Some Christmas Pictures

Earlier this week, my family ventured to San Francisco for an afternoon in the city.  After making a specific point of bringing my camera, upon arriving in SF, I realized I forgot the SD memory card (it was still plugged into the card reader on my laptop).  Luckily, Walgreen's sells 2-GB SD memory cards for $9.99, so I was back up and running after a quick visit to the photo department at a neighborhood Walgreen's.

What could be better than a sculpture with a big toothy grin?

On the way from the Embarcadero to the restaurant where we had lunch, we walked past some interesting sculptures.  I couldn't resist taking a photo of this one (pictured above).

After lunch, we walked over to the Yerba Buena Center, where I snapped this fountain shot.

My camera has confused its identity with that of a fish.

On Christmas Eve, my family took part in a strange holiday tradition.  We go listen to a live concert with a room full of strangers.  My sister was feeling a bit under the weather, and we thought it would be rude to give the gift of cold/flu/who-knows-what to a group of strangers on Christmas Eve, so only a subset of us went this year.

Before going to the music-with-strangers event, I pedaled my bike up Old La Honda Road and down 84 back to the bay-side of the peninsula.  Part way up Old La Honda, I stopped to take a picture that any cyclist (but track racers in particular) should appreciate.

Just when you think you have done about the right amount of climbing for the day.

Back in the USA

This blog post covers the remainder of my trip to the UK and Europe, and then some of the adventures upon returning to the USA.

One of the last spots I visited in Berlin was the Olympic stadium.  It was cold and gray, but an interesting sight.

My camera battery died at the Berlin Olympic stadium.  The charger stayed in Manchester, so there were no further pictures taken in Germany.

For a final meal in England, I joined David and Liz for fish, chips, and mushy peas.  The next morning, it was back to the Manchester airport to begin the return journey to San Francisco by way of Atlanta.

Fact: There is a Cavendish Road in Altrincham, UK.  It is not the fastest road in the world.

After returning to the SF bay area, I helped my family find, buy, and bring home a Christmas tree.  Here are the Christmas tree and I in the front yard.

It turns out that overhead squatting a Christmas tree is not terribly difficult.  The awkward part is taking it from on the ground to overhead.

I spent a couple days in the SF bay area, adjusting to the jet-lag, going on bike rides, doing laundry, unpacking my bags from the UK/Europe trip, going to Defiance Crossfit, and generally getting into and/or staying out of trouble.

Then, it was back to the airport to catch a flight to Fargo, North Dakota for a few days at my grandma's house to knock out a list of home maintenance chores before we both flew back to California for Christmas. 

In Fargo, I visited Crossfit 701 for five WODs during my visit.  They are a new (about 3 months since opening) Crossfit gym on Fargo's south side.  On Friday evening, they did a "Wildcard WOD" where everyone picked a workout from a deck of cards.  I picked TABATA squats (20 seconds of air squats followed by 10 seconds of rest, for 8 rounds or a total of 4 minutes) where the "rest" was sitting at the bottom of the squat position.  My legs remained sore through Wednesday of this week.  Thankfully, I did not pull the "Filthy 50" card, since I did that one at Defiance while I was in California.

Crossfit 701 lived up to what my mental picture of a CF gym in Fargo would be like.

There was a bit of snow and some not-so-terrible cold while I was there in Fargo.  One day, my grandma and I went to the Sons of Norway in Fargo for lunch.  Who would have thought that my grandma could have a taco salad for lunch at the Sons of Norway in Fargo?!?

The Sons of Norway is not the most spectacular building in Fargo (ok, well, it might be the most spectacular building in Fargo), but is a good place to go for a nice hot lunch on a cold December afternoon.

When I was packing for my trip to Fargo, I wanted to make sure everything fit in a single carry-on bag.  So, I neglected to bring a razor or shaving cream.  Luckily, in case my chin whiskers went out of control during the visit, there was a solution readily available across the street from grandma's house.

If Chuck Norris can ride a bear through a car wash as a substitute for bathing, I should be able to stick my chin in a wood chipper as a substitute for shaving.

Germany!

Since the last week of track league in Manchester was canceled for track repairs, I decided to take a side trip to Germany for Christmas markets, tasty German food, German beers, and some bitter cold weather.  That, and I figured with the recent terrorist threats in Germany, at least they wouldn't attack while I'm around.

So, on Wednesday I headed to the Manchester airport and boarded an EasyJet flight to Germany.  For those who have never flown EasyJet, it is a bit like Con Air, but without the convicts.  There are no seat assignments, so it is a first-come first-served free-for-all to find a nice place to rest one's rear for the duration of the flight.

I boarded near the end of the queue, but still managed to find an emergency exit row seat.

We were delayed close to an hour before the plane took off (the de-icing queue was rather long) but I figured the three hours I had budgeted to get from the airport to the train station in Hamburg should be enough.

Sure enough, it was!  I even had time to eat a small snack in the food court in the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, and take a few pictures.

The Hamburg Hauptbahnhof is festive at Christmastime.

From Hamburg, I took the train to Berlin, a city that seems to only sleep when the sun is up (?!?).

Due to the recent terrorist threats, the German parliament building (also known as the Reichstag) is closed to visitors, but I walked around the outside and took what I thought to be a nice picture in the evening.

The Reichstag at night!

Before going out to a house party the other night, a group of us were sitting around doing puzzles.  I breezed through the first two puzzles (one where four wood blocks are arranged to form a square, and another where 6 foam puzzle pieces are arranged to form a cube), and was offered a chance to try the third puzzle which nobody had solved (since the current owner owned it).

The following picture shows the result.

Evidently I am not as dumb as I look.

At the house party, a somewhat hilarious situation arose.  I was waiting in the queue for the toilet when a guy who was obviously in dire need of a bathroom visit came bouncing up.  Not wanting a puddle on the floor, we let him proceed to the front of the queue and he zipped in and shut the door rapidly behind him.  A moment later, all of us standing in the hall noticed something odd, which I then captured in a picture:

Can you tell what is odd in this picture?

It looked to us like our friend had caught his belt in the door in his haste to close it.  This in turn conjures up all kinds of delightful images of what is happening on the other side of the door.  Is is standing there, back against the door, trying to arc a shot into the toilet on the far side of the bathroom?  Did he pass out and try to pull a Jimi Hendrix?  Did he dive out of his pants in order to reach the porcelain appliance in time?

I'll leave things at that to avoid my blog's complete digression into toilet humor.

Yesterday, I headed to the Berlin velodrome (velodrom in German) to take a look at the venue for the famous Berlin Six Day race.  A combination of U-Bahn, S-Bahn (not necessary), and Tram took me to within about two and a half blocks of the site.  From there, signs directed me the rest of the way.

The Velodrom sign let me know I was in the right place.

Much to my delight, there was an event taking place.  It wasn't a track racing event, which would have been super-cool, but it did involve wheeled apparatus.  The event was called something like "Extreme Playground" where nutcases on BMX bikes and skateboards were risking life and limb to please a crowd of German teenagers and an American (that's me). 

Taken out of context, an appropriate caption for this might be: "This will not end well."

The American BMX trick rider, pictured above, did land the jump/flip/twist maneuver as he had planned (or at least well enough to fool us) and went on to win the competition.

The riding, skating, and currywurst eating made for a good afternoon and a happy Karl.

After 8 weeks of traveling, I'm down to my last few days abroad.  It's been a fun run, but part of me is ready to come back to the USA, sleep in my own bed, eat some regularly scheduled meals, ride my road bike, go to the gym, and be at least a little more productive than just writing the occasional bike/travel/racing blog post.