Saturday, December 25, 2010

feliz navidad!

clockwise from top left:
me, me discussing important issues with locals in front of hagia sofia, me and my mate gracie zipping around sydney harbour, a gorgeous poppy blossom in northern england's hard-earned spring - and did wonders for my daily allotment of joy.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

mosquerading in istanbul

two of my very lovely hosts, ismail the laser coach and tugkan the opti coach with myself on our way to hagia sofia (after a very yummy lunch of spicy kafta, salty yogurt milk drinks, and honey saturated sponge cake).


the blue mosque: minaret in g


gum drop bushes and hagia sofia


Tuesday, October 19, 2010

vertical lines 20 minutes north of spain

swish! 2 points!

building and hill

caballo y su amigo negro

Sunday, October 10, 2010

more Oktoberfest


papa lederhosen and baby lederhosen


feasting it up, that is half a duck and a bavarian pretzel


me and some of the young sailors in their "native attire"

Sunday, October 3, 2010

oktoberfest


the sights of Munchen during Oktoberfest


finished a 3-day regatta today, after driving down from sweden all night wednesday. had a fantastic time seeing all the sailors I've met this season. and a semi-less fantastic time sailing... the sailing was fun, but I could use a bit more practice on the racing! (I don't spend all my time sailing, you know, and my scores prove it!) despite the light shifty (frustrating!) conditions, the regatta was spectacular, with pork on a spit dinners and live bands rapping in german, and a night out at oktoberfest in the big city...

germany is pretty awesome!

Monday, September 13, 2010

happy landings!

It's been a whirlwind of a week - from Switzerland to Milan to Barcelona - all wind related of course. Spent a long weekend in St. Moritz enjoying mates out match racing (and not eating or doing anything else that would devastate the bank account...) with gorgeous morning runs around the alpine lake and a few dips in the 5 star hotel pool (that I most definitely was not staying at! But my mates sailing the event were). An amazing train ride down to Milano for a day of being a tourist - which means vino negro and il duomo and discussions of zombies, "truth" and the Stanford Linear Accelerator with various American backpackers I met at the hostel, before my meeting with the Milan based sailing company about upcoming regattas.

And finally Barcelona - my best mate from Sydney arrives on Wednesday, and I'm here to greet him at the airport. I'm nestled in with a wonderful sailing family that I met previously in France last April. Everyone speaks French and Spanish and a bit of English, so we are all switching back and forth. Tried to follow a tv program in Catalan... not such a success!

Spent the weekend with at the local sailing club and did some training - apparently experienced the windiest day of the season with huge waves! Reminded me of San Francisco. Felt so at home, especially after such a turbulent week... month... months.

In the late afternoon was on board coaching one of the younger skippers, a "how-to" for steering in big waves, and we launched off a huge one into the air! and I had a less than happy landing against the side of the boat before bouncing into the water. Two days later I am looking rather purple.





The happy part of landing has to do with settling into phase (where are we now 8,000?!) of Lulu's life adventure which will be more sailing coaching, racing the world over. Next stop Copenhagen, Munich, Athens, Istanbul...

Doing our very best to take the "poor" out of self-induced poverty one wild adventure at a time.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010