Party, Party, Party!!
Its been quite an eventfull friday night and saturday morning. We've been invited to a "Hoffest" near Wilhering. Nick's brother in law owns an old farm house where they occasionally host parties. His brother in law and his friends are also very passionated musicans.
Therefore they set up a stage and performed music all night long.
After the party Alex and I went to Maestro for some salsa dances. It was quite challenging with a full belly (lots of food and lots of drinks from the party).
Today - Saturday - started with another "party". Well - not a real party - but a festival. In the Linzer Volksgarten the Festival of Nature is taking place. Organic Farmers and all other sorts of people have been there to talk and present things about nature. In the end we had organic coffee, organic bread, organic sausages and of course organis beer :-).
Tonight is again an event to celebrate. Mario (aka March) comes back from Ireland where he spent the last 6 months. We visited him back in April. Tonight we are going to welcome him home.
Tomorrow is also pretty much planned. Bike tour in the morning with the destination Feldkirchen where I will spend the afternoon bathing in the lakes. At night its time for a movie: Live Free or Die Hard. Thats it - cheers
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| Claudia taking care of the Gulasch | Sitting in the old farm house |
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| An old friend from school - taking care of the food | The musicians |
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| Organic Coffee Break under a tree | I felt much healthier after the beer :-) |
Tickets for Salzburg vs. Arsenal
Today I had the pleasure to drive to Salzburg. Irene and two of her friends bought a ticket from Salzburg to London and they asked me if I can drive them to the Airport. The positive side-effect of this was that I could stop at the new stadion in Salzburg and buy tickets for the opening game on July 25th. Salzburg plays Arsenal - yeah!!
Besides that story there is not really much else going on. I could tell you that my average milage of the new car is 6.9 liter per 100 km - but I am not really sure if that is of any interst to anybody. I could also tell you that am close to 2500km on my bike since I bought it last september - but again - probably of no public interest.
Therefore I just shut up and go to bed - cheers
The weekend is over!!
Its been a nice weekend. Especially a nice sunday. I started at 8 AM with a bike tour. Like last sunday I did a 50km tour through the Muehlviertel. This time I choose a tour similar to what Udo (aka Prinzregent) did a couple of weeks ago. Started in Linz - up to the Giselawarte - to Kirchschlag - Hellmonsoedt - Oberbairing and back to Linz.
I was smart enough to invite myself for lunch at my parents. As you can see from the pictures below - my dad went to an oldtimer show with Vanessa and Raphael. In the afternoon I visited Leo - havent seen him for a while. There was much to talk about - so we enjoyed the afternoon on his balcony - talking and drinking beer.
The evening was very relaxed - as you can see from the picture below - having prosecco near the danube.
Well - and now its monday. Just came back from a soccer game. It started ugly - at least the weather. We started in pouring rain - but soon the sun fought back and it turned out to be a good evening. Now its just time for a shower and salsa in the remembar. Cheers
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| View from the Giselawarte down to Linz towards the Alps | Dad with this oldtimer tractor |
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| Here we go | Sundown at the Danube |
A week in retrospect!
Its saturday evening. I will leave in about 15 minutes to go to see Shrek the Third.
The last days have not really been too eventfull. A company dinner on wednesday with an extra session afterwards in Klostherhof and on my balcony. The extra session in Klosterhof was very essential. Last week I broke my last Luitpold Wheatbeer Glass. Well - lets say it that way. Now I have a new one :-)
On thursday we went to see 2 Days in Paris. My comment: hilarious. A MUST SEE!!
Yesterday I met with Roman - he is back from Innsbruck and we went out for two beers - then it was time for Salsa again - of course.
Today in the morning I met with Martin (aka mole). He was about to shoot some pictures of the Oesterreich am Ball show in Linz. Unfortunately the show started later or extremly slow - nobody (except staff) was there at the time we went there.
Thats it - I've to run. Cheers
Genesis Concert in Linz
Tonight was the night I've been waiting for a long time. Genesis in Linz. The band around Phil Collins are touring through Europe with their "Turn it on again"-Tour. My expectations have been high - probably a bit too high. The concert was fine - they played many of their old famous songs. Some of them were actually too old for me.
They also played several very long just instrumental songs - probably to give the old guy a rest from singing. I missed the song "Jesus he knows me" - which was one of their greatest hits in the 90s. But - to sum up - it was a good concert on a very warm summer night in the Linzer Stadion.
Now its time to go to bed - Cheers
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| Linz hosting Genesis | Genesis started late - but still at daylight |
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| A small firework near the end of the show | The legendary "I can't dance" men |
A day on the lake
Its been quite a long and relaxing day. As I fell asleep shortly after I created yesterdays diary entry I got up at 7:30. This allowed me to do a nice bike trip (50kms through the muehlviertel) before we headed south to lake Attersee. 6 hours in the sun!! After the sun-bath we got served a great dinner at Irene's parents. Now its time to go to bed - another week starts soon.
Cheers
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| Pumping air into the boat - of course with a beer as it was pretty hot :-) | People walking on the dock to go swimming |
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| There was a professional BeachVolleyBall-Tournament going on as well | Evelyn and Irene enjoying the sun |
Gusenraeumung - cleaning the river
As every year we try to "clean" the river Gusen - which runs through Gallneukirchen. Every year its interesting about which "treasures" people have dumped into it - as you can see from the pictures below - we found lots of toys - for children and for grown ups :-)
Didi and Andrea were the brave one this year - the two went into the river while the rest of the crew walked along the shore and did some cleaning there. After we finished we got invited for some BBQ. Now - a steak and two kaesekrainers later - I am just waiting for bedtime because I cant move anymore :-)
Tomorrow is lake time - we drive to lake Attersee. Irene's parents live there and we are invited for dinner. Before dinner we can hopefully enjoy the good weather on the lake. Cheers
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| As I mentioned - we also found toys for grown ups :-) | Didi and Andrea - somewhere in the back |
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| Is there a fish? No - probably just trash. | Fighting their way through the water |
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| Sliding down | Finished!! |
The days fly by
Amazing. Its thursday night - where did the week go? Tomorrow is friday - another weekend ahead. Well - there has been not much going on this week. Just the usual activities - a visit to Gallneukirchen and a visit to Sandro.
But there is definitly interesting stuff ahead. On Saturday we have our anual "Gusenraeumung". We - the JVP Gallneukirchen - walk through the river Gusen that runs through Gallneukirchen and try to get rid of all the stuff that got dumped into it in the past year. After that we are invited for BBQ.
On Sunday its time for the lake - will drive to Attersee. First time for my new car to drive a longer distance - lets hope the weather stays fine so that I can fresh up my taint.
Just a quick look ahead to next week: Tuesday night - Genesis with their new "TURN IT ON AGAIN" tour - yeah!!!
Thats it - cheers
Fathers Day!!
Today is father's day and I took the chance to drive to my parents and wish my father the best for the day.
The weekend in retrospect was a pretty exhaustive one: Its been a long salsa friday with not much sleep to saturday. At night I've been invited for Chilli Con Carne by Didi - which was great as always. Unfortunately - because of my tiredness - I had to take a nap while all other guests played a very interesting game: "Kampf der Geschlechter". While I was awake we man were in the lead - when they woke me up the game was over and the girls won.
Now its sunday late afternoon. I had different plans today: meet with Martin (aka Mole) and Udo for food and drinks, meet with Didi and go to the lake, meet with Didi and watch the Formula One race, meet with Martin (aka Resl) to play volleyball, ...
So far I skipped all of those activities and stayed at home - relaxing and still catching up on sleep. Well - thats it. Still waiting for a rain shower to cool down the air. It looks like thunder storm all day long already - but so far - everything is dry. Cheers
Sailing in Greece - a detailed report!!
Finally there is some time to give you more details about the sailing trip.
We flew from Munich to Athens where we got our boat on sunday afternoon. We could set sail yet because we had to buy our suppliers in the supermarket and that could not be done on sunday because everything was closed. On monday - we got all our supplies (food, drinks, ...). Its quite challenging to buy stuff for a 10 day period for 8 people.
Unfortunately the weather on monday was not good - it was raining and we had thunder storms. The storms ended in the afternoon when we finally set sail. During our 10 day trip we visited several islands of the greek island group Cyclades. On our trip we also visited an ancient greek site - Dilos which was quite fascinating. Beyond that - the main activity on our boat was "RELAXING".
The daily routine on our boat is also a detail that I want to share with you:
* Breakfast between 8 and 9
* Leaving the bay after breakfast - heading to the next one
* On average I would say that we had a 3-4 hours trip from one bay to the other. During that period most of us either slept, read, had snacks or drank beer :-)
* Anchoring in the next bay - which most often included to set up a land line to lock the boat into position
* In the bay we either swam, slept, read, had snacks or drank beer :-)
* Dinner was either prepared before or after sunset - depending whether we could watch the sunset from the boat or if we had to climb a hill on the island to see the sun setting in the west. In either cases we had a "sun-downer" (usually wine) while watching the sunset.
* After dinner we either just sat together enjoying a variety of drinks (Beer, Ouzo, Whiskey, Wine, Cuba Libre, ...), talked, watched the stars or played poker. Bernhard brought his poker-set and therefore we played every other day.
* Bedtime varied between 11PM and 2AM.
Highlights:
* Lot of sunshine during our 10 day trip
* Cought a tuna - very delicious
* Lots of nice greek ancient sites
* Beautiful bays - clear water
Facts:
* consumed about 320 cans of beer (Mythos and Amstel)
* probably consumed double the amount of calories that would have been necessary :-)
* clothing: all i needed in the 10 days was: 2 t-shirts, 2 shorts, 1 towel
Here are some additional pictures. Cheers
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| Bying supplies :-) | Ouzo Tasting |
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| As the fridge door was missing we "invented" one with sponges | Master of Poker: Jeid won 3 out of 5 poker sessions |
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| On top of the Apollo Temple on Dilos | Jeid as Cliff-Hanger |
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| Fixing a land line to position the boat | Sailing back to Athens |
Sailing in Greece - first trip report!!
Its been one of the nicest sailing trips that I ever had. The weather was perfect, the water was warm enough, not many sailors on the sea - only - the wind could have been stronger. As its late at night after a long trip I am just putting up some pictures from the trip before I will spend some more words about the vacation tomorrow. Kali Nichta!
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| The Greek Beer - very important for sailors :-) | Sailing from Athens to Kea |
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| Enjoying the ride | Lots of ancient greek sites |
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| Sunset | We actually caught a tuna |
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| Our yacht ancoring in a beautiful bay | The crew sitting round a campfire - fortunatelly we didnt burn down the island |