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.

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

vertical lines 20 minutes north of spain

swish! 2 points!

building and hill

caballo y su amigo negro

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"

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!

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.

i draguated!

gimme a kiss!

"XX in the City"

The sailing event took place in the middle of the city...

might be a lull behind that apartment building

gybing action! lightwind on day one... but everyone still had a good time

heading out with lightwind on day 2... i was freaking out "oh no not again..."

but after launching the boats

and sailing around the race area while the race committee set up the course, tada! the breeze popped up from the perfect direction and all was a grand ol' laugh!

Sail Amsterdam faces

tourist day on the rib for the big tour of the harbour, me and norwegian buddies helene and ane

femke and i in the team portraits i organized for the competition

rigging boats in the city centre

the plastic flower boat man, mentioned previously

Sail Amsterdam Festival

Sailing Festival that takes over the city of Amsterdam every 5 years.

The organizing team of the sailing competition we put on as part of the festival cruised the harbour to take in the sights - and took a local news cast crew on board.

when we cruised by this ship there was a small launch entirely covered in plastic flowers that was playing "dutch oldies". the man standing at the helm was holding a tall sign that said, "Applause!"

like the stripes!

meteorology rocks.

Leaving Dover

drying my sails in the backyard up in Tynemouth. a nice bath after getting seriously salty down at the Olympic sailing center in Weymouth.

I made great time down the whole of England, with the exception of the last 20 miles that I spent in bumper to bumper re-routing due to impressive amounts of roadworks. One of the perks of painfully crawling around in first gear was that the detour took all us holiday-makers and professional drivers by Dover Castle. It is a wel-known fact that CASTLES ARE COOL!

Thus far, these white cliffs prove to always “liven” my commute to the continent. This time a glitch in the computer has registered my trailer as part of the reservation (on which there are 2 boats and 12 masts). As usual, French customs stamps you through without lifting their gaze in your direction. I think they assume that no one would ever want to immigrate to France unless they were French – culture outmoding the necessity of border patrol.

At the ticket gate, I am waved aside to check with the ticket agency just there, and see a guy named “Rich”. I pull up and park on the far edge of the lot and as I’m scuttling to the office one 18 wheeler rams into the back of another. Shouts erupt. In the office I explain the trailer situation etc as Rich clacks away on the keyboard, “ah yes! you’re the boat-lady!”

Yes, that would be me. I told him if I got stuck one more time getting through I was going to be very suspicious, I think you just want to see me. The office had a laugh.

Allons-y! It was a clear day and the wind was perfect. You could see France from the onset and I thought, why am I not sailing to France? Instead I’m on a boat, in a car, towing boats – at which point I thought how much I’d like to place a toy car on my boat. Which is of course easier than putting the ferry on the back of a truck.

buon appetito!

rosemary and crushed chili with bit of s and p and olive oil on sweet potatos and cubed onions. mushed up bits of bacon fat, coriander, garam masala, cumin, lime pickle, bit of lemon juice and whole grain mustard and filled under chicken skin. shoved all the leftovers, lemon rind inside chicken. placed on top of bed of potatos, draped bacon strips over the chicken...

yum!

i drank it with a purple grape juice and sparkling water cocktail which i proceeded to kick all over the white carpet and then spent 2 hours scrubbing and soaking and throwing every wives' tale concoction i could think of onto the floor mixed with plenty of "oh LIZZI!'s" and "oh please work!'s"

salsacita, la vida oscura

everything is more profound when set to the Avatar soundtrack.

it feels like i've triumphed over terribly trying trials!

when really i've just had a wee and am leaving the lorry park, back to the open road...

more sights and sounds from the road

Most of the time when I'm driving around, I'm gasping at the amazing, novel scenery.

LOOK AT ALL THE MUUUUUSTAAAAAARD!

por ejemplo.

this on the other hand is more of the "usual view"...

complicated in the alps when I was flipping out and trying to video waterfalls for pierre.

one of the best views in all of france!

apparently I am greatly revered and loved by the french!

so much so that someone is making money off of the merchandise of this love!

or maybe it's La Rochelle.

nous faisons d'escalade!

Somehow between the mayhem of regatta this and regatta that, my very dear friends from Cavalaire-sur-Mer snuck off for a day of rock-climbing just East of St. Tropez.

Céline et moi from the French Navy weather station. Her friend works at this lighthouse atop the hill and let us in for a tour. His daily post is up a 2-story spiral staircase with a 360 degree view. Quelle vue! He was the "markboat" man at the 29er regatta over Easter weekend.

Made it to the top!

rockshot, waiting for fellow climber to come get camera...

not a bad place to hang out for a while.

driving en france!

I spend many long hours in the car, a sola salsacita. which I enjoy very much, I play games like "omnipresent narrator of the ever-popular adventure/fantasy novel that is my life". sometimes I simply combust with "I'M DRIVING THROUGH FRANCE!!!" or Milan, or Munich, or Vienna or through the Alps and there are waterfalls everywhere! And sometimes I think of people I love and talk to them, maybe out loud! and for the in between I have the dreamgirls soundtrack and garrison kieler to keep me company.

i thought the tail lights on this truck looked like little lobsters!

all freeways should have sprightly young boys leaping over mushrooms!

my friends later told me that these sculptures announced a "rest stop" with a children's playground. I saw one later down the road that had a series of large turtle sculptures.

(PJ! a new project for you??)

driving down the UK until...

i'm the little truckicita in the middle! rolling up for a break between the k's...

driving was all good, making great time, arrived in Dover just in time for the last ferry! and wha-BAM! no fuel. No worries! quick stop, car goes chug-a-lug... get through the border, in line for the ferry. Then my turn to turn on and go and - RRRR-RRR-RRR! No sparks. The ferry leaves, and we are abandoned amidst the expanse of concrete. Oh right, that might have been PETROL not Diesel!! Of course my cell phone is out of batteries, naturally. Run to the pay phone to call roadside assistance. "How will we find you?" "Well, I'm all alone in the middle of a huge empty parking lot and I have a trailer full of boats..." The tow-man arrived at 2300 hrs and towed me off to get drained at the local car dealership which was 45 mins away.

This dragon guarded me while I waited for the mechanic to siphon the engine.

All's well, some Great British Pounds exchanged hands, and I was off back to the ferry station. All the while having been "stamped" for entering France. I returned to the ferry parking lot at 0230 and waited for the next ferry at 0800.

it was a cold night at Dover no.7, I had to keep waking up and turning the engine on to keep warm about every 40 minutes...

backlog blog

there has been there has been.

and now that this is so, i'm afraid that anything i write will not be believed, for i hardly believe everything myself. is autobiography rendered fiction if the protagonist herself cannot trust the verity of the plot?

this week alone i have met 2 kings, been to 5 different countries - went skiff sailing in 3!

just now I came off the water from sailing on lake balaton in hungary, southwest of Budapest. there was little wind, and i rigged up with the president of the 49er sailing class and went for a sola sail on the water. after so much engagement and meetings and introduction as i begin the long lobbying process for reconfiguring olympic sailing (big project!), need to be reminded of why we do it all in the first place.

a soft upwind, and then an easy kite run lazily hanging on the wire, and as i rounded up for another lap, a zodiac full of kids zoomed up and i invited one on board - he's a 49er sailor from the local sailing club. they're heading to Garda tomorrow for an event, and i'm invited... when i get off the water the whole of the staff at the local club bustle to the water's edge and help me pull my boat out, roll sails, blades in bags, the zips and clips of the cover at last.

"kosonum" i say with a smile, my eyes brimming with the joy emanating from within. a thank you so true it's hard to say anything more.

driving down the UK

bunnies at the petrol station!

i mean DIESEL station... it's a DIESEL station.

we're making a DIESEL stop to put some DIESEL in the tank...

well... this is fun!

i'm in marseille at the moment, just finished up 2 weeks of sailing events here in le sud de france. took a lithuanian opti sailor for a test run in the new rig i've been helping to develop - was the day of his life even though there was no wind. every third car on the road in Cannes was moretti... spent 3 beautiful evenings with my friend's family in st. raphael, and just finished watching the finals of the world match racing tour in marseille... watching my ozzi friends unfortunately not sail so famously. better luck next time boyz!

here is some FUN from a photo shoot back up in the north of england... always up to something!