[insert your own topic]

I had doubts.

I read pages on the internet.

I am again a believer.

My mind is a horrible place to have to exist in (often, but especially after a night shift).

How do I get out of here?

Since it was legally allowed I’ve been driving, as almost all do in Australia. Of course through my twenties I was a great driver, and I can back that up by the lack of crashes and the fun times I’ve had in and around cars. Yes, you can get an early model Pajero airborne, and a Sigma going the wrong way around a roundabout, in reverse, will indeed make you feel sick from the car fumes. But only after about 10 laps of the roundabout.

But since I left Aus I have decided to try and do without a car. And that’s easy when you live in the middle of a city like Barcelona. In fact to have a car is slightly insane. To park is a nightmare, and getting anywhere in the city is much easier accomplished by foot/bike or public transport (I choose foot). Which means I don’t drive all that often. In fact in can be 6 weeks between driving. Which means…

I don’t quite know how to say this. I’m trained not to acknowledge this kind of thing publicly.

Imnotaverygooddriver

Ok, there, said it. Maybe it will come back with practice. Maybe I don’t want it to. I can ride the bike reasonably well. Perhaps I’ll just leave it at that. Watch out if you’re on the roads…

So last weekend I managed to visit Jürg and Rahel at their ‘home’ in Switzerland. I say ‘home’ because they are effectively homeless still, and preparing for another winter in Norway. Crazy. Weather that is negative [some big number] with [another big number] meters of snow. Apparently hibernation is the favourite activity. Well, I hope they enjoy it.

It was super good to see them again, talk about the trip and a bit about what they’ve done since / have planned. Meet some of the people they talked about. Experience some of Switzerland, A walk in the mountains, Cheese Fondue in the forest, big meals with friends and Röste (described to me as Swiss Hash browns, but much better). Unfortunately I was still ‘jet lagged’ from working night shift in Belgium, so I managed to fall asleep at almost every dinner table. A little embarrassing (but it was hard to stay awake after a big meal, of excellent but heavy food, and everyone around me talking Swiss German). But Denise and PB (Rahel’s sister and partner) spoke excellent English so they kept me entertained when I wasn’t dozing off. Actually Denise loves Australia, she has several Aussie flags around the apartment. Good one!

Jürg has some photos of the cheese fondue gathering (after riding there in a horse and cart), but I was too busy eating to take any. Yes, I ate cheese fondue (I normally avoid cheese like the plague).

I’ve been asked how the yacht race went. This proves that at least one person actually reads this. Wow.

It went fine. We won our class, despite terribly calm conditions. The following facts are completely made up, but are basically true. The race was 90miles, from (almost) Barcelona to Mallorca, and had a cut-off time of 36 hours (or something). Which should be plenty of time. It took us 30, and we were some of the first (who didn’t give up and turn their motor on because they were bored of just sitting in the middle of no-where, doing nothing).

The wind at the start was so feeble that a pile of yachts almost crashed because they didn’t have enough force in their sails to change direction. For about an hour I used my (phemominal) bodyweight to hold the jib out and stop it flapping. I honestly didn’t noltice we had started, since I was up the front and couldn’t hear the conversation in the pit. After an hour I guessed we must be racing now. So I assumed the correct racing position:

The trick is to know what side to be on (I generally avoid the sun – that often tends to be the wrong move, so I’m told…)

Overnight in Mallorca, then back with decent winds. Took 15hours to get back, we weren’t racing. I even got to steer for a while (that didn’t make us any faster). It’s harder than it looks to do well.

At least it was a very fine day (or two or three). Lots of stars. Not a lot of sleep.

Since we parted ways in early Feb 2008, (20 months ago!) after doing battle with the first part of the Patagonian winds, I haven’t seen my long time (6 months!) cycling friends Jurg and Rahel. But it looks like this will change this weekend. They have gone home to Switzerland, for one month visit before heading back to Norway to hibernate. And work. They tell me spring will bring another journey, but they’ve already done over 40,000km (one lap of the planet) so I’ll be interested to hear where they go from here.

I’ve been working nights and weekends, so a long weekend is due. Switzerland is not far from Barcelona. I’ll see them Thursday. The only problem is they are super busy, working, visiting family, organising to move back to Norway. I hope to tag along, and not get in the way too much.

I hope also to visit Maurice and Miranda (also from the bike trip) the week after next. I tried last weekend, but working nightshift doesn’t really allow all that much socialising time…

Pity these trips are on planes. My poor bike isn’t getting out all that much.

Just after counting the months since I left Jurg and Rahel, I wondered how long it’d been since I left Oz. June ‘07. I’m back for Christmas this year. 2.5 years. [nerd alert] That’s almost 8% of my life so far! No wonder the family are keen to see me again

I went for a run this evening, before work. This in itself is not particularly worthy of note.

Running is often a good time to think. Normally the depth is limited to breathing and going faster, but tonight my thoughts drifted to my heart. No, there were  no romantic revelations. I was kind of surprised that I could keep my heart rate at only a little below 3 beats per second for almost 3/4 of an hour. I shouldn’t be – I do this three times a week at the moment, but normally focus on my pace rather than heart rate (the GPS watch helps a lot with that). I remembered reading that mammals hearts all seem to have a life span of about 1million beats, but my mental arithmetic isn’t so great when dashing along the road (note I don’t often use the word dashing, especially to describe myself, although feel free to do so at any time ). A swift burst on the calculator tells me that this would be unfortunate – most humans would therefore have a lifespan of less than 10 days. The internet is wonderful – it reminds me that the number I should remember is 1 billion beats, which modern medicine has recently more than doubled to 2.5 billion  (’s true, I read it on the internets).

But: At 3 times the normal rate, could it be that running hard for an hour actually cuts your life expectancy by 2 hours? Running like this three times a week for 28years would sum to a year off! …Although you’d be pretty fit 50 year old, and probably more likely to be hit by a car or get in trouble with frostbite in this part of the world.

My conclusion was that I should take up meditation and  beer. Sleep a lot. Stop running like this. Hang around forever. Actually anything that means I can stop running . I can get there with almost any starting point, given enough time.

That was it. In 46 mins, you’d think more thoughts would pass through ones head. Only when I’d finished and I noticed my achillies tendon give off the familiar warning feel did I think something new, and that was “oh, no. not again”. Followed by “petunias”. And remembered that not two weeks ago my left calf was damaged so that it hurt to walk, and today it is fine. Sometimes I find the recovery powers of these bodies is truely amazing.

Right. Dinners done. Time to go to work. Still in Antwerp. Still cold, but less wet today. It’s been a while since I’ve dealt with horizontal rain (maybe Patagonia?). Would be happy to wait a long time for it again.

Planes or Trains.

Europe has a high population density. There are trains everywhere. You might think I could make a train journey work.

No. In almost every case (of longer trips) I have tried so far taking a plane is about half the cost and 4-5 times faster. For example, I’m looking at a way to get to Zurich from Antwerp. It turns out it will be cheaper to go to Amsterdam and fly than it would be to go via train. Make it harder to use the trains and guess what? We wont use them. And on the hard point – the internet sites are terrible! Want to cross an international border? Forget it. I must be missing something here, I hope. It’s easier to take the bike, just takes a bit too long when you’ve only got a weekend to play with.

From http://www.kevincyr.net/

Nothing much happens, life continues, I don’t write anything on the blog and people still read it. Very good. Maybe I should write something then.

Ok here goes.

The weather has definitely changed. My Northern American friends write nasty things aboot the coming winter. So leave Canada, at least for the winter. Barcelona today: 26°C and sunny. It did rain for a week about a month ago. You should have seen the coats and scarves come out. I think it was about 20°C. Then the weather cleared up beautifully for Mercé. Barcelona’s week of festivities and street parties. For all I know it could have rained for the last two weeks – I was in the far NW corner of Spain, right up in Coruña. Lets see if I can get a map to work:

View Larger Map

A Coruña. Pleasant, small. Actually fairly polluted for such a small place. The old city is quite lovely, but the new… It looks like about the 60’s or 70’s someone went mad in the town hall, and built a whole pile of lego block apartment buildings with no respect for the street layout or aesthetics. Maybe next time I’ll try to demonstrate with fotos. Unfortunately several stunning examples of hideousness were between our hotel and the old city, and one or two (or three or four) amazing seafood restaurants. Oh, and it rains in A Coruña. Aparently the climate is similar to the UK. They tell me now. I got caught in a rather nasty downpour exiting another nice restaurant.

Also, so they tell me, there is a tower over the body of the giant that Hercules killed. I claim ignorance of the legends of Hercules, but I didn’t know that people were claiming they might be fact, and actually know where the bodies are. Convieniently, it looks like a very good place for a light house. The city shield has a skull and cross bones on it; they’re serious. This is slightly surprising, since A Coruña is about as far away from Rome as you could get in the Roman empire, when it was around (ok, no it’s not, but it’s a damn long way without a car). Maybe he came wandering. Maybe he was on a bike trip.

So work was pleasant. The Spanish are working winter hours now. So 0830 to 2000. Long day. Also long lunch. No siesta, but the lunch is of average restaurant quality. Amazingly good for a canteen. Everyone shuffles past the counter, selects their two plates of food, anything from salad to whole fish, + bread, drink, desert. We all sit down and talk / eat for a while. Coffee is brought round. Very civilised. Then roll back to work. At about 2pm. So we’re not hungry again until about 11pm. Which is fine, because any earlier and the restaurants are shut. Eat something, return to the hotel, check some emails, get to sleep around 2am. Back up at 7 to start the day. After two weeks I’m completely buggered! the work wasn’t so hard, but the sleep deprivation is killing me. I just fell asleep in front of the computer for 2 hours (and missed my opportunity to go for a run today).

The future. I’m “home” (in Barcelona) tonight, there’s another yacht race this weekend. Back on Monday. Another night at “home”, then off to Belgium for two weeks. Awesome, another month where I’m at home for two whole nights. I’m still trying to work out why I might be single…