Uhlfelder News

Today started like any other day. Assuming you’re in Austria and planning to go skiing in a marathon distance (42K) cross country ski race. In any case that’s what was going on here today and I felt like it kind of worked out for me. I have no choice but to go out slowly because I was behind what I thought was about 1000 people but was probably 500 or a bit more, and many of them were awful Skiers. They don’t seed here so it’s a free for all. Poles are broken (not mine luckily) but I was worried. I ended up passing hundreds of people (the 42K race and the 21K race, which also had about 300 people, were started simultaneously) and never got passed, which in my mind is the best race I can ski. It was very pleased.

What was strange is that for the first half of the race, as I was passing people who were in both races, some of them who I didn’t catch until the end of the first 20 kilometers looked like they had drunk a keg of beer over the last years, and one guy in particular looked like he was 25 pounds overweight and was squeezed like a lumpy sausage into his race suit. Not only was it not a pretty sight, but how did he stay ahead of me for 20K? Another strange thing was that once I passed the 20K mark, I almost felt like I was alone. The 20K skiers had finished, and the skiers who were left were in the longer race, but they were all pretty far in front of me. The good and bad news is it gave me a chance to ski faster, but there was no one to ski with.

My time, I thought, wasn’t very good but given the competition (it was a truly international race), I guess it was okay. On looking at the photos on line I see tons of form issues for me to fix.

Here is a panorama showing the race start.

I ended up with 156th out of about 340 finishers in the 42K race. I was eighth in my age group.

Here’s a photo of me at the end of the race. I think I look great, but that’s just me. Thanks to Noah Hoffman for providing such a cool race suit and great training advice.

Fresh as a spring breeze

Here are results:

http://results.racetime.pro/results.php?CId=16658&RId=6131

One thing worth mentioning is that I was pulling up to one of the last stops for food and drinks and one of the guys serving drinks had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. I asked smoking guy for “Essen” (food) and he pointed back to the table which I was already about 30 m past. Given the lingering cigarette smoke, I skipped this food stop. Welcome to Austria.

Garrett is insisting that everyone’s time is well spent so he brought the group to a distillery for a tour. Free tastings of hard alcohol—mmm good. Not my thing, but I liked the lighting in the cellar, a really great basement room. It would certainly make a good model for a nice private wine cellar.

This morning, after honestly not sleeping at all (I’m jet-lagged about as badly as I can remember). We got an early start, ate a quick breakfast and took a 45-minute shuttle bus from Lienz Austria up to Obertilliach via a serpentine road.

One guy on the trip is a professor or something in Alaska and offers his very professorial opinions about everything. He reminds me of someone at home we know and is a Yale graduate. The group all went to the best colleges, some were very accomplished athletes on a college level, and are all really into supporting the US cross country team and the development teams and young athletes.

I overheard the professor tell Garrott about tourism and the mountain sports industry. Lots of free advice to be sure.

It was very cold, at least single digits and given my sleep, I seem to be susceptible to it. It was miserable. I think lack of exercise yesterday contributed.

Today was the classic race day, and a couple in our group participated. I’m waiting for tomorrow and the skate race. I estimate there were 750 people or so, from really fast to really slow. I saw a pretty bad fall at the start which given the chaos seemed inevitable. Garrott was remarking how cross-country just wasn’t that popular in Austria. Tomorrow’s’ race should have about 1,000 people. The average Aspen race has 15.

Anyway, Garrott, the trip leader, didn’t seem terribly interested in skiing and everyone was doing their own thing so I met one of our guides, Petra from Austria, and she told me to meet them at a restaurant in Rauschenberg. This was about four miles from the starting point in Obertilliach and one of Garrott’s “quaint mountain huts.”

It took 30 minutes of skiing to warm up, sort of, but when I arrived at the hut 50 minutes later I was still cold and uncomfortable. I sat there thinking I must have the wrong place since it wasn’t quaint, it wasn’t cute, or charming-it wasn’t anything more than a bar that served drinks and some basic off-the-shelf food. I had the Campbell’s noodle soup, then another, and waited.

If you tolerated the smell, the view was nice

Here was the atmosphere: next to the main road, filled with stale cigarette smoke and a table of Austrians enthusiastically watching the Hahnenkamm on TV. To be fair, it had a nice view, but it wasn’t enough to redeem it. I waited about a 40 minutes for everyone else to show up, and tried to warm up. Eventually another six or so people showed up along with the overly enthusiastic, borderline annoying daughter of one of the guests.

Rauch means to smoke in German. We Americans are simply not used to smoking and dealing with smoke anymore.

We went back down the trails to catch the shuttle back to Lienz and on a quick ski back to Obertilliach I was met by the trail police that asked for my trail pass. This is when English comes in handy, and I told him our group leader had it and she was right behind me and went on my way. Apparently she showed up and said Garrott was behind her with the passes (he wasn’t). It turns out Garrett was told passes were not needed during the races. Eventually I got to where the 42K classic race was still going on, and double polled with the slower folks watching the race. It didn’t seem to matter that a race was going on and I was skiing on the course.

Some notes:

We had a nice dinner and the group with some who even get my sense of humor.

We reviewed the race today as informed by the two people from the group who raced.

It’s snowing this evening and notwithstanding lack of sleep tomorrow should be nice. I slept this afternoon for a couple hours.

We decided to go alpine skiing in Cortina on Tuesday.

Garrott offered to arrange a biathlon ski for me in Seefeld.

1-19-2018 — Drive from Munich to Lienz Austria

Today at noon we got on a bus and made our way to Austria. There are 14 guests, two guides and Garrott Kuzzy, who is a former Olympic XC skier and put the trip together. Ten days of XC skiing already looks too daunting to everyone so they are talking about alpine skiing for at least a couple of days. I brought my alpine clothes and googles so that’s fine with me.

Three of the trip goers is a couple with their daughter in her 20s from Carbondale and looked really familiar. Turns out the mom has been at our house and played the piano with Anne and her piano group.

There is a lot of snow here compared with Aspen. I’m not sure it’s as much as advertised but will know more tomorrow.

Everyone seems nice and on their best behavior. There are at least two other people on the trip who seem to speak some German. One guy was an exchange student and I don’t know what the other’s story is. I guess I speak some too. It seems clear that a trip to Germany and Austria would attract people who speak and want to practice the language (German, Bavarian, Austrian, etc…).

We passed Kitzbuhel and the skiing looked good. The most-famous World-cup Hahnenkamm downhill is taking place, but we only saw it from the bus windows (our timing is off). The race is tomorrow. There will probably be 100,000 people on the course and it’s an hour from where we’re staying.

It’s just the Hahnenkamm—no big deal

Our first group dinner was tonight. I am still jet lagged and listening to people made me even more tired. I understand why beer is so popular. We were warned that the hotels all have saunas and we should expect that everyone will be nude – sounds gross to me.

There are two wax experts that will do the ski waxing for us, a husband and wife team, who are cute, tall, and speak English. They were hired to wax and know how to do it! They really care and are waxing people’s skis for a world-cup race team. Wow. There goes my main excuse for a middling performance.

I’m not used to or terribly in touch with the whole “group” thing and wonder how long it will be before I am so sick of people that I’m so sick of people. One couple from Alaska had their luggage lost. Kind of a big deal when you’re on a ski trip. The people are all separated by at most two degrees of separation and everyone knows someone or knows someone who knows someone else, as you see. Pretty insular. In fact, I don’t think they should have children since they may be born with cross-country skis on and only talk about waxing or how awful trump is.

The group thing could go another way — maybe we’ll all be getting naked in the sauna and bond as a group. Seems unlikely.

(put sauna photo here)

Using the internet is painfully slow until everyone is done watching porn, so I have to wait until that’s over to upload this blog.  Jet lag helps me keep stupid hours.

We are in Lienz at the Goldener Fisch hotel   It’s nice and clean with large rooms and I have new slippers from the hotel.

I woke up this morning at about 1:30 ish after falling asleep at around 10 p.m. (sorry, 22:00 here). After waiting for the sun to come up and reading the Wednesday NY Times I brought with me from home in excruciating detail, it was almost 6:30 and breakfast was open.

It was a standard European breakfast; nothing special but clean and neat and ostensibly Bavarian.

Breakfast looks yummy

I did drink about five cups of strong coffee. Then I took the S-Bahn three stops to Marienplatz. The weather was atrocious with cold and high winds. I had full on ski clothing and wasn’t terribly warm.

I walked into a very nice department store which had 70 percent off on some things, but mostly 20 or 30 percent off but stuff was priced in ranges and didn’t seem that expensive, really. But I don’t want or need anything. Below is a photo of one of many stores that specialize in Tracht (Derndels and laderhosen).

I walked to the closest museum I found — the Museum Funf Kontinente (five continents) mainly to warm up. It had native stuff from all over the world. The name was a tip off. I saw the Peru exhibit (we were there summer 2016), American Indian art, and strangely a not-updated homage to Mianmar (nothing about their apparent ethnic cleansing!).

Anyway, long enough in there and asked the front desk (everyone is so friendly, especially if you speak German to them) for directions to the Alte Pinakothek, which has some old masters and I felt like I should get some culture for a change. Speaking of culture, I’m noticing that I can often get people to understand my meaning when speaking German and I think with six to eight years of emersion I could become close to fluent.

By then, unfortunately, I would likely die of second-hand cigarette smoke since you are basically walking through a chimney filled with the stuff as you go down the streets. It’s gross and has to take a toll.

Everything is farther away and takes longer than people think and they really walk around here. I’ve noticed that at meals there is no portion control and bread is abundant. You need the calories. I went the museum’s cafe and had a Thai soup and a tuna salad; both very good.

Here are some photos of the highlights for me.

Being a peasant was fun!

Nice doggy

Okay, okay, I’ll pay, but it seemed expensive.

After the Alte Pinakothek, I headed back to the hotel for a much needed break of a few minutes, then met Jane and Mike from Wisconsin who are on my ski trip and responded to an email offering to get a tour of the Stadtmuesum, which prominently features Uhlfelder stuff. We met Dr. Isabella Fehle, the director of the museum and my friend, who took the three of us to coffee and cakes (not necessarily on a marathoner’s diet), gave us entry tickets and we talked for a long time. She is wonderful and the only peril for the Uhlfelder name exhibits is her leaving. That said, it seems some of the Uhlfelder exhibits (in the museum annex) were changed.

Uhlfelder China sold at Kaufhaus Uhlfelder on display at the Stadtmuseum

They added the famous photo of Dr. Siegal being marched down a street in his underwear with a sign that said “I will not bother the police.” I had no idea they had changed the exhibit. This is a very emotional thing for me and jet lag didn’t help; I told my new friends Jane and Mike about it but found it hard. Since the last time I visited the museum, I had met Dr. Siegal’s daughter Bea Green (she’s 92 now) and spent a couple of days with her in Munich is April 2015 when we both participated in the opening of another museum (Dokument Centrum) and found out more about the event and the families’ intertwined relationships. Man’s inhumanity to man, for sure.

I had an appointment to meet Martina’s parents and her kids for dinner. That took some doing because the phone number Martina gave me didn’t work on my phone but I found an old phone number (home phone) in my phone and got ahold of them and met them near their house for a nice dinner. At this point it was supposed to be Bararian fare, but after my sweet at 3:00 (sorry, 15:00) I was not hungry so I had a salad.

I noticed the German press carry the latest awful news from the US, including that trump passed a test for dementia (the newspaper had the test and just glancing at it I was able to determine that the two humped animal was a spider).

Anyway, a long day and there was an express bus that Martina’s father, Bernt, found that went from the restaurant to the Ostbahnhoff (next to my hotel). Nineteen minutes of nodding off.

Another great Aspen day, in Ocho’s estimation

Hello all! Thanks for viewing!

January 15, 2018

Ten years ago in while living in Spain I had a blog, which this is meant to better. More insightful, more funny, more photos.

Anyway as I was leaving Aspen it was about 35 or 40° and feelt like 55 in the sun. Dry and cloudless.

Ocho of course was ever vigilant watching and waiting for something — anything.

I’m taking a cross country ski trip in Austria to race in a Loppet (long) race and just have a different experience. Don’t get me wrong — the skiing in Aspen is pretty hard to match, but that said, it’s nice to see what everyone is missing (in Aspen).

I’ll expect myself to be hilarious and write things, without meaning to be funny, that are too funny to believe. It’s easy since this sport of cross country skiing was invented by and continues to be dominated by the ever funny Scandanavians.

January 16, 2018

The only way to fly — except first or private, I guess.

Anyway, I just got to Germany and seem to be okay with jet-lag (so far). The two flights were unbelieveably easy, almost earily so. I got to the airport late (business), the bags were still able to be checked through, and the flight arrived an hour early. I managed to sleep on the flight (I think) since I had a flat bed seat. The flight was only seven hours and they even served me my Asian vegan meal, which was surely better than the choices, although they looked fine.

Lufthansa service is pretty extraordinary. As I saw it, there were enough flight attendants to have a ratio of what looked like two passengers to one attendant. There was even a senior attendant who went around asking if everything was okay and insisted on shaking everyone’s hand. Really, too much.

1/17/2018

The Munich airport is earily empty and there are few people but lots of well lit shops. I walked by the Rolex store to see if they have a Daytona in steel, which seems impossible to buy (there is a premium if you can find one). I asked in German if they had one, she said yes, white gold, yellow gold, etc… and I asked “und vas noch” and she knew I was looking for the steel and smiled and said no.

You have to walk a long distance, which I’ve done before, to get to baggage claim and then you feel like you’re in the wrong place anyway since there is no one there. My 60-pound bag and my ski bag made it, no problem.

I have two passports, US and German. For reasons of thinking that it may be easier to get through passport control with a US Passport, I presented that one. I think that was the wrong move. She (I think) asked me if that was the “whole” passport, as if pages were missing, asked other questions, and I sensed she (he?) was not too into US passport holders. It may be what’s going on here; thank you Trump. I’ll watch for this.

It was pretty clear after picking them up that unless I had gone insane, it wasn’t worth trying to save 70 Euros by not taking a cab, so that’s what I did.

Not a word was exchanged with the Turkish tax driver, other than where I was staying. Anyway, I arrived in Munich about 2:00. Door to door in 14 hours or so. When I checked in, I felt like I learned my lesson. The front desk of this smallish hotel next to the Ostbahnhof welcomed me in English, immediately seemed to know who I was, gave me a form to sign, and asked for a passport. I used the German one. Much better plus I got to speak German and didn’t have to fill out the form!

Munich is super cold and moist, which is great for my hands which are cracked and dry (assuming I extract them from gloves). Black is the color worn here, as with most cities. It was snowing and blowing but I walked around just to get some air. It’s easy to get lost. I stopped for a bratwurst but of course choose the crappiest place to cheat on the vegan thing. I’ll be cheating at much better places as the weeks progress, I promise. I also stopped at another place for a espresso, which was nice and needed.

Above is a view from my hotel window — the “charming” Ostbahnhof.

And below is the hotel bathroom’s drying rack (why is every place so overheated in Munich?).

Walking around it seems all there are is bread stores, meat stores, supermarkets, and very upscale and interesting furnishings stores. I guess it’s the neighborhood.

Anway, I met Martina, my German friend whose family has always been part of our German and Munich experience, and Julia, who wrote her master’s thesis about the Uhlfelder family, at a vegan restaurant near Sendlinger Tor, a gate that was part of the Munich city walls. These two have been part of my Munich family and we all keep in touch, especially Martina and her family. I guess we see each other once a year or so, which explains that Julia told both Martina and I — oh, by the way, I have a baby now.

The wall, by the way, is no longer in use (other than as a tourist attraction).

Anyway, it was a really nice snowy evening and as Martina and I walked back to the S-Bahn it was a perfectly charming (albeit cold) German evening as you might read in fairy tales.

Julia, Martina and me (I’m on the left) eating at a vegan only restaurant

Martina and I walking through Marienplatz on a snowy beautiful evening.

Sendlinger Tor town gate.

I’m super glad to be back.  Things are so much easier here — food shopping (well, all shopping), working out, life in general.  I guess the biggest thing that I realized out of our time in Barcelona is we are not city people (any more).  I love our life here, and it’s just great.  I also got a bit of tolerance for the picadillos that people display, which is good. 

I plan to write our newsletter to everyone soon.  I’ve come up with a theme, but now need to write.

More later.

 June 18, 2008.  Today was our last day in Barcelona and the boys’ last day of school (there was a half day tomorrow, but not worth the time).  So after some hectic packing and trying to organize our luggage, do everything that was left undone, including banking, getting the manager to come and see the apartment, getting the broken car window replaced, we picked up the boys at school.  Then went back to the apartment and put everything in and on (bike in box) the car and went to the airport.  There we met the car rental guy, who took the car back.

We stood in line for our Lufthansa flight, which was actually Spanair.  As it turned out, the person who helped us was new to the job and couldn’t process our tickets for close to 20 minutes.  If the plane was on time, this would have been a problem. 

We left Barcelona, over an hour late, with two tired boys at 8:40 at night for a two-hour flight to Munich.  We arrived, put seven bags in left luggage, and went into town on the S-Bahn, another 40 minute affair.  We arrived at our hotel at midnight, probably the longest day ever for the boys.

June 19, 2008.  We slept late, thankfully and went to a nice hotel breakfast.  Then we made our way to go to Mike’s Bike Tour of Munich via the Uhlfelder plaque on the Stadt Museum (it’s still there!). 

The bike tour was a cruising bike that I was not used to – long wheelbase, very uncomfortable “comfort” seat.  We went for the four-hour tour, and had a nice history lesson from our guide.  There were lots of jokes that you would expect a demographic in the 20-35 year old age range would find funny.  Mike was there and seemed kind of uptight and corporate, not the image he was trying to portray as part of his marketing of the bike trips.  Anyhow, we had fantastic weather and a great day touring around Munich.  The guide, Tommy (?), did a nice job.

Then everyone went back to the room, we made a stop to see the Glockenspeil, which the boys thought was a waste of time.  It’s very crowded in the streets with tons of tourists and by far most of them are Americans.  We are wondering about the recession since these people are here.  There are others too, Russian, Spanish, French, Germans, but Americans are everywhere.

June 20, 2008.  We are on our way home.  Today is the longest day of the year, June 20, summer solstice.  For the four of us, it will be even longer by eight hours or so.  We got out of Munich without incident, more or less.  For the first time – leaving the EC – a German passport control officer actually started questioning us about how long we stayed in the EC and, low and behold, we had to show our German passports since we would be illegal without them.  He asked me why I didn’t show them first.  Anyhow, we made the flight and here we are.  I am in the row behind Anne and the kids next to a lawyer from Washington and a Air Marshall. 

June 11, 2008.  Rocket left this morning.  It only took us a few hours at the cargo section of the airport to realize we were in the wrong office (after getting a call from the right office).  Then things went smoothly.  They were actually going smoothly anyway, but we assume Rocket would have gone no where.  It was all a very Spanish experience, with a touch of Catalan efficiency.   Anywho, he’ll be spending the night in Frankfort where, we assume, he’ll be fed frankforts and will likely drink beer. 

I went to what I thought was David’s last soccer practice and talked with Jose.  He said he’d miss me, which is something no one has ever said before.  It was nice that I had him to talk to.  I still can’t express myself in Spanish or understand everything that is said, but I’m better than when I came, so…

June 12, 2008.  It was finally a nice day today, and I went out on my bike intending to have an easy ride on some of the now-familiar roads that are pretty good next to Barcelona.  I ended up getting caught toward the end of one leg of my ride by a guy with all the pro gear (bike, color-coordinated shorts and jersey, shaved legs, etc…) who wasn’t a pro but looked like one.  We ended up riding and he showed me a greuling climb that I had not thought of.  It was a good chance to practice Spanish.  He asked me if I was Italian (maybe because of the bike, not the accent). 

Today was the boys’ school talent show.  Joshua jumped rope with four others.  Joshua organized that everyone wore red shirts and it was cute.  I took a video and Anne took some photos. 

June 13, 2008.  Friday.  We went to lunch for what is perhaps our last Barcelona lunch with our friends Dan and Amy at a very nice restaurant with great food and ran into at least two other parents from BFIS.  Our friend Shelly called to tell us Rocket arrived safely in Denver and was very happy (super happy) to have a yard to run around in.  He was jet lagged, I think.  Thanks Shelly!

Then picked up the kids at school and drove north about 1 and a half hours to the Costa Brava to complete the important task of seeing Cadaques, which is supposed to be one of the prettiest places around Spain and famous for Dali and other artists.  The closest hotel I could find, the Almadraba Park Hotel, is about 14 kilometers away in Roses, which is famous for being among the ugliest places in Spain (overbuilt, ugly properties, full of cheap English tourists, …).  In fact, Roses wasn’t that horrible and the hotel is fantastic.  The only problem is the weather, which is amazingly bad (another “beach” vacation) .  In fact, the drive here looked like we were driving into a tornado, and driving through it everyone slowed to 60 kilometers per hour (from 130 or so) so you know it was a hard rain.   Friday, the 13th.

June 14, 2008.  We had a reservation, required, to visit the Dali house in Port Lligat, near Cadaques, which is thought to be the cuttest place to visit, etc…  We drove over to Port Lligat after a sumptuous breakfast at our most excellent hotel and found the place, arrived 15 minutes, not 30 in advance.  We then waited and at 11:10 exactly entered the house with four others for a guided tour that included Dali’s studio, entry, bedroom, penis-shaped pool, and more.  Dali put a bunch of fishing cottages together to build the place and it’s pretty cool.  He built it for his wife and muse, Gala.  Here are some photos. 

We didn’t stick around after the tour and came back to the hotel over the mountain pass like winding 13 kilometer drive.  We were told that if you get car sick, you might.  Very exaggerated, at least for us backwoods mountain folk.  Anyway we were lucky since the weather improved enough for us to hit the fantastic beach next to our hotel.  There was also the 25 meter lap pool, but I opted for a 20-minute or so swim in the very cool mediteranean water.  Once I got over the initial shock, it was nice.  Anne swam in the pool.

June 15, 2008.  We drove back to Barcelona, about two hours, after having our luxurious breakfast and enjoying the beach a bit more before moving on.  Anne and I tried to get more packing done and prepared our eight boxes to be picked up by UPS tomorrow.  We are pretty much out, just a few final things but there are plenty of moving parts. 

June 16, 2008.  I keep forgetting things since there are so many things to coordinate.  I forgot my shaving brush over our week-end trip, and I went out the door with my bike forgetting my keys.  Luckily Anne was on the way to Tibidabo, where I planned to ride, at a going away pool party for Joshua’s class.  I stopped by in full biking regalia, and met the 8 or 10 moms who showed for the party and social hour.  No dads.  It looked like a nice event.   The pools here are not heated so the water was too cold for most of the kids.  Joshua jumped in and out right away, getting nice and cold. 

June 17, 2008.  The kids had “field day” this morning and luckily it didn’t rain.  Everybody keeps telling us how unusual the weather is this month, but as far as we see, it does rain in Spain.  Anyway, field day was just fine.  Then we met our Spanish friend Christina and her Novio, Todd (an American) for lunch at a wonderful place in the center of town.  I still have a lot to do tomorrow since we have an evening flight to Munich (after the boys are done with school) which should make for a LONG day.  Then two nights and one day in Munich.  Stay tuned. 

June 4, 2008.  Another active day showing Ellen and Matt around Barcelona.  First we hiked at the top of Collserola Parc, which provides fantastic views of the city.  Then we went to lunch at our local Turo Parc followed by a visit to Mont Juic, and the “El Puble” Espanol, which is supposed to be a Disneyesque small world visit to the various parts of Spain.  It’s not as cheesy as you would expect, and in fact all it really is is some B+ art collections plus some nice vendors with some pretty nice crafts.  I especially liked the glass designs, which are decorative only, and something I have not in fact seen in Spain.   Anne, Ellen and Matt went to a concert at the Palau de la Musica, to see Diego El Cigala sing.  They reported a very good concert. 

June 5, 2008.  Yet another active day.  I went out for a three-hour bike ride, checking out some of the roads made popular by me for me on my bike.  Anne, Ellen and Matt visited Park Guell (didn’t like it — too touristic) and Segrada Familia (too church-like).  We went to a going away party for D.R and his wife which was next to our building. 

June 6, 2008.  And yet another active day for Anne, Ellen and Matt.  They went to another music concert (starting at 10 p.m.).  I am watching and worrying about the US Economy, the astonishing lack of leadership from the Executive Branch, and what will happen to the airlines and leisure travel and skiing as gas prices continue to rise.   The increase is clearly speculative, but how it will shake out is an unknown.  I think the price of oil will drop below $100 a barrel and probably below $90 a barrel within six months.

June 7, 2008.  We saw Matt and Ellen off today.  I drove them in a bit of a rush to the airport.  Why the rush.  Well, we attended a poorly planned soccer game (an hour late, luckily since it took us an extra half hour to find the place).  Then, while the car was parked, someone broke the window trying to find something to steal, and only found Matt’s jacket.  He left my baseball cap and Matt’s hat too.  As I approached the car, I noticed the glove compartment was open and realize after a minute the back window was broken.  Bummer since we thought we’d get out of Barcelona without having any crime incidents.  It’s a real pain to deal with, that’s for sure. 

It seems to be happening.  Our friends Dan and Amy reported someone trying the “mustard” scheme on them (put mustard on someone, act like you want to help them wipe it off or otherwise distract them, then pick-pocked).  It didn’t work.  Another friend had his mother out to visit and her wallet was stolen.  It happened so stealthily that she didn’t even notice.  It’s clearly time to go before something else happens.

I went to the police station to report it.  The guy who was working there when I walked in was obviously playing video games (with sound — star wars type game) and didn’t want to be dragged away to help me so he asked the guy who spoke English to help.  That guy was very nice and even though I’d done all the work on-line, apparently they had to do it again.  It took a while, but was basically enjoyable.  They have nice digs, large spartan offices with high ceilings.  It was in a residential neighborhood and looked like a house they converted over. 

June 8, 2008.  We started packing stuff today since we want to be organized and get out of here with as little hassle as possible.  David asked how long before we are home.  Specifically, could I design a count-down timer until we arrive in Aspen.  Here it is:

Timer is here

June 9, 2008.  I started the day with a call to Paris (that sounds cool) to try to get the car insurance going.  They were very nice, gave me my options (screw you or up yours — just kidding) and told me to find a place that can fix it.  Then email them the police report with the phone and fax numbers of the garage and voila.  Actually, two calls in French, two in Spanish and I was there, more or less.  It happens there is a strike of all trucks in France and Spain, so they can’t get the glass, etc… 

Anyhow, Anne and I started packing our stuff, even though it’s early, just to get a jump on it and we had the time.  Hopefully, trucks will be moving VERY soon so we can get the stuff to UPS and sent back to the US.  It also affects availability of gas (diesel), which could be a problem. 

June 10, 2008.  I managed to get gas this morning and drop Anne and the kids at the running path and school.  It only took about 15 minutes extra and I put enough in to get us to Cadaques this week-end and make a trip to the airport and school or so.   Anne and I have noticed how cranky people around here are — the weather, which is lousy, the summer coming but not really, who knows.

May 28, 2008.  We woke up to a sunny day, which is not what the forecasts say, calling for rain (60 % chance).  Of course, for once the forecasts were wrong.  I attended a soccer practice, as usual, on Wednesday and took some near end of season photos including my conversation partner, Jose.  

Jose admitted to me today that he was in the Communist party in Spain when it was very dangerous during the 1960s.  He even trained on how to set up meetings and organize in Checoslovakia.   Meetings were held in churches, where they were somewhat protected, but you had to be careful since there were spies and only some churches were left-leaning — some were with the Fascists and Franco.  It was a dangerous time, he said. 

Anne witnessed a dog fight in the park where a non-Spanish person escalated it to a human fight (well — name calling with lots of bad Spanish words thrown in).  Unfortunately, I was not there to witness or learn from the vocabulary lesson.

May 29, 2008.   I drove over to Girona, about an hour, this morning to go riding with a guide I hired there.  I told him we had to speak Spanish, so I got that out of it too.  The drive was interesting since it was rush hour and traffic was slow but motorcycles and scooters were riding down the lanes between the cars a full speed.  It was just insane.  Anywho, I managed to get there in about an hour and a half, find the meeting place, change to cycling clothes, meet the guide I found on the Internet (easier to have a guide for one day than try to figure out where the best riding is).  The guide Jaume is a chemical engineer by training but likes bikes so he guides bike trips (seems like the two interests could be combined).

Off we went and rode some very good roads with mild climbing and descending, for the most part.  Some of the descents were very technical with turns that are hidden, narrow roads, rocks, etc…  We ran into a bike tour put on by Marty Jemison, a former 7-11 team rider with 22 riders.  That didn’t look like I would have enjoyed it — too much waiting.  But I did see a nice selection of rear-view mirrors hooked to helmets and glasses.   Marty was very nice — I chatted with him — “Hey, where are you from.”  “Colorado, we have some people here from Colorado”, etc…

A nice lunch was had in a Catalan town, who knows where but it was mildly charming with lots of stray cats walking around.  It was sort of deserted, actually.  Good sandwich, though.  Sandwich is entrepan in Catalan, bocadillo in Castillano, and sandwich in English.

Toward the end of the ride, which ended up being about 130 kilometers, we caught up with a girl who passed us and who Jaume, my guide, thought was a pro.  So did I and there are a lot of them in this area, which is why there are bike tours around.  The roads are relatively empty of cars, and have a variety of climbing and descending, including some super technical descents where you can’t see the end of the turns.  Anywho, we caught the girl after I gave Jaume one of those “let’s chase” signals and went up a hill managing not to be dropped (me) as she chatted with Jaume in Catalan like she was out for an easy ride.  She turned out to be a Mosses, which are the cops.   Photos are here.

On the home front, the boys’ school is infested with head lice.  Today a number of kids were sent home from each class the basically the entire second grade was sent home.  It is still light here really late, I’m writing this at 9:00 and it’s light like late afternoon. 

May 30, 2008.  Head lice have taken over the school, it seems.  Another three kids were sent home today (they were three of the four that were sent home yesterday — apparently their parents didn’t git the critters).

May 31, 2008.  Ellen and Matt, Anne’s sister and her husband, arrived today to a ticker tape parade and laudable press.  Well, we picked them up at the airport.  They were just in Portugal riding a motorcycle through the country and reported a good trip, having taken a lot of photos.  The place looks pretty backwards, more than Spain, with mountains and nice roads but a poorer population.  There isn’t the ubiquitous trash that you find on the side Spanish roads.  The mountains don’t seem as high, and the landscape seems more arid when compared to the Pyrenees.  They had a nice trip. 

June 1, 2008.  It rained most of the day today.  Anne and I had a lunch at one of the BFIS people’s houses that lives here; Ellen and Matt went sightseeing.  Then, in the evening (late!), we all went to the fountains of Mont Juic, which are the thing to see for every tourist (music and water show).

June 2, 2008.  We went to Montserrat today with Ellen and Matt, thinking at the last minute.  It was warm in Barcelona so we went to the mountains (Montserrat) which is about 45 minutes away.  Of course, no jackets and we’d just hike.  As we approached the range, there were clouds hanging over them and we realized forgetting our jackets was probably a mistake.  We hiked anyway, unprepared, hoping we would not need jackets.  Three hours or so later, we emerged from the hike, having gone up the mountain in hot, humid conditions, then eaten lunches and descended in fog and humidity.  Here are photos (lots) and a movie.

June 3, 2008.  Ellen and Matt got another chance to visit Barcelona’s many sights.  They reported lots of interesting stuff and at the end of the day, when Matt had enough, Anne, Ellen and Joshua went to Segrada Familia, the church-like structure that is Barcelona’s icon.   Ellen and Matt also joined us for what is perhaps the penultimate lunch with Dan and Amy here in Barcelona; we were all just a hooting and a hollering while reviewing all the good times.