'ello, Sue. I've got legs. Do you like bread? I've got a French loaf. Bye! I love you

The past two weeks have gone by in a bit of a blur and it doesn't look like things will slow down for a while. I've been working like crazy, going to town on my major project (which I am kicking butt at), and trying to have a social life. Last weekend Andrew and I escaped the madness to run away to the mountains of Austria.

To get there we took a shuttle, a plane, two trains and another shuttle to get out to our hostel but it was worth it. The place was so nice it looked like a country hotel, we even got feather comforters and our own bathroom. The owner was so nice, he used to be a chef in Salzburg and made our dinners both nights, beyond worth the 8 euros we paid per meal.

Andrew waiting for our very last train after 6 hours of traveling

And no, those are not paintings, that was the view from our train as we were coming into town.

Our first day in Austria, Saturday, we took the bikes out for a ride into town and to find some late lunch. We had some kind of sausage, frankfurter type thing, I'm not entirely sure, and giant mugs of beer before we kept riding a bit further. We got back to the hostel and since it was so nice and sunny outside we sat out of the deck with another tall beer and played cards until dinner. By the time we finished desert, inside now because the temperature dropped quickly once the sun went down, our heads were almost on the table. Gerhard, the owner, showed us the small lounge and we perked up long enough to watch the first 15 minutes of Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom, but once we realized that the other one was asleep we decided to call it a night.

Sunday Andrew indulged me and went for a horse back ride with me even though he'd only gone once before. It was an hour long ride that took us down along a river through the forest. The day was again bright and sunny and it was nice to be out riding. We even tried cantering a bit but Andrew kept slipping off his horse so we decided not to pursue that. My horse kept thinking he should be the lead and tried many times to overtake the actual lead horse, especially when we had to stop because Andrews horse was making a snack of tree branches.

I was trying to do what Andrew does whenever we bike ride and take pictures of him from in front to show off

Through my eyes, doesn't it seem so peaceful and calming

Amazingly after that we still had stamina and decided we would take the bikes out for a ride to the lake which was just on the other side of town, a bit less then an hour and a half away. We seemed to just keep going and I started to feel a little faint from not eating so when we saw a sign for food down a road we decided to follow it. Now my excuse is that I don't know the distance of a kilometer...Andrew doesn't have I don't think. The place we were going to eat was 7km away, well not only was this really far it was up a mountain, seriously. I was feeling even more faint, hot and tired, I couldn't even ride the rest of the way up, it was quiet tragic. At least after dinner we went mostly downhill. However, by the time we got back to the hostel we had ride 44km, epic. There was another delicious dinner and some drinks with Gerhard before crashing early again.

Images from our last bike ride, ever.

Those are the Alps and that is snow on top of them (and there were people skiing up there), the river looks brown but as you can tell from the image below it is anything but, the camera just had a hard time getting everything to light evenly.

One of the rivers down by the bottom, all of them are this clear and it's cleaner to drink from here then any other water because it's fresh from the mountain. As Gerhard told us, water is clean again once it runs over 7 stones. We tried it and it was pretty good.

Monday morning we had a nice breakfast and relaxed in the lounge watching a movie before we caught our shuttle, two trains, a plane and another train home again.

Since getting back I've buried myself in working on my paper that's due in a week, it's not a lot of fun at all. And back to it I go in fact.

“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

Our first impression of Newquay was gloomy, it didn't perk up very much the next day as the rain came down. We were both nervous about our first lesson but also very excited. Getting into wetsuits is quiet an adventure, not one we were excited to repeat over and over again, but thank God for those suits and the little booties on our feet. Once we made it into the water we barely felt the cold at all and it was actually quiet pleasant. To be honest the water didn't feel much different from the ocean off the coast of Maine in the beginning of the summer. The weather was what you would expect in England, gloomy and rainy. We actually didn't even notice the rain while we were surfing because you're so wet anyhow.

Ellie managed to make it up on our first day three times with the instructor steadying the board behind her as she went, I didn't quiet manage that far so it's good we had a few more days ahead of us. I could get to my knees on the board but would lose my balance when I tried to shift to my feet. Thankfully I'm stubborn and very determined to get up. By the end of the first day my arms can barely lift me on to the board and when they do they refuse to go any further to actually get me moving on the board, two hours is definitely enough to begin with in the ocean.

Our group on the first day was two loud Canadians, very nice girls, and three British boys, the youngest being probably 12 or 13, he, of course, picked it up right away and was off in no time.

The whole thing is nice and relaxing, there isn't tons to do in Newquay since it's the very beginning of the season, most shops are closing by 6pm. So we have a relaxing breakfast down in the bar of the hostel watching the ocean, and relaxing dinners moving slowly as we are tired from our lessons. The rest of the time we read, watch some movies and wander around town a bit. A very nice way to spend a few days.

The second day was a much smaller group, just Ellie and I and this guy Kit from our first day. We had a different instructor, Mike, who apparently was once the 9 year running undefeated surf champion in South Africa. I really liked his way of teaching, he was very encouraging and I managed to ride 5 or 6 waves that day, 2 of them on my own. It didn't rain at all but the wind made it much colder then the first day and by the time we were done we could barely get out of our suits because our hands were so stiff.

We grabbed hot showers and then met Mike, Kit and some of the other people who work for the surf school at the bar in our hostel for a drink. Than Ellie, Kit and I headed to a local pub for some dinner, it was a place Ellie and I went our first night too, good food and fairly inexpensive which is good because the hostel has no kitchen for us to make our own meals in. Dinner was good and it was nice to have some extra company along, Kit was on holiday by himself so I think he was glad to be hanging around too. After dinner Ellie and I settled into our familiar routine of relaxing with a bit of tv and reading.

Friday we decided to take a walk around to the other beach in Newquay. We walked along the coast for it, it was a good stroll along the cliffs with the blue sky and ocean crashing down below us, pictures just can't seem to capture how lovely it really is. Third day out surfing was a very large group with 16 students and 3 instructors. Luckily since Ellie, Kit and I had been at it for a few days we got an instructor to ourselves since we were working on different things than the other group. We began learning paddling. You have to get it just right where you paddle until after the wave has caught you and you give yourself enough momentum to carry on with the wave so you can stand. I managed it a few times, just once or twice by myself, but the big problem today was that there were so many people in such a small space of water and none of the other students seemed to realize that you needed to get out of the way of people who were surfing so I had to bail out a few times so I wouldn't hit anyone. All in all it was a good day, fun as they have all been. Since it's a Friday the town has gotten more crowded with people coming in for the weekend and a start of the season party on Saturday night. It's noticeably louder and more crowded as we walked around for dinner and the bars are more crowded for sure.

Our coastal walk:

Rows and rows of crazy little beach huts that people rent out during the summer

Our fourth surf day, Saturday, was insanely busy. It was a group of about 30 students and 5 instructors. The waves weren't that great but it was nice to just sit out in the water talking to Mike about tides and swells and such. He's a very fascinating guy. He comes from South Africa and was at one point the 9 times undefeated surf champion from there. He's been surfing for 30 years, painting for 20, sponsored by Santa Cruz surf company, very intelligent and helpful and on top of all of that a genuinely nice guy. Saturday night he had the opening of his first exhibition of some of his paintings and he invited us along to that. The work is really amazing, it's just fascinating how much all around talent he has. After they shut the gallery down we all moved upstairs to the bar below our hostel to grab a few more drinks and test out our dance moves. It was almost like a weird time warp as hair styles, clothes and music all came out of the 90s. It was really great to be included so quickly in the surf community here, being with Mike and the other instructors did a lot for us social wise to get included.

Sunday morning, day five of lessons, we had a morning lesson. It was another group of 30 students but nicely we've been grouped with the advanced students who stick with Mike, he has really done a lot to take us under his wing that he didn't need to do. It was a bad day for me, I was frustrated, only managed to get up once and on my first wave of the day I wiped out and jammed my leg into the floor of the ocean hurting my knee, not very smooth of me. The lesson flew by quickly though and before we knew it they were telling us time to catch the last wave and head in. Once we were done we had the whole day ahead of us so we grabbed some lunch and settled on the beach to soak up some of the sun and enjoy the nice day. Another relaxing day.





Yesterday was our last day, it was so sad to end it but at least we ended on a good note. We had a morning lesson, just us and Mike. It was amazing. Ellie and I both hit 95% of the waves, I even ended up paddling onto two by myself which is hard to do with the fat waves. It was the perfect day to end on and we both had to suppress a groan when they said it was time to come to catch our last wave in. We grabbed lunch at the bar in the hostel with Mike and then walked into town with him to say our goodbyes before he headed home. Ellie and I bummed around town before catching our train home.

Ellie, Mike and I

It was an incredibly long train ride home and we didn't want to see it all end. We're already planning our trips back to surf with Mike some more, he has told us about a good competition coming up that he thinks we should come back and watch, it's a night competition so we could get our surfing in during the day and watch everyone surf that night. All in all one of the best trips I've ever taken.

Pictures of us surfing:











Surfing is such an amazing concept. You're taking on Nature with a little stick and saying, 'I'm gonna ride you!' And a lot of times Nature says, 'No you're not!' and crashes you to the bottom.
Jolene Blalock

There hasn't been a war run this badly since Olaf the hairy, King of all the vikings, ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside

Everything is shifted back a week since the past week and a half has blended together into one long run.

Two Fridays ago Andrew and I headed out to Denmark to see our friends Rod and Liv and help celebrate the birthday of our friend Mathilde. Andrew and I always have airport problems so we made sure that we got there early. Since we were so early we decided to grab some food from one of the airport restaurants since it was lunch time. Of course, as things go for us by the time we got our food we had 15 minutes until our plane was supposed to start boarding. We got up as the plane should have started boarding and I ran to the toilet while Andrew checked our gate. As I was walking around the corner to go back to him he came running towards me yelled "Gate 19" and took off in the other direction still running. I ran after him, finding out on the way that our plane said "final call" on the board. We turned the corner where the sign pointed Gates 1-19 only to be stopped short by a tram that we had to get on to get to the gate. We waited frantically and then again on the tram. Once we got off we sprinted up 2 flights of escalators, down a hall and just as we were rounding the corner to our gate we heard the announcement that they were just going to start boarding our place. Stupid Easyjet put "final call" on the board even though they hadn't started boarding yet, so we ran all that way for nothing.

Rod and Liv live a few miles from the centre of Copenhagen in a nice little 5th floor walkup. We were pretty tired by the time we got there so the four of us had a few beers and a bit of food before crashing for the night.

Saturday we got up and headed to the other side of Denmark for the party. Aparently Denmark is made up of a bunch of islands and we headed down, over a big bridge, across a few islands and then up the side of another one. We stopped halfway in a town called Arhus for lunch. We stuffed ourselves at a nice little buffet on a canal before continuing on our way.The party took place in Mathilde's hometown and we were all staying the night at her parent's house, like a good old school sleepover. The party was held in a community hall just a few minute walk from the house so we all got dressed up and walked over there for some pizza with her family before the party started. Our group, consisting of 5 aussies, 3 danes and me took over our own table and got right into the swing of things. Everyone was really nice to us especially considering the language barrier, although it seems that most people in Denmark know English fairly well. The party lasted well into the night and by about 4am we were quiet ready for sleep.

Strange danes wrestling, not really sure if that is something normal for them or not

Mathilde after the danish tradition of covering the birthday person in cinnamon if they are single when they turn 25

Liv and Rod

Not really sure what Liv and Andrew are doing

Mick, one of our aussies, being goofy

Mathilde and Liv

Sunday we took the long drive back to Copenhagen stopping in Liv's hometown on the way to drop off her parents care. We were invited to stay for Sunday dinner with the family and who turns down an offer like that. Us kids went off to the park to play around a bit before dinnertime while Liv's dad cooked a traditional danish meal for us. I'm not entirely sure what all of the food was but it tasted delicious. We had some kind of pork loin, steamed red cabbage, potatoes and a bunch of other vegetables I'm not sure about. For dessert we had a traditional summer dish of mixed berries in a porridge like consistancy with a bit of cream and sugar added to sweeten it, so yummy. It was interesting to sit around the table and not know what people were saying most of the time, a different experience for sure. After dinner Liv's dad took us back to their place and the four of us watched a movie before crashing out.

Monday was our last and only day to explore Copenhagen before our plane that night. Liv and I rode the bikes into town and met the boys with the bags at the train station. It was a nice ride, Copenhagen is big on bikes, so they get priority over cars, they have their own lanes and lights and everything. Copenhagen isn't a very big city and we managed to get around it all in just that day. It's a very pretty city. We went to Liv and Rod's favorite Turkish buffet for lunch and ate so much, it was amazing. We ate so well on that trip. After that we had some time to kill so we popped over to this aussie bar that Rod had been wanting to check out, there are aussie bars all over Europe, I think they're slowly taking over.

Liv and I getting ready for our ride

Town hall

Andrew and I at the canal

The Queens palace

some cool statue Andrew took a picture of

Andrew and I at the Little Mermaid statue

Rod and Liv in the Aussie bar

The flight home was uneventful, thankfully. The next day, last Tuesday, I headed out to Newquay in Cornwall, England for a week surfing with Ellie.

The Vikings are coming

Here are the two photos that I've narrowed it down to from my first photoshoot for my major project. Let me know what you think.