast we drove into the mountains, parked at a tiny little parking spot by the side of the rode and walked up the mountain for about an hour and arrived at a beautiful little hut called Brandstattalm. There we rented a couple sleds and went down an about 4km long ride. It was great fun so we decided we go up again. We stopped for a little picnic and my sister pulled out a couple nifty glasses and some sparkling wine.

Once we got to the Hut we decided to stop for a drink and some Kaiserschmarrn. It was homemade and delicious. Then we went down again, this time racing each other. Once at the bottom we went up parts of the last bit again a couple times and of course racing each other turned into a little pile up with both of us getting a bit bruised :)

For the rest of our time there it was snowing and snowing and snowing. We always had fresh soft snow under our boards and even though the visibility was not that great it was a lot of fun. On the way back to Hamburg, we stopped in Frankfurt to see my good friend Alexandra Winkler. Unfortunately we had way to little time to properly catch up.

Urte and I had to get up quite early on Monday so that I could catch my flight back to London. Ontop of that the BA staff was giving me a very hard time about checking in my snowboard. It ended with me having to put all my clothes that I stuffed into the snowboard bag into a separate box and check it in along with my gear, no extra cost but an extra box to check in ?!?! At first they did not even want to let me check in my board at all. Someone explain that logic!

Jonathan Ashe organised some FS coaching. So, on the 25th of October, after a few jumps, we started with dirtdiving some formations which we would later try to repeat in the tunnel. Then we drove to  Bodyflight, a wind tunnel in Bedford. After signing up and some more dirtdivng the fun began.

We started with a couple 1-on-1 sessions, practicing the basics and chacing each other in the tunnel. Then we went on to some 2-on-2 sessions, mainly practicing turns and docks and forward/backward and side sliding. We then went on to do some 4-way formations, 2 students and 2 coaches. We finished the evening with doing some 4-way formations with just students and the coach just watching.

It was a fantastic experience and a big thanks goes out to everyone involved in organizing it.

I've been pretty much jumping every available weekend, weather permitting. It's been fantastic and I have learned a lot. Most of my jumps were 2-ways with Debbie Sanderson. We had a good mix of plain flat flying, improving our skills, and a bit of mucking about. We did start jumping with others, too, and did some 3-ways and 4-ways. And I even did a 11-way tracking dive at the end of one evening with the sun setting at the horizon.

The following video is Andy Moss. We ended up doing our spin a bit early, but it was good fun! I am the one in black with black gloves and blue container with pink writing on it.

The next one was a 4-Way wit Debbie, Tracy and Andy. Our exit was a total desaster and I think very well captured ;).

Jump 93 was a 3-Way with Debbie and Andy. We did a bet with Richard Head of the Phobia team that we could do the formation and it all went pretty much as planned and we won a beer !!!

Being confident we went on to do another 3-Way. We were all supposed to be linked together in a compressed accordion (the 2 outside ones are facing torwards the feet of the inside one). Then one of the outside people will go up and over the other 2 with a 180 turn and then dock again, then the next person...
As you can see, we did not even get to the compressed accordion. I am the one in black with black gloves again.

Last weekend was the scrambles. It is a little competition where they make 4 pots with each one having the names of people from different ability levels. Then teams are drawn with one skydiver from each pot. The teams then get a set of 4 formations for each round they have to dive. There are no practice dives, only dirt diving on the ground using creepers in the hanger. The first 35 seconds, once the team is out of the door, count. The team has to get as many points by repeatedly building the formations in the order given.

Our team consisted of Martin ???, Richard Head and Gier ???. We got 12 points and ranked pretty much top of the list with one other team!

Unfortunately the weather turned bad and the scrambles had to be called off. Instead of jumping we ended up doing indoor competitions on the creepers, same rules same teams except now you had to push yourself around instead of flying.

In the evening was a party with  Oktoberfest theme.
I missed a bit of it because I wanted to be there for Kate's 30th birthday dinner. So I went to London, had a lovely dinner with Kate and friends and then went back to Weston.

Unfortunately the next day was even worse than the Sat. It did not stop raining and it was very windy. So, the 2nd day of the scrambles was called off.

This coming weekend looks a bit more promising, so I am hoping to get a few more jumps in before the season ends.

Kate and I had planned to go on little 3-day barge trip for a while. Unfortunately our breakup changed the plans a bit. I did end up going with a few of my colleagues and friends.

We got to  Lee Valley Boats Center early Friday afternoon and checked out our boat, Emily. A 68ft long canal boat!!! It would have fitted 10 people but we were only 6, Duncan, Roger, Jarkko, Tina, Kym and I. So, there was going to be plenty of space just in case we would not get along ;).

Before leaving though, we had to quickly buy some food and booze! This was when the first rain poured down on us... nothing like a british summer weekend!

After a few driving lessons we took off north to the first lock and on to the next... We had to do all the lock handling ourselves, which turned out to be quite some fun and by the end we had a good "team setup".

The weather started clearing up and it started getting darker. We made it all the way to Ware, where we decided to have dinner at a little pub. The food was great and the weather got worse, it started pouring down like crazy. Back on the boat we ended up drinking more wine and beer and played some card games til late that night.

The next morning started out with a bit of sun and we made our way up to Hertford. We planned to visit a castle there, but it turned out to be a bit different than we expected. It wasn't really anything to visit. But, we got some more shopping done (because we drank all the booze already) and made our way back down the river. That night we cooked ourselves and just ate, drank and talked till late.

On Sunday we went up further north towards Harlow. We had plenty of sunshine and the river was much narrower and also prettier. Plenty of locks and nice scenery.

It was a very peaceful ride on the boat, with no more than 5mph. But it sometimes can be too peaceful. So, we ended up doing silly things like cartwheels on the roof,

or climbing up and down bridges while the boat passes underneath it ;)

We got back to Broxbourne oround 17:00h on Sunday. It was a very relaxing weekend and everyone seemed to have enjoyed it.

I did more wakeboarding, almost twice a week since I got it. Unfortunately the bindings broke due to a material fault, but I got them replaced for some better ones. I am learning a few tricks like jumping kickers with 180 turns, doing spins, ... but it is all going quite slowly. It is a lot of fun though and a good balance for my rather inactive job.

End of July Kate and I went to Edinburgh for a long weekend to see a Tom Waits concert. It was fantastic and one of the few live concerts I truly enjoyed.

The rest of the weekends, weather permitting it, I went skydiving. I have joined the  Skydive Weston club, a much bigger drop zone than  London Parachute School. In the last 2 months I did more jumps there than the entire year before.

The dropzone is open from Fr. afternoon until Sun. night. Going back to London on Sat. and return early Sun. morning seems pretty silly, so I bought a tent, a mattress and a sleeping bag. It is not as comfortable as a VW mini bus, which I really really want, but oh so much cheaper. Which means more money left to spend on jump tickets.

Besides doing quite a number of solo jumps, I started jumping 2-ways, which are much more fun and I learned loads about flying in formation.

Two weeks ago I passed all my tests for the B-license with my 50th jump :). And last weekend I passed my Formation Skydiving 1 test, which means I am now allowed to jump with others, or better: I am considered safe to jump with :).

As you can see in the video below I still have lots to learn. Honestly, I did the same jump before this one and it all went much smoother! I just blame it on exam phobia! ;)

I now have 64 jumps with a total of over 50min freefall. With having my B license and FS1 I need to set myself some new goals for this year. So, I am aiming to get up to at least 100 jumps and have my own parachute rig before the end of the year.

Unfortunately the last 2 months were not just all fun. Kate and I broke up :( It's been a great 3 years with her and she was the sweetest and most loving girlfriend I have ever been with. But it just did not work out, we somehow just don't match.

I went to my sister's 30th birthday a couple weeks ago. Besides having a great party we decided to go wakeboarding. It was to be my 3rd time. Marvin, Urte's boyfriend lent me his kiteboard and off we went.

I did have some starting difficulties ...

... but soon made it around the lake without much difficulty.

I can also jump in from the side.

And even did a run together with Urte.

My posture on the board clearly needs some work :)

Since that weekend I have been to the  Princes Club in London. And after trying it out on the weekend I decided to get a membership and my own kit. If I go after work I could be on the water within 45min, and getting home takes about 1:15h, so I am planning to go twice a week and if the weather is not good for skydiving then on the weekend too.

It is great fun and I am slowly getting better at it. I can now do tiny heel-side front-side 180s (e.g. left forward turn 180 counter clockwise to face right forward) either with as a tiny jump or just sliding on the water. I am working on my heel-side back-side turns (e.g left forward turn 180 clockwise to face right forward) but only managed to do it twice :(

After a little winter break it is time to fall out of planes again.

I used the good old AFF student kit for my first two jumps this year. It has a big 280sqft canopy, so it was no problem getting back into it. The first jump I did alone and for the second one Mark joined me to give me some FS1 (Formation Skydiving) coaching. To get to the next level I need to pass my FS1, so I figured the earlier I start practicing the earlier I get to the next level.

On our first two coaching jumps we just practiced getting out of the plane together and doing some slow and fast falling by de-arching and arching. The goal for me was to stay close to Mark after he lets go. The fast falling was not a problem. I just arched a lot, which made me drop faster and catch up with Mark. But, as you can see in the video, de-arching is a different matter. It took me a while to figure it out and it still looks wobbly.

On our third jump, we practiced turns while keeping at the same level. I kept drifting away while turning, probably because I was not keeping my eyes on Mark. I was also flying quite flat. But it was fun and I finished with a nice tracking-away.

During the training I downsized to a smaller canopy, a 210sqft one, which is a bit more responsive and a bit faster and a bit more fun flying.

We had a few days where we could not jump a lot. Either due to bad weather or a faulty plane. So, I used my time to practice packing. I have now passed my packing test and my packing certificate is sent off to be signed by the BPA :). This means jumping gets a bit cheaper and I don't have to wait for other people to pack my stuff.

There a few things left on my todo list to get my B-license, which I really really want to get before year's end. I have to get at least 23 more jumps in. Do my jumpmaster training, do at least 5 out of 10 accuracy landings within a 30m radius, ... So, as long as the weather does not let me down it all looks achievable.

Kym, Sophie, Kate and I decided to spend the May Bank Holiday weekend in Wales. We left for Swansea on Friday. The place we stayed at for the night was a pub that rented out rooms. When we got there there was a live band playing and we had to squeeze through the many people with our luggage ... very odd.

The next day we picked up our rental car and headed up the coast.

We took a walk to the Worm's Head and then had some food at the pub there. Afterwards we went to check into our B&B in Port Eynon. In the evening we had a lovely diner in a small restaurant near the bay.

On Sunday we took a walk along Rhossili bay and then drove up to Tenby. The weather was a mix of sunshine and a few little showers. Fortunatly we were mostly in the car when it did rain. On our way back we stopped along the coast and sat outside listening to the waves, drinking pims and enjoying a bit of sunshine.

Before getting back to the B&B we stopped at the Three Cliffs and watched the sun set.

What a sight to end the evening with!

On our last day we took a walk along the cliffs south of Worm's Head. It was a beautiful day.

Unfortunately we had to return the car and head back home. I would not have minded spending a few more days in Wales.

Kate got me 10 minutes of indoor skydiving for my birthday last December, and we finally found the time to do it. We both took the train to Milton Keynes, Kate wanted to do some indoor skiing there and I had booked my "flight-time".

It was quite different to jumping out of the plane. For one, it is not as pretty ... but you do get to see and feel how you much you move around in the air. When jumping out of a plane you don't really have a point of reference to see if you are drifting sideways or back and forth. In the windtunnel on the other hand you are surrounded by walls.

I flew 5 times for 2 minutes each. The first one was for getting used to how it all works and from there on the instructor gave me a bunch of things to do: Turning, shifting sideways, which I found quite difficult, Going backwards and forward and moving up and down. Then we went on to do diagonal movements, from lower edge to upper opposite edge ...

It was great fun and I learnt a lot.

Only a week after we got back from our trip to the Czech republic we took off again to go snowboarding in  Obergurgl. Kate booked us a hotel right next to the slopes in Hochgurgl. We flew out to Innsbruck on Sunday, checked into our hotel and rented some skis for Kate.

Monday's weather wasn't the best. It was windy and the slopes were a bit icy. It was Kate's first day skiing in about 10 years, but she managed just fine. We stayed on the blue slopes on the Hochgurgl side of the resort. It snowed all afternoon and all through the night.

Tuesday was much prettier, the sun was shining for the most part of the day and skiing got much easier for Kate. We went over to the Obergurgl side. I got to practise a few jumps and Kate tried a red run without even knowing.

Wednesday was a bad day again. It was snowing and windy and we could not see a whole lot, but we stayed on the slopes till closing time.
We had a deal with the ski rental place that, if Kate decided to buy some skis after 3 days, we would not have to pay for the rentals. So, in the evening Kate decided to purchased the same kind of skis, she was renting.

Thursday was a fantastic day with lots of sunshine. I could not wait to get out on the untouched snow. While Kate was getting ready I was out there doing a bit of off piste boarding and went back to the hotel to meet up with Kate. I had rented some snow blades(very short skis) for the day, which at first were a bit of pain but proved to be a lot of fun. We went over to the Obergurgl side again. I tried a few jumps and Kate practised going on a few red runs.

Friday was a bad day again. Snowing most of the day and visibility was quite bad. We stayed on the Hochgurgl side. We ended up finishing early because I hurt myself doing a stupid jump. The jump was actually very nice, just the landing wasn't quite right. I landed on my board on a steep part of the hill, fell on my back sliding downwards. The board caught the snow again and I summersulted head over feet down the hill, landing on my neck and back. I was glad that I wore a helmet and spine protector, checked that I could still feel my toes and was able to turn my head ... We did a couple more runs but my strained back and neck muscles did not approve of it too much and since the weather was pretty bad we decided to jut go back to the hotel.

Saturday was a great day again but also our last. :(
Even though I was still hurting quite a bit we had a fantastic day. We went all the way up to 3080m (Wurmkogl) which had a fantastic view of all the mountains around us. Kate's skiing had improved quite a bit in these few days and we enjoyed every minute on the slopes.

After we checked out of the hotel and returned Kate's rented boots we took a bus and train back to Innsbruck. Had a very nice meal in the old part of the town to finish off this wonderfull day.

Sunday it was raining in Innsbruck, so we visited a museum and stuffed ourselves with Sacher cake and Sacher coffee and took the plane back home in the evening.

I am looking forward to our next winter holiday :)

This is becoming a family tradition. For the past years we have been going cross country skiing in the Czech Republic. And so far we have been fortunate to have had plenty or at least sufficient amount of snow... Not this year :(.
The weather forecast had already been bad and we contemplated taking the skis. We did take them anyways, rather safe than sorry.

So, we took off. Kate and I visited Dirk and Susi in Leipzig and spend a night there before driving to the Czech Republic. On the way there we also stopped to pay my older sister, Ela, a visit, who was at a dancing competition with her daughters.

Then we got to Horní Blatna and it did not look at all like skiing. Most of the snow has melted away. Fortunately our host told us that there are a few places on the north side of the mountains left that may have enough snow. We decided to give it a try, packed our skis and hiking boots(just in case).

The snow was quite slushy but it was still OK to ski on it. Or even build a snowman ... a tiny one, though.

Sometimes there were patches of no snow and we either had to walk or venture off track trying to stay on the snow as long as possible doing zic-zacs around the trees.

The weather was gorgeous. It became so warm, over 20C in the sun that my sister and I decided to just ski in shorts and t-shirt.

The further we got to the south facing side of the mountain the less snow we had.

Up to a point where there was hardly any left.

The next day the weather got worse, it was very cloudy and it had rained a bit. We decided to give the skis a try again, but it was pretty clear that that would be the last day for them. The following day we tried again, but gave up after just a few minutes and took a walk instead. As the wether did not improve we went to see the Katerina Springs just north of Cheb on the 4th day.

On the 5th day the sun came out again and we hiked around in the area. It was very nice though I would have enjoyed it a bit more on skis.

The following day it was cloudy again and it was raining a bit. We did not want to waste the day and went hiking again.

The day we had to go back home it started snowing again and it got very very windy.

It was a very enjoyable trip but either there is going to be snow there next year or we will have to choose a different destination.

For a while now I have been meaning to get on of these tiny  Pico-ITX boards and build a little server with it. I wanted at least 1TB of diskspace and I wanted it to be small. I ordered the Pico-ITX a while ago but never managed to find enough time to build a case for it. The Pico-ITX I got from  mini-itx.com, along with a tiny DC-DC converter and external power supply, 1GB RAM, a 8GB flash card and IDE to CF converter. The only 1TB harddrive I could find was a Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000, so I got that one.

I first wanted to go for an old radio as a case, but could not find one that I really liked, so I decided to just build a simple small case out of aluminium. I bought some 500x500 mm alu-sheets from the hardware store some wood for decorating and got started. The box measures 180x100x70 mm. The hardrive just fits into it with some space on one side for cables and the 8GB CF card. Above the hardrive sits the Pico-ITX board and next to it there is just enough room for cables and the DC-DC converter.

After running it for a while I did notice that the harddrive got quite warm and heated up the case, so I decides to attach some alu-profiles as heat sinks to the back of the case. I also made a little air duct(out of paper) for the Pico-ITX board.

I put an  Ubuntu 7.10 on it and the system is now running night and day as a server which does nightly backups, runs a  slimserver and acts as a NAS.

It was a fun little project and I am quite pleased with the result.

Kate and I decided to spend Christmas in London this year. On the 22nd we had a little Christmas dinner with our house mate, Gareth, and some colleagues from work, Jarkko, his girlfriend Tina and a friend of theirs. Jarkko and Tina cooked a ham, which is the traditional dish for Christmas in Finland. They also brought a salmon which we smoked in the oven in a special smoking bag. We had special Finish mulled wine with the diner and for desert Jarkko and Tina's friend had made some traditional Finish fruit salad. All very tasty and way too much to eat. Though the feasting did not stop with the desert. After we relocated to the living room we all enjoyed Tina's homemade cookies and more mulled wine: I made some Feuerzangenbowle, a traditional German winter drink. It is basically mulled wine with a big cone of suggar being flambed with rum which then caramelizes and drips into the wine ... tasty! It was a lovely evening, very christmasy!

On the 24th Kate's parents arrived and we all went to the Albert Hall for the "Christmas Carols by Candle Light". I realy like the Albert Hall and the Chrismat concerts are always great fun, lovely music and the audience gets to join in for some of the songs. We had more Feuerzangenbowle after we got back.

The 25th was unpacking gifts and cooking and eating for the rest of the day. We had a tasty turkey with all the trimmings, a yummy Christmas pudding which Kate's mom made and a delicious Christmas cake, Kate made... too much food! On boxing day we all went to the movies and watched "The Golden Compass". And for diner we had fantastic tasting venison.

My sister, Urte, invited me and Kate to go snowboarding with her and her boyfriend, Marvin. I had a few holidays left that I could not carry over into the new year and how could I refuse anyways. Unfortunately Kate could not join us, because she had to work.

I left London on the 12th for Hamburg. Marvin and Urte picked me up from the airport and we went to mys sister's place to pack and have some dinner. We left around 10pm for Austria. My sister took the first 3h of driving, I had the awful middle part and Marvin did the last bit.

We got to Obergurgl at around 9ish in the morning. The weather was beautiful, sunshine, no clouds at about -10C. We did not have a place to stay yet, so we decided to first sort that out and went to the tourist information. We found a nice apartment within walking distance of the lifts. It was in the valley with big windows and a pretty view of the mountain.

After unpacking we went straight to the lifts. Marvin and I went off-piste a few times, which turned out to be a big mistake. There was just not enough snow and we ran over a number of rocks. :( Both Marvin and I had some big scratches on our boards so we decided to give them to the shop and have them fixed. It was a fun day but extremely exhausting. It just showed once again that I spent too much time in front of a computer-screen and too little time exercising.

The second day was not as nice as the first ... we had a few clouds in the sky. ;) We picked up our boards from the shop. My board was almost good as new and Marvin's was still rideable but it's edge was quite damaged. We did (try to avoid) that rocks that day but could not ignore some of the untouched hills where it looked like the snow was deep enough. It was great and we ended up with only some minor scratches not worth mentioning.

After the lifts closed we went shopping, I needed some gloves and I wanted to buy a helmet. Marvin decided to get a new board, because his one was more broken and did not ride very well anymore. We spent the rest of the evening cooking, eating and playing card games.

The weather got better over the next days and colder ... -15C. We found a few untouched parts of the hills again and some tiny ramps to practice some jumps. All in all just fun. Trulli somehow hurt her finger, I did too, and one of the jumps ended in a crash with me hurting my left knee ... I am just not 20 anymore :(

One of the evenings we went to the  Aqua Dome in Laengenfeld, a spa with great outdoor pools. It was very relaxing.

On the 17th it was time to go back home again/ :(
We did some boarding for a good part of the day and then packed up. Marvin and Urte dropped me off in Munich with a couple hours to spare before my flight back to London was scheduled.
It was a great 5 days of snowboarding!

It was about time for us to take a break from the busy city life. We decided to make it simple and visit my folks in Feldberg, Germany.

We went canoeing with my folks on Saturday. Fledberg is a great place for that. It has many lakes which were formed during the last ice age. Most of them are connected by little natural channels and streams.

On Sunday we just sat around drank Pims and enjoyed not having to do anything. Most of the evenenings we played dice and card games with my parent. One day Kate and I decided to do a bit of cycling around the lakes. It was a beautiful day and we stopped in a little pub for a couple pints before we continued.

We had another 2 days of kayaking but the weather was getting worse and worse and all in all a bit chilly to be out on the lakes. So one day we decided to visit a local gallery and on another a castle not to far away.

We got back to London in the evening of Saturday and went straight to a colleague's BBQ. It got quite late and we did need all of Sunday to recover.

The trip to Feldberg was all we had asked for, a good time to relax and enjoy.

On 4th August, after weeks of waiting for good weather, I finally got my birthday present! Kate and I got up very early in the morning to catch a train to Princes Risborough. Unfortunately we went to the wrong train station. With only minutes to spare we managed to catch a cab to the right station to get our train. From Princes Risborough, we took another cab to the drop zone, a little field near Lewknor just off the M40. Unfortunately the weather had gotten worse, from beautiful sunshine when we left London to overcast and being surprisingly cold at the drop zone. It was 8.30am and we were the first ones to arrive. Eventually, the clouds broke and the aeroplane arrived. I got my gear and at around 11am it was time to take off.

My two instructors, Simon and Ian, talked me through the first jump and made me practice.

It was a small aeroplane, we all had to squeeze in and there wasn't much room for manoeuvre! The time to wait seemed endless.

But finally we got up to 11,000 feet and it was time to repeat my drills, but now for real:

Simon: "Ready to skydive?"
Me: "Ready!"
Simon: "Get into the door."

So I got into the door, both feet dangling outside and a cold air blowing into my face. There was not much time to think. Both hands down near the edge of the aeroplane, turning towards my primary instructor, Simon:

Me: "Check in"
Simon: "Okay!"

Then turning outwards to my secondary instructor, Ian:

Me: "Check out"
Ian: "Okay!"

Then I pushed myself up, down and then out of the door with a full arch and suddenly we were all flying through the air.

I saw the horizon and was as stable as I could before I started my practice exercises, checking my altimeter, checking with my instructors for guidance. After I got an ok from both of them I had to find the toggle to launch my parachute three times, but not pull yet! Then back to checking altitude and instructions.

At 6,000 I was supposed to lock into my altitude, signal 5,500 and pull my toggle. But this time everything was happening so fast, and there were signals from my instructors all over the place and before I noticed Simon took my hand and put it to the toggle. It took me a while to understand what was going on until I finally realised we were at 6,000 feet and I shouldn't wait any longer but pull my toggle.

Four seconds later, after a jerk from the 'chute, I was hanging in the air. But no time to rest just yet. It was time for canopy exercises. Look up, check if it is big and square, and grab my steering toggles, pulling on left and right to make sure I can steer, and pulling both down at once to make sure the brakes work! Everything worked fine. I turned around to see where the drop zone was, to find out where I had to land, and a voice started talking to me on the radio. It was a very calm and reassuring voice. I was told everything was ok and I could just enjoy myself for a bit, heading into the wind and doing some turns.

But there was too much excitement than to just enjoy the view. I started to descend and the voice on the radio started to guide me towards the drop zone. The drop zone came closer and closer, I made my final turn and was heading upwind, passing the green grass of the landing spot and then there was a voice saying, "Jan, 3, 2, 1, flare!". All of a sudden I was standing safely in the middle of a wheat field.

The centre of the drop zone was not far away at all, though. I packed my parachute and got back, being a bit disappointed with myself with not being as good as I thought I should have been - but it felt great and I didn't fall over when landing!

I had my debriefing on the ground with my instructors and although there was plenty of room for improvement, they advanced me to the second level and told me it wasn't that bad and that I shouldn't be so hard on myself. So, I finally took out my credit card and decided to pay for the next seven jumps. I did one more jump that day. In this jump I was supposed to do a 90 degree turn in the air. The second jump was much better than the first one. It seemed to take much longer, and I knew what to expect. I did my exercises and turns, and at 6,000 I locked on and pulled my own toggle. Again they guided me to land in the wheat field! It was a gorgeous day and Kate and I both got sunburned. We were ready to go home and return the next morning, but Martin the club owner invited us to stay for a barbecue in the field and we crashed the night in one of the other skydiver's tents, using emergency blankets to sleep with! It was a beautiful evening.

The next morning, at 7.45 we got up again. I was scheduled for the first flight. This was to be the last time I jumped out with two instructors and this time they were going to let go of me, to see if I could fly stably by myself. We got to 11,000, got out of the plane and got stable. They started to let go of me and I could now really understand what a difference it made when they held on to me, but I was alright. Then it was the same procedure as always, at 6,000 I locked on, signalled 5-5 and pulled. Unfortunately the wind was stronger than the day before and we left the aeroplane too far downwind. Even though I was trying to stay upwind, it was impossible for me, with my big student canopy, to make it all the way back to the drop zone. So again another landing in a field, but I was closer to the centre of the drop zone than ever before. With only about 10 metres to spare, I landed with a good standing landing - but sadly nobody could see it! I did three more jumps that day. My fourth jump was with only one instructor and I had to do two 180 degree turns in the air. This time I did my landing procedures all by myself. I aimed straight for the green. My approach was just right, but unfortunately I flared a little bit early and landed straight on my knees in front of all the people watching!

On my fifth jump I had to do two 360 turns. I did that one with a new instructor, and instead of doing two 360s we did two 90 degree turns and a 360 turn.

My sixth jump was one of the most exciting jumps. This time I had to jump out of the aeroplane by myself, with the instructor closely following me. As soon as I had my heading, I was supposed to do a backflip, followed by some forward tracking. My exit was a bit unstable, as I bumped with my chute against the door frame of the plane, but everything went fine and after the forward tracking I had plenty of time before I had to pull my toggle. I managed to land standing, even though I flared a bit early again.

This was probably one of the most adrenalin filled weekends I have had. We got back home and had a glass of wine to celebrate and I must say I have never been so drunk after one glass of anything! We went back a week later, on the 12th, to finish my course. On that day we had more clouds and I was on the second plane to go up. By the time we reached 9,000 feet we were told that we didn't have clearance to go up to the full 11,000 into the clouds. What a bummer, we had to land again. After a few hours we finally got clearance and I did my seventh jump. This time a backflip, two 360s, and some forward tracking. This was a fantastic jump. I exited, I did my flip and in front of me was a big, puffy cloud. I couldn't see my instructor just yet, so I continued with my turns. I started my forward tracking before my instructor showed up on the left side of me, giving me two thumbs up and with me having a big grin, checking my altitude and realised that we were only at 8,000 feet so far and I had plenty of time to enjoy the freefall. I landed by myself again - it started to get easier. My last and final jump was the so-called "hop and pop". I exited at 5,000 feet, stabilised, waited about five to ten seconds and pulled my toggle. That was it! I had now completed my AFF course and am eagerly waiting for my next chance to go skydiving!

Here a little video of my first jump:

My mom always wanted to have a party during the summer time, so she took the ten year anniversary of the house as a good one. Kate and I booked a couple of flights for an extended weekend in Feldberg. We arrived in Berlin late in the evening on Thursday, missing the last train to Feldberg. So we called up my parents and took the S-Bahn to Oranienberg, where we had to wait for about half and hour in the cold before my parents came to pick us up.

On Friday we walked around Feldberg and generally relaxed. In the evening my mom's new kayak arrived, so we started to put it all together. We finished putting it together on Saturday, when Trulli and Marvin arrived. Marvin was the first one to try it out and then Kate was up for second. Not being very experienced and getting no help from anyone, she got into the boat herself and before she knew it she was standing in the water with the boat upside down. Unfortunately nobody had a camera!

In the afternoon the first people came. We had coffee and cakes and in the evening we had a big barbecue and a camp fire. Before nightfall, my mom gathered everybody together and went down to the lake, taking little boats to row across. We arrived at the bistro of a family friend. After some glasses of wine out on the little deck which stretched out onto the water, Trulli and I tried some "shoes" which enable one to walk on water.

After this, my mom's friend prepared three canoes for us, each having two burning torches at the rear.

We went once around the lake in the canoes and then headed back to the bistro where we had cheese and wine before rowing back home. We finished off the evening sitting around the camp fire.

On Sunday we went wakeboarding in Neubrandenburg. It was my first time on a wakeboard and though I fell a few times, I did finally make it around the whole course, and was even able to start with a jump start.

On Monday we returned to London, after a wonderful weekend.

For Easter this year we decided to stay home instead of going to Germany, because I didn't manage to book any flights earlier and it was too expensive. On the Saturday was the famous Boat Race, so we prepped some Pimms, made some burgers and watched the race. On Sunday we did a bit of Easter egg hunting in the house and prepared a big Sunday roast. For dessert Kate made a chocolate Simnel (Easter) cake with marzipan eggs.

For the holiday weekend in May we went up to Birmingham to visit Kate's friends. We visited the Black Country Museum. It was a gorgeous day and a very beautiful museum. We explored every bit of it and sat outside a local pub and enjoyed some ales.

Before we went home, we went to see the Cadburys chocolate factory, where we learned all about chocolate making and the history of Cadbury.

In late January I went to Washington to meet up with the development team there. To make good use of the time, Simon invited me to come along snowboarding in West Virginia. As I didn't have any gear I decided to buy my very first snowboard. We were about 10 adults and 5 children in a beautiful, not so little mountain cottage. We cooked our own food every day and enjoyed snowboarding from Wednesday to Sunday.

Then I had a week of work at the Reston office. While I was in the States my flatmates got called up by our estate agents who said we had 2 weeks to move house as the landlords didn't want to renew our contract. Fortunately they found somewhere just around the corner. So I got back to London at 7am on Saturday morning, and came straight home from the airport to find most of my belongings already packed into boxes. I kept packing what was left and once we had a van for moving our stuff, we started packing up the van. For the next two days we kept moving stuff and we finally finished on Sunday night. Just a week later Kate and I flew to Germany to go cross-country skiing with my parents and sister in the Czech Republic. The weather wasn't too great. The temperatures started rising above freezing point and rain was predicted. We were afraid we would not have any snow to ski on but it all turned out to be very beautiful.

I did promise Kate that she would get a snowman for Valentine's day, so when we were taking a break from skiing I built a big snowman right next to the track. I spent about an hour decorating him and turning him into a punk snowman.

The hotel we stayed in was barely tolerable. The food was just plain awful and the staff was plain rude. But that didn't stop us exploring the area and find some other restaurants where we could enjoy beatiful Czech food. We had a few nice days where it was just sunny with fresh snow that came down overnight. All in all, we were very lucky.

In January my friend Alex from Germany invited Kate and I to come and meet her in Cambridge, where she and her team mates were holding a water polo game. We got there in the morning and the weather was a bit rainy but sometimes the sun came through. We did some sightseeing and went down the river in a punt, where I more than once lost the pole and almost fell in!

We had some coffee then went on to the first game. The team was a bit short of people, so they asked me if I could join and be goalie. I'd never played water polo before but how could I refuse six women in swimming costumes?

After a couple of games and being completely exhausted we went to a local pub, had some good English beer and lovely food.

It was good to catch up with Alex and her friends again. I'm looking forward to my next invitation to a game!

Christmastime is a great time. The company I am working for, Actix, decided to have this year's Christmas party at the London zoo. Some of the people actually dressed up in animal themes costumes for the occasion.

Jarkko and Tina probably had the best costumes. They dressed up as wild cats.

We had a hypnotist, who didn't work on me, and lots of booze, which did a much better job, and we danced all night.

At the houseshare we also prepared for Christmas. We bought a wonderful seven foot Nordman tree, which just fit into the living room. We decorated it with real candles, ornaments and lights.

I went off to Germany to visit my parents for Christmas eve. It was a fun evening, I got a beautiful pocket watch and my mom made me a little fat angel, which I roasted over some candles.

I got a Photoshop book and a big pepper mill and a scuba diver bottle stop from Kate, who joined us in Germany on Boxing Day.

For New Year's we went up to Kuehlungsborn and visited some friends from Berlin(Alex, ...). We walked along the shore of the Baltic Sea, drank lots of mulled wine, and when it got dark we started to set off fireworks for the children first, and for midnight we joined the locals on the beach setting off batteries of fireworks, drinking champagne, and wishing each other the best for the coming year. Fortunately, it didn't start raining until the fireworks subsided, and we finished the night with dancing away.

On the first of January, we followed an old tradition and decided to jump into the Baltic Sea in traditional swimming suits. My god, it was cold, brrrrr....

Oh what a birthday! But let's start from beginning. We decided to have a houseparty and prepare all the food ourselves. So we registered with Sainsbury's online and made a big shopping list to be delivered, with at least half being booze. Everything was going well, until the Thursday before the party, when Sainsbury's notified me that they would not deliver the goods on Friday, without any explanation, except that my account was now cancelled. My parents and my sister arrived on Friday and so we all went to Sainsbury's shop where we took two trolleys and filled them up with the four-page shopping list and took a cab back. Then we started preparing and more and more friends from Germany started arriving, of course none of them at the same time.

The last one to arrive was Alex at 11 o'clock at night. The next day, we sent all of the guests out to explore London while the rest of us kept preparing for the party. It was fantastic, we had salmon tortilla rolls, delicious lamb koftas, spicy Japanese crackers topped with crab meat, bacon and cranberry croissants, vegetable mini wraps, and much, much more. It was time for the party, and lots of people showed up. Marco was mixing drinks in the kitchen, my dad was trying to translate German jokes into English, and I made some flambayed mulled wine and tried to talk to as many people as possible. Then it was close to midnight. I was locked up in the kitchen while my birthday cake was lit. Then I was brought into the room and it was overwhelming. Kate made an entire computer out of cake!!! It had a flat panel screen, ergonomic keyboard, and a mouse out of home made marzipan. The cables were liquorice. Wow!!!

We opened a few bottles of very nice champagne, cut the cake. Then we all went into the living room, where I opened up my presents. I got wooden games, nice rum from Germany, clothes, many cards, a 30 year old whisky which was distilled in 1976, but Kate wouldn't stop with the whisky, no, I got a little card with a picture of a bunch of skydivers on it. It was not a tandem jump, no, it was a voucher for the first level of the Accelerated Freefall course. But that will have to wait until the weather is better.

The party kept going for a few more hours. I ended up being a bit drunk and playing a bit more guitar and I don't quite remember how well I sang.

The next morning the guests slowly got up, they where scattered all over the house. We had some breakfast and played some games and then they all had to go back to Germany.

It was a fantastic 30th birthday.

It was Kate's 28th birthday on October 4th.

We decided to celebrate by going to Budapest for the weekend. Oh, what a treat... Just me and three wonderful ladies, Kate, Sophie and Kym. I was so excited, I forgot my pyjamas!

We walked all over Buda and Pest, exploring both towns. We first went to a hill in Buda visiting a church built into a cave.

We went up to the top of the hill and decided to visit a war memorial, which was very poignant. In the evening we discovered a little local pub which served food. We had a good meal and of course we had to try the Unicum - a local herbal liquor, which I thought tasted good, despite what the others thought.

The next day, we did more sight-seeing, visited the catacombs with fake cavemen paintings on the wall, but nevertheless was very interesting.

They even had a fountain of wine.

Afterwards we went to see the Fisherman's Bastion and Buda Castle.

In the evening we had a lovely fancy dinner, with musicians playing, while we enjoyed yet another fine meal. On our last day, we went to the thermal baths in Pest, where we spent a few hours trying out every pool and just relaxing before we took the plane back home.

Friends of mine, Birger and Josi got married on the 19th August, so we decided to take a little trip to Germany.

It was a very nice wedding, especially the games. In Germany it is customary to have games throughout the wedding day. For example the couple has to cut a log of wood with a two-man saw to prove they can work as a team. There is also the custom of stealing the bride. The uncle and cousin of the bride dressed up as Mafia bosses, came into the party, tied up the groom and kidnapped the bride. Half an hour later, the groom was released and had to find his bride, who was taken to numerous bars around the village. On and on it goes ... what a fun night.

Just to prove that my hair still hasn't gotten better...

After the wedding we went to my old university town, Rostock, where we stopped at Marco's place, an old friend of mine from uni. We did some sight-seeing and went to see the Baltic Sea in Warnemuende. In the evening I met up with some more friends from uni to catch up on old times.

On the next day we went to my parents' place in Feldberg. It is a gorgeous area surrounded by lakes and lots of green.

We spent most of our time lounging and kayaking. Then we went back towards Hamburg, where our plane would leave the next day. On our way, we visited Luebek, a beautiful little Hanseatic town in North Germany, where they make the best marzipan in the world. We met up with my sister and then went on to go water-skiing not too far away from Luebek. Our muscles were hurting terribly afterwards. We are, after all, sad city dwellers ...

The next morning we had breakfast with Trulli and she saw us off to catch the plane.

Kate and I decided to do a cycling trip for our summer vacation, so the first thing was: get a bike!

And that's the bike, a wonderful construction from a bicycle design from the turn of the century - not the recent one, the one before!

So we took off, and took the train to Portsmouth and the ferry from Portsmouth Harbour to Ryde, where we had our first little B&B.

On the first day we rode to Bembridge and visited an old windmill, passing picturesque little churches on the way.

We got all the way to Sandown and went to the pikey games arcades that evening on the pier. The next day we took a little ride, just to find out a little later that I had punctured my rear tyre. Of course, the puncture repair kit was at the B&B, so we had to push the bike back. After hours of trying to fix the tyre and realising that it had multiple holes, we finally managed to fix it, but ran out of patches. We managed to find a bike shop, in the middle of the island on a farm, and just to be safe we bought another couple of tyres and a new patching kit.

On the next day we walked down the coast to Shanklin. The walk was gorgeous, and we visited Shanklin Chine, a garden built into the cliff side.

On the following day we cycled to Godshill, visited a miniature village, and had a delicious cream tea in a cafe with a beautiful garden.

And too much clotted cream makes your beard curl:

We then went further inland through beautiful fields and gorgeous weather to a little farm cottage in the middle of nowhere.

Our next destination was Blackgang Chine, a cliff side theme park. After that we cycled down to the coast and saw St Catherine's lighthouse.

On we went to Freshwater, where we finished the day with a sunset dinner right next to the sea. The next day we went on a boat out to see "The Needles", an outcrop of rock on the coast.

We also saw the rocket testing grounds that used to be there. In the evening, we wandered around looking for dinner, and found this little hotel that offered three course dinner, and we went in not knowing what to expect. We were seated in a bar adjacent to a gorgeous garden, where we were told to either turn off our mobile phones or leave them with reception, to avoid disturbing the dining experience. We had yummy appetisers while we looked at the menu and then followed the best meal of the holiday!

Onwards to Yarmouth, and we slept in the old Post Office, converted into a B&B, then on to Cowes, where they have a yearly regatta. That was our last day, and then we cycled back to Ryde to get the ferry, finally having a couple of pints at a pub where they allowed dogs, but not children! Then it was back to the mainland and back to work ;0(

Denise, our housemate from Australia, always used to cut my hair. Now she has gone back home and this is what happens when you lose your favourite hairdresser...

Due to some very late planning and complete disorganisation on my part, Ed Sykes and I decided to make a T-shirt for our friend Jarkko Lapinlampi. We had a picture of him in his martial arts outfit that we wanted to put on a shirt. To do a proper job, we decided to do proper silk screen printing, which neither of us had ever done before. We found an art shop in Covent Garden for the supplies. Ed bought T-shirts and I printed out the silhouette of the picture on to transparencies. It was getting close to 6pm on Friday night. I left the office for the art shop, leaving the directions at work. Nevertheless, with the help of some local people we got to the shop with a comfortable ten minutes to spare before it closed. We grabbed the supplies and went home, where I waited for Ed to arrive with the T-shirts. In the next 8 hours, armed with only pizza and beer to assist us, we completed this fine piece of art.

It was a great night, and it confirms that you need the pressure of an imminent deadline to complete any creative task.

I had the opportunity to give a presentation at the EuroPython? conference at the Cern Institute. So Kate and I decided to spend the weekend before the conference visiting Geneva.

On Saturday we walked all over town visiting old churches and buildings, and had a lovely lunch in an open restaurant under a huge tree.

On the second day we explored Lake Geneva. We walked along the shore, the weather was gorgeous, eagles flying over our heads, or at least some bird of prey. In the evening we had a lovely dinner at a little restaurant by the water. We sat outside and suddenly a bunch of teenagers came and stole money from the table next to us. The waiter and I chased them down the street. Although we didn't get the money back, the waiter gave us a free bottle of wine.

The next day we took a boat trip on a paddle steamer to a little French town further up the lake. It was beautiful little town, which had a flower festival on, but it was crowded with people. We spent the entire afternoon there and got more sunburned, took the steamer back, drinking refreshing white wine.

Kate left early Monday, and I went on to my conference. I hardly knew anyone there, but it was fun, especially being able to give a presentation.

Kate had a Job to do in Milan, so I decided to leave early on Friday and meet her there. It was hot, very hot. Fortunately our room had airconditioning. On Friday we just went out and found a nice little Italian restaurant, where we sat outside and enjoyed some refreshing whine and yummy food.

On Saturday we did some sight seeing.

Then we put on our nice outfits went for a very nice dinner and then to the Opera. Funnily it was an opera in German, but I still had to read the surtitles.

We went back to London on Sunday. All in all a very nice weekend.

My sister and I gave our parent a trip to London for their birthdays last year in November. In May they have finaly made it over here. My sister and her boyfriend came along...

We, went to the London Eye, walked along the river and stoped for a few pints in Shakespear's pub the Anchor. In the evening we went to Barbican for a synphoney orchestra, which was very enjoyable thigh everyone was quite worn out from walking around so much.

The next day it was proper London weather. A bit sunny and then raining and a bit sunny and again some rain. We decided to go to Greenwich onthe boat, which ened up being a good choice as we had good weather all the way there and once we go to the market in Greenwich it started to rain. We ended up in some old pub on the other side of the river between Canary Warf and Greenwih. It was a great day.

On the next day we just went around town, looking at variuos places and ended up taking a black cab home, I just wanted my parents to take one as they rarely take a cab and I just love them.

Kate and I and the rest helped too to make a proper roast diner. We ate and ate and drank and talked and drank some more ... a lovely evening.

On the last day it rained again and we walked around hide park an green park till we had to go home for them to pick up their stuff and fly back home.

All in all and inspite of the not so great weather it was a lovely weekend and everyone enjoyed it.

For the first May weekend wed decided to go to Scotland to visit Erech, my friend who I helped out restoring the cottage just a year ago. Erech picked usd up from Aberdeen airport and he took us to the cottage near Dufftown in his oh-I-love-it-so-much-vegetable-oil-powered-VW-bus.

The weather was so beatifull that we had breakfast out in the sunshine the next morning

and went for a ride to Loch Nes to find that old monster.

The scenery was lovely. We drove around the whole lake. We stopped a number of times to check out waterfalls, lakes, and cannels.

Had some scones and beer and just enjoyed the lovely day being silly.

We even saw Nessi!

The next day was just as beautifull. Breakfast in the sun and off to the Glenlivet destillery.

After that we went off do explore the countryside a bit,

which ment driving up tiny roads and laying in the grass looking up into the sky.

It was sunday so we decided to make a proper sunday roast ... lamb in honey and sider with roasted vegetables and mash ... delicious. We finished it up with whine, cask-strength wisky and some music...

On our last day, Erech took us on the "longer route" along the coast to the airport.

It was a great trip and I am looking forward to the next time being up at Croftglass Cottage ;)

It seems I am keeping up my bad habbits, not posting anything for ages. So, this time I will have to cover a little easter trip to the new forest, a weekend in scotland and a visit from my folks and sister here in London.

The easter weekend was beautiful. Kate and I went to the New Forest for the weekend. We booked a lovely room in a family run B&B. It was quite charming and the breakfasts were great.

We explored the country on foot, visited a museum and a stately home one day,

the next day we went to an old restored water mil that was runing and from the flour the miller's wife made wounderful scones with clotted cream and jam and a nice cup of tea ... we had a proper cream tea by the river in the sun, fantastic. The last day we took a walk through the heath covered hills.

Of course things don't always go as planed. Being chanlenged by a rope hanging from a tree branch over a little stream I could not help myself but to except that challenge. All went fine, I swung accross and was standing on the other side of the stream

Kate said that she'd like a better picture, so I turned around and swung back across...

... just to find out that there was something wrong. My feet touched the other side, slipped off and there I was standing in the knee deep whater.

Oh, what fun it was being out in the country, walking around in the heath. Horses that roam freely in the New Forest cross your way every so often and it all just seems so peaceful.

Just after the trip to the New Forest I went to the Accu 2006 conference in Oxford, where I gave a presentation on my jsolait project. I met a lot of interesting people(geeks), had great converstations, way too much too drink and too little sleep ;).

An overdue post, just a month ago Kate and I met up with my parents and my younger sister to go skiing in the Czech republic. On a friday night flew to Hamburg to meet with my sister. The next morning we got up early (5:30am == 4:30 London time :( ) to get on the road. It was a beautiful morning with blue skies and the sun rising on the horizon in beautiful red. We were meant to meet with my parents in Leipzig but that somehow did not work out, so we kept going torwards the border Oberwiesental/Bozi? Dar. Unfortunately the weather got a bit snowy and one could hardly make out the street signs, so we went a bit past the border and had to turn around and stand in a rather longish queue to cross the border. We were joking that it would be funny if my parents had caught up with us and that we would see them coming around the corner and meeting us at the juction were we had missed our turn. Well, so it happened :) Just half an hour later we got to our destination, a little guest house in Hřebečná close to Abertamy. We got a couple of nice rooms with lots of wood and nice views of the valley.

Our first day of skiing was a beautiful day, sunshine, 9.C and fresh snow from the night before. A perfect day for Kate to try cross country for the first time. I was a bit out of luck because my skis were waxed with the wrong wax for the temperatures so I had to return to the guest house to get them rewaxed, which worked wonders.

My dad came with me and the ladies took off themselves to meet up with us a bit later. Well, we did not arive at the meeting point at the same time so my dad and I explored some trails going into the woods which of course were not the correct ones and just led us back to where we started at. I discovered that falling is not that bad and gives some nice views into the sky:

We all met up finally and went a bit further and enjoyed the beautiful day.

The following day was just as beautiful. My skis were still a bit annoying but the trails were good and we all had another great day.

On our trips we always took some tea, mulled wine, some sandwiches and sweets and not to forget some special czech herb liquor. We usually stopped every so often to "get back some energy" we had lost from all the "hard" exercise. :)

Kate, even though she was completely exhausted, really enjoyed skiing and we decided to get our own skis and got a special deal in Oberwiedental. So, with brand new skis, we went on to explore more trails for the rest of our stay.

The last day we did not have too much time. And on top of that the weather was not too great ... at first. It was windy and it was snowing and the visibility was, well, not that great.

But, magically it all cleared up. It was great, as it was our last day. We had a beautiful tour through the woods, up and down little hills.

It was still quite cold and windy and the trees were frosted.

And that was almost it for our winter trip. That same day we went to meet a friend in Dresden and had a nice walk around the town at night and a great dinner in some medieval-themed restaurant.

The next day we drove back to Hamburg and had a nice morning in Ahrensburg with my sister and then flew back to London.

All in all we had a great vacation and we are looking forward to our next ski trip...

.. but I expected that much. I have not been updating the blog on a regular basis as I had planned to. No, the all so busy life is not to blame, I am just plain lazy. Life though, has been bussy and most weekends we have been going places, visiting friends and relatives and finally went on a little vacation.

Well, since the last post there was Christmas and we decided to spend it in London inviting Kate's parents to join us. We got a nice christmas tree in mid december and decorated it with real candles and little ornaments. It was very nice and despite the fact that it did not look much like it outside it did start to feel like christmas is coming.

On christmas eve. Kate's parents, Kate and I all went to the Albert Hall for a "Christmas carols By Candle Light" concert where everyone got musicsheets and a christmas hat and sang along. It was a great show and we all went back and had some "Feuerzangenbowle" (mulled wine, flambed) and Dresdener Stollen (Chrismas bread/cake).

The next morning was quite busy with most of us in the kitchen preparing the big feast. Once everything was cooking we got to finally open up the presents. I must admit though there is something nice about the german tradition of opening the presents on christmas eve. It just feels more cosy when it is dark outside and Santa comes in, opens his sack and gives out the little boxes. But I cannot complain at all, it was a great moring.

After hours of cooking the turkey was almost done, Kate had prepared some delicious starters and we where pretty much ready to eat.

It was way to much food for just one meal so the turkey lasted for a couple more lovely dishes with one of them being the greates pie we have ever made.

For desert we had traditional christmas pudding which Kate's mom made. We flambed it with Cognac and served it with brandy butter... delicious.

It's been over 3 months now that I have posted anything. Time is flying by quickly and it is not making any stops. I can still see Kate and me walking around in Hampstead Heath on a beatiful summerday.

That was September. In early october Kate turned 27. It was a fun birthday. We started it with cake and presents, met up with one of Kat's friends for lunch and went to the Aqarium in the afternoon.

On the following weekend we invited some friends to a cocktail party. There was plenty to drink.

And some very yummy food too.

If I remember correctly at around 4am after just a bit too many delicious drinks and some scary guitar palying and singing I too finally went to bed.

At the end of the month one of Kate's godchildren had a halloween-birthday party. So, we decided to go up to Birmingham to visit her and join the party as Dracula and Medusa :).

In November my sister came to visit and spent a weekend here with us in London. The weather was perfect so we decided to 'book a flight' on the London Eye, getting some nice views of the city.

We then walked all over the place and did what tourists do: taking tons of pictures and well, walk all over town.

In the evening we decided to see a balet performance. On sunday we went to the Portobello Market, did a bit more sightseeing and watched a fireworks display at night which was followed by a beautifull walk along the thames.

In the end of November Kate and I flew over to germany to celebrate my mom's and dad's birthdays. It was great. Feldber already had some snow. It was freezing cold and realy felt like winter is coming. Even though it was a very short stay we enjoyed it quite a bit. It was good seeing the family and some old friends I have not seen for quite some time.

We did have some time to walk around the beautiful nature in Feldberg, though the weather was a bit foggy and grey it was still enjoyable.

I had the great opportunity to go to the annual SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) conference  SVGOpen, this year held in Enschede, Netherlands. This is my second time presenting at the SVGOpen. I gave a course on building WebApplications? and presented a couple papers on networking interfaces in SVG and a "HTML-Forms" implementation in SVG + sXBL.

Besides giving and attending presentations the conference truly is about meeting people and having a good time. And we surely did have a good time during the 4 days in Enschede. So much that, when I came home on friday, I went to bed at 1:00pm and only woke up the next morning at 10:00am and pretty much just resting for the rest of the weekend. I guess thats what happens if one parties till 5:00 in the morning and gets up at 10:00 to give a presentation. But hey, we don't live twice!

I took almost 400 pictures during that time. Have a look and if you'd like a full resolution copy, let me know:

Some general pictures: 100 hours

Portraits: Faces of SVG

No comment: Sleepless in Enschede (1) Sleepless in Enschede (2) Sleepless in Enschede (3)

Last but not least: Sleeping Beauty

All togehter I meet a lot of interesting people, had a great time and am looking forward to the next SVGOpen.

I have been neglecting yo .. I am sorry!

For the first time I drove an english car just a couple weekends ago. It was a little trip I took with Kate form London to Burmingham. So, right after picking up the car from the rental place I drove a bit too close to the left and gone was my passenger side plastic mirrow covering. Other than that and that Kate was not quite sure if she really wanted to have me drive her it went really well.

A week ago Marco, my best friend from germany, came over to see London and hang out with me.

He stayed for a whole week. As I had to work there was not too much time to do much exploring together but we used the time available as much as we could.

Did all the tourist things, the river, big ben, ...

On tuesday we went out for an Editors concert, had lots of beer, danced, ... On wednesday we went for another concert !!! (Chk Chk Chk) which was really good. Again lots of beer and lots of dancing.

Thursday I did not feel too well, probably the lack of sleep so we did not do much. Marco explored the city while I tried to get work done. At the end of the week we kindof took things a bit more slowly.

Saturday night at 4am marco took his flight back home. I got a bit more sleepa and took a flight sunday afternoon to the netherlands for the SVGOpen 2005 conference.

Time is flying by at an incredible speed.

It's been an eventfull month: I got 2:30 hours late to work just a couple weeks ago for the very first time. Not that it realy mattererd, others were late too and left early that thursday to make it home. I did not even know what happend, they just stoped the tube. The people left the Bakerstreet station and waited outside for buses, hundreds it must have been. No one seemed to have known what happened. I called up my girlfriend to tell her she had to find another way to get into town as the tube was closed indefinetly supposedly due to some power failure.

The first two busses where so crowded I could not get on. I was already running late as I kindof could not get myself out of bed that morning. The third bus finally took me to Hammersmith. I turned on some nice music got my book out and started reading not minding running late and enjoying just another bussy morning. Then Marco called me from germany asking if everything is OK with me. I did not realy understand till he started talking about bombs and terror attack ... ?!?!? So I called up my mom, making sure she knew I was OK. Then I asked around in the bus if anyone knew what was going on and a woman read out what happend from her phone. People looked at each other with no shock or anything and that was pretty much it.

I got into work, the news were running in a meeting room, lots of people calling friends and family, so did I though the mobile network seemed to have been failing at times. Most of the news sites online have already put up the headlines, tons of photos and what not. Well, that's what the media does, keeping us informed, not!? It is just too bad that there is too much money involved to realy believe they do it to inform the masses. It is discusting. By the way, "About 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of 5".

Enough of about the mad world. Let's just turn the other way, turn up the music and enjoy the spoiled life we are living.

Kate and I have been exploring more of London. We visited the Museum of London three weeks ago and went out for a play the following week. A two men version of "The Importance Of Being Ernest", it was great and so was the lovely diner we had afterwards in a little italian restaurant.

One day the following week I came home after having gone to a nice pub and the boiler was boiling over. The heating in the house just went crazy. Even after turning everything off in the house it would not stop. Eventually it did. But not for too long. The next day it started again. We called up the plumbers to take care of it. In the evening it was so bad that a pipe must have burst and watter was coming out of the wall in my room.

The builders came the next day, riping out the boiler and putting new equipment and renovating my entire room. It did need that anyways. Meanwhile I moved into Kate's room. The builders worked on the house for the whole week, putting in new heating, redoing the kitchen and bathrooms. At the end of the week Kate and I decided to just escape into the country for a couple of days,

doing nothing but taking little walks, having nice diner and ...

It was a lovely weekend.

Last weekend I flew to Germany for my older sister's wedding. I met up with Erech, the lad I went to Schottland with beforehand. We did not have much time but it was nice to see him again.

My parents picked me up in Frankfurt am Main on friday and together we drove down to a little town not too far away from Speyer. The wedding was on saturday, a hot day it was but it did not stop anyone from having a great time. People where singing, there was a couple of little dance shows and not to forget plenty of beer :) It is akward but that was the first time I have ever danced with my mom and my sisters.

On Sunday I met with a nother friend of mine who I have not seen for a few months in Wuerzburg. We climbed up to the fortress and just enjoyed the view. It was a short visit but worth it. I almost missed my plane back but the lady at the checkin was realy nice and ckecked me in.

It is tuesday and another week is going by as usual. Not one day is boring and looking at the plans for the weeks to come bordom will vanish from my vocabulary.

I am here in London now for three weeks. A big thanks to Jim who let me use his apartment until I had found a houseshare and another thank-you-jim for reccomending me for the new job. Sometimes things just seem to work out magically.

The overnight busride was, well, quite long. Not much legroom and not very comfortable. I heard it was supposed to be quite hot in London, fortunatly it was not. Rather cool an windy at the time I arrived.
The next days I spent online, searching for houseshares in London. I had no clue what to look for except that I knew I wanted to live with at least 3 more people and I did not want to live too far away from work. Alot of the offers where taken or I just got a mailbox to talk to. On sunday I was able to have a look at on of the houses. Of course I had no clue of how long it would take me to makie my way around town, I am just not used to theses distances here, but I am getting there :).
Being almost an hour late I finally got there, had a nice chat and was shown around the house. The room was not too great, kindof small and a bit worn out. But the housemates seemed great. The living room was nice and there was a little(large for London I heard) garden and a large kitchen... We had tea and chatted for about 4h... Well, I would have taken the room right away but since I had not looked at any other apartements I figured I should keep looking around to have something to compare. And so I did. Two more I looked at, which were much closer to work but (quite) a bit more expensive. The rooms themselfes where nicer and larger too but I did not get the right feelings torwards the housemates. That was pretty much it. I called up the first place to tell them that I wanted to be their new housmate.
I would move in on the following monday, so I crashed at Jim's place for the rest of the week.
Work started on wednesday, company meeting on thursday with champange and after work pub on friday ... what a start.
On saturday I was invited to a party in my new place.



It was kindof a birthday and move-out party, I guess for me a move-in party :). I decided to just stay at the house for the next couple of days,crashing in the living room untill I was given my room.
So my first regular week started. Taking the tube to and from work. It is an hour to get there and an hour to get back home. I am using the time now to actually pick up a book and read. To some of the people that know me this may sound very surprising, but I am enjoying it. (Thanks Marco, for the quite inspireing :p book "Wenn das Leben ein strand ist, sind Frauen das Mehr").
Time is flying by and I cannot believe I am here in London now for almost a month. I have not realy seen much of the city yet, though last weekend I was out with one of my housemates to explore varois types of stone on housefronts. Well, we ended up walking along the thames, listening to streetperformers and just enjoing they day.



Other than that I have seen a number of pubs. It is quite hard to avoid them and why should one. Fridays its after-work-pub time. And no, you don't go home first get changed and go out. Skip that and just enjoy a few rounds of beer and then go home. Well, it's great getting to know new cultures and ways of doing things! And to make sure I do I am trying to not say no to any offers that may come up.
This weekend is quite quiet and I finnally have some time again to post an update. Its hot outside, 31C and I have been pretty much just laying in the sun, reading a book and having a great time with my housemate. We all have a sunburn now and sweating like ... , well, anyways.

Here I am now in London, it's been great so fare and there is so much more to see and experience ...

Time was flying by and both Eric and I wished for just having and extra week. Unfortunatly we have to do with what we got.
Erech was quite bussy fixing little holes in the pipes he had just put. Poor him. Not very motivating to see water dripping when one thinks it is all finished. After a couple valve bursts and some soldering and testing and soldering again he was finished and can proudly say to have put in a complete new heating system into the house. He hooked up the boiler and voila, we had hot running watter for the very first time in these 4 weeks.

Slowly the radiators where starting to warm up. What a great feeling. Not that it realy changed the temperature in the house, because we didn't have them on long enough, but it was nice for just a few minutes.

While Erech was working on the pipes I managed to finish up the kitchen.

Another proud moment. After which I started to do more work in the new bathroom, putting up studwork.
We also checked if everything will actually fit the way we planned. And it did.

Well, and we didn't believe it but we actually got our phoneline, just a few days before leaving. Fantastic, isn't it? I find it quite amazing how fast BT was working on it. It only took them a whole month. Now, the interesting thing was that it was due to unexpected problems they came across. Like finding rocks where they wanted to put a post into the ground. A rock! Well, I suppose it is rare to find rocks along the road in country side scotland...
Anyways, I had to leave for London on Friday night from Aberdeen. So, not much time left.
We made a last visit to the Glenlivet destillery and Erech got me a nice bottle of cast strength wisky.
Our last job we did together on the house was puting in the self leveling compound in the bathroom.
I took a nice bath at the neighbors and off I we went to Aberdeen for me to catch the night bus to London.
A 12h ride ...

... and plenty of work left for us. And plenty we have finished.
I have finally tiled the kitchen. And Erech is pretty much done with the piping for the heating and water supply.

The weather, as usually, is changing and continues to do so indefinetly. We had some quite cold days and some rather warm days mixed with a little rain and ...
Here is the proof that it can be coldish up here. A layer of ice in a bucket full af whater:


Our mood is still optimistic though sometimes I feel like I need to cheer up Erech because he is getting frustrated with working on the pipes.


He has been putting in quite some hours I must say. So it is always a good idea to take little break and enjoy the sunshine with a nice lunch.


Sometimes we have visitors. The neigbors come around and sometimes it is just little things like this shrew who we had some fun with, chasing it around ...


But I do have a feeling I am going nuts. Usually I start noticing it in the afternoon, when singing out loud crazy sonds with the most terrible voice but I am afraid Erech has to put up with that all day and I just don't notice it myself :)
This is me making sure my wooden support piece is strong enough for the raidiator it is supposed to hold.


We still make sure to have some relaxing time in the evening after the sun sets and we have finished working. That's usually around 10:00 pm.
Last night Erich was sanding and cleaning fittings for the copper pipes and I played some guitar...


And here is the most recent pictrue. It's only a few minutes old. Erech and Vince and my T43 while editing the blog in Vince' kitchen.

So, it is almost a week since the last report ... lot's of things have happened. We are finally starting to build things instead of tearing everything down and I have been to London for a job interview.
In addition the weather has been realy nice for a few days which increased our motivation.

Though it did not last for long. Today the weather turned back to it's original grey, cloudy, rainy, sometimes snowy mood and back again to some sunshine.

So, I was gone off to London for the 12th and the 13th. Erech took me to Aberdeen to catch the plane at 9:50. That ment getting up early... but more on the job application and interview in another post.

Erech picked me up again on friday and we got a little more done on the house on a beautiful sunny day.We now have finished with most of the piping in the new bathroom and put in some concrete to level it all out.

While Erech was taking care of the bathroom I fixed up the insulation in the kitchen, worked on the electricity and did little things like fixing up an old door. I have also managed to put in new plasterboards in the kitchen.

Besides working all day, we made sure to enjoy the nice weather by doing things like climbing the house' wall.

Today we took a day off as the weather was just awfull and we both were tired of moving sand and cement. We went to see a couple destileries ... very nice thing to do on a day like today.

The temperatures have droped a bit, we are no at around 11C during the day and about 4C at night, and still we have no heating at all.
It even snowed yesterday.

The fireplace, the single one that is left, does not realy warm up the place but gives us a comfortable feeling. Visiting the neighbors is always a special occasion, too, that happens about once a day to chat, check email, and warm up a bit.

We have managed to take down a couple of walls to make room for the new bathroom.

We riped out more of the floor to put pipes in and fixed some walls to add support for the radiators we are going to put in. Since the ground level around the house is to high, so it is always wet in the house we decided to get someone it to put drainage all around the house. Of course things could not just go right, the main waterpipe was riped out while the trench was dug up.

Let's hope this will be good for a number of years and get the house a bit dryer.

We still have not heard from BT so we have to manage with the cellphones. And even those only work in some parts of the house




But then again, life is great up here.

I haven't realy found the time yet to process the trip to the states and off I am again on yet another adventure.
It all started last Thursday:

I arrived in Frankfurt with Arne and we parted there. I was picked up by Erech and Arne took the train back home.
I did not have much time to rest because the car and the trailer needed to be packed for the trip up to the highlands.
I am not sure how much we packed but I am sure it was more than the trailer and the car where ment to handle. We had tiles, radiators, a complete kitchen, cement, ... and a motor scooter.
As long as we would not stop uphill the car started to get going quite well.

We took off Friday the next morning to drive up to Rotterdam to catch the ferry to Hull,England.
It was an overnight ferry and we had a nice little room with comfortable beds. For dinner we set on deck and enjoyed a nice bottle of wine while the sun was setting.

We both were quite tired and did not manage to stay up for very long to enjoy the luxary of the ship.
Early the next morning we arrived in England. We had a proper english breakfast a a little restaurant which filled us well enough to get through the day.
This is how the car was fed :) (pure rape seed oil):

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At around 21:00 o clock we arrived at Croftglass Cottage, near Dufftown:

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It is beautifull up here. The only thing you hear are the birds singing and the wind howling and every so often a rain shower comes along which sometimes turns into hail or even snow. I guess that's Scotland.
It is still quite cold and we don't have heating in the house. Though warm blankets and working till we drop into bed makes sure we are not getting too cold.
We have electricity but no phone and the mobiles only work in certain spots in the house.
British Telecom actually promised a phone line to be installed before May but they did not take into account that the house is in the middle of nowhere and that it might be a bit more work than just pushing a couple buttons to make it work. The lines snaped during the winter and the tel. posts they used to hang on are not high enough to meet the regulations. So, they will come in with a crew next week to put in new posts and a new line along a couple miles of road. They might have it ready on the 16th but we do not realy count on it.
Fortunatly the neighbors are great people and we can just come down to user their line to get online or do phonecalls.

There is more than plenty of work here to be done and we only have a month to get it all finished. We nned to put in a new heating system, build a comple bath and replace the existing kitchen with a new one. Besides that there is an old bathroom that needs to be torn down and some wall that need to be removed to build the new one. Pretty much The floor needs to be tiled in most places and the walls need a new makeover. The windows need to be replaced, but that'll happen during the summer. The list goes on and on and on ...

So far we have pretty much been tearing out things amd the more we take out we find even more that should be fixed. Like the floor in the living room. We just wanted to put in some new pipes for the heating system and the main watter line. So we opened up the wooden floor to find out that one of the supporting beams is rotten at the end. So, we open up more to find out that they are all rotten. Great! Now we got the bare dirt floor.

No more sitting at the fireplace for a while but lot's of timber to burn. Luckily we still have another working fireplace in the dining room.
We did find more spots where the timber needs to be removed. Erech was a bit down at the end of the day but we both agreed to do the job right instead of just giving it a quick fix.

Even with the cold weather, the little surprises we discover and what not, Erech and I are both greatly enjoying the time up here.
Like haveing the luch out in the sun:

or working hard just like that:

We finally made it to San Francisco. My host parents drove us over there from Madera. We got out to Peer 39 having a nice lunch with a great view torwards Alcatraz. We then went over the Golden Gate Bridge parked on one side and walked to the middle of it watching a large cargo ship going through. We then got to Lombart Str., the one with the switch backs ... great little streat. Next we went on the Coit tower getting a nice view of the city. My host parents left us there and headed back home and we took off for some cable car riding. We went back to the Fisherman's Warf, did a little shopping and got some Clam Showder in a sour dough bowl... yummy! The sun was setting and the batttary of my camera was almost empty. Since Arne's camera was broken we decided to head back for the Hostel, which by the way has a great location, situated at Fort Mason, pretty much right by the water. Our room even has a bay view. Now we are sitting here in a very cosy lounge area of the hostel, recharging the bettareies and ourselfes.

It sure is good to be back in california again. Arne and I went to my old High School, Sierra High in Tollhouse and met some old teachers of mine. One of them I had not seen for 11 years and yet he remembered me right away. We had some great chats, walked around the grounds and enjoyed the beautifull weather.

On frieday we went to Yosemite with my host mother and a friend of her's. It was a lovely day. We biked around a bit, hiked a little and stared at huge trees with branches thicker than I am tall.

We had some rest on saturday, a little shopping in Fresno and a nice dinner at my host mother's parents. Afterwards we went to an indoor football game.

We took off for the coast this morning and went to Monterey to the aquarium, walked on the beach and drove the 17 mile drive. Another great day of our journey with lot's to see, great weather and great people.

Finally I get to post an update again. It has been a great trip so far. We got into Sacramento with an 8h delay at around midnight with no place to go. A bit tipsy and with a semi fake german accent we were able to convinse the amtrek people to help us. They cabed us down to Madera with 7 other people. We arrived at around 2:00 am. We had a little chat with my host family and went to bed to finally get some rest.

crossing the Rockies:

Benny's Snack bar:

It was a great night in Chicago. We walked along Michigan Ave. and the river and ended up in Andy's on Hubbard Str., a small Jazzbar with live music. Not long before midnight the jet leg started catching up on us. When we were finally yawning all over the place we decided to just head back to the hostel.

We got into Chicago 2h late, because someone on the trasin passed away last night during the ride. Coming into the city we quickly found a nice place for crashing in downtown Chicago. It's the Hostelling International and it is clean and inexpensive. We put our stuff away and took off to see the city, walking around in some parks, watching people play baseball and staring at the sky scrapers.

Now we are off to experience some night life. Probably going to a nice little blues bar.

Another beautiful day in DC.
Arne had to do some sightseeing on his own as I had to meet a customer. A bit unfortunate considering the nice spring day. We both met at the Union Station at around 16:30 and got on the train to Chicago. A huge shiny silver looking amtrek.

When we reserved our tickets we decided to just go for the coach class not the sleeper cars. The seats are OK, they are recliners and have plenty of legroom. We got little pillows from the conductor but no blankets. This would not be a problem if the air conditioning would not run on full all the time. In addition to it being a bit chilly and noisy the air is very dry, just like on an airplane.

We had dinner in the dining car, which was quite nice. The prices are reasonable and it's a good place to start chatting with people. And so we did till they kicked us out. We met a nice young lady from Chicago. She's the programm director of  http://www.wluw.org, an independent community radio station.
Breackfast was yummy too. It had to be eggs, hashbrowns, saussage and bacon. And, of course, orange juice and coffee and some more coffee, and plenty of time to chat about, well, mostely politics again. This time with a couple of ladies from Seattle. They came up on the train all the way from Florida and are now heading back home to Seattle.

Not a single cloud all day and nice temperatures to walk around and see some sight. The cherry blossoms were still in bloom and the trees are just starting to turn green. Beautiful tulips cover many places...

DC is quite a charming city, clean and friendly for what we have seen. We walked around pretty much all day visiting the "must see"s. We finished our day with a yummy meal in a relaxing restaurant at Dupont Circle and visiting the Lincoln Memorial at night.

Arne and I had a nice flight with a little layover in London. They checked us in for an earlier flight so we had some time to get a nice Frappucino and watching the planes take off.

The flight was quite nice, we got emergency exit seats with about 1.5m legroom. We mostly flew during the night which gave us some nice views of the city lights down below. At around 22:30 we arrived in Washington, checked into Westernpark Hotel on Tyson Corner and had a good night sleep. It was a bit strange to find out that the room had no windows. I guess we should have found a hotel before taking off for the trip.

So, I have left Rostock, Germany now. I thought I could just gather my belongings and go but it turned out not to be that easy to pull the roots that have grown over the past 8 years of my life there. It's been good time there.

So what's next? The destination of my journey is not quite clear yet. In May I will be remodeling a house with a friend near Dufftown, Schottland. Though, before that I am going to take a little trip to the US meeting some old friends of mine. I have 6 hours left before my plane takes off for Washington,DC. A friend of mine, Arne, has spontanously decided to join me. We will be visiting DC for a couple days and leave on the 16th on a train to Chicago. After a day in Chicago the Californian Zephyr will take us to Sacramento. On the 28th we are planing to be back in Germany. After a day or so I'll be leaving for Schottland...

trainstation Feldberg, Germany