Art

I had art for the first three weeks of school, with three one and a half hour lessons each week. The teacher had a strong French accent and spoke fast, so it was nearly impossible to understand what she was saying (and it still is).

In the three weeks, I painted two watercolours - the first time I have used watercolours in more complicated paintings, it was frustrating but in the end it was satisfactory but not perfect.
The first one is mainly using blue, we had to have a headland and a boat. I added a little bit of red at the end on the instruction of the art teacher. The watercolour paints smell disgusting and you have to dive right down to the bottom of the pot for the dark blue of the headland.

The second painting had to have water, mountains and a person. I painted the hills perfectly the first time but didn't paint far enough down so I had to repaint them, and to put it nicely they came out differently. The sky took a lot of effort, possibly too much effort. The paper stretched and crinkled after too much painting but that is hard to avoid, possibly the only way is getting it right the first time.
The balloon was an on the spot idea for the people and you can just see them looking out across the water from the basket.
I like it but I wish I hadn't spent so much time trying to make it perfect.

The last painting was using acrylic paints. I didn't have enough time to finish mine unfortunately, so it has been cut down. It would have been good to spend more time filling in the gaps but the thick paint and clumsy paintbrushes made that hard. On an afterthought I should have started on the outside and painted each square of the edge of the last, no white gaps but hard to plan out...

It was nice experiencing art lessons in another country and the different way they teach. In Australia we have
done a lot more drawing so it was nice to have a change.

France

We started out on the 9 hour trip from Germany to France at 6am on Saturday 14th June. It was early but we had to stop in Switzerland to pick up Linda who had been on a three week exchange.

The House

We arrived at last in Entrechaux to find a really nice house with a pool and a direct view to Mont Ventoux, it even had a BMX track nearby but we didn't bring the mountain bikes.

Nice place to stay in, even with a pool! The mountain in the background is Mont Ventoux

The house was super nice, with a nice big flat screen TV to watch to the Soccer World Cup on, and nice rooms. One of the best things was going for a ride then jumping in the pool straight after!
The first ride we rode around the roads at the bass of Mont Ventoux. It turned out to be more than 100kms with a couple of nice short hills to stretch the legs on...

Bédoin
I persuaded the boys at last to go up Mont Ventoux, so we rode out to Bédoin. There are three routes up Mont Ventou, the first is the route that the Tour de France ascends on from Bédoin; the second is the route that the Tour de France descends on, from Malacène and the last from Sault.
The way from Bédoin is approxiamately 20km with and average grade of 7.43% and 1617m of altitude gained. It was not an easy climb and I had over half an hour to cool down waiting for the others to reach the top. Unfortunately I didn't get any good photos that day.
The descent was also cold and my arms started to shake with exhaustion and the cold, giving me the death wobbles going at around 60km/h. I decided to slow down and my hands were truly exhausted at the bottom after holding on the old timers (the 1985 road bike I am using) brakes all the way down.

Sault
It was 65kms into a road ride around the bass that Jo suggested that Jakob and I go up the back side of Mont Ventoux, the weather didn't look too bad so we agreed and started climbing from Sault. It wasn't very steep with and average grade of 4.4%. However we weren't so lucky and the rain kicked in about halfway up. I arrived at the top totally drenched and waited for 20 minutes, getting colder by the minute for Jakob to arrive. The way down was horrible, so cold that my jaw felt like a jack hammer (the shivers you get when you are cold but multiplied by 100). We had to keep on stopping because we only had thin riding rain jackets on and that was nowhere near enough to keep the wind from biting. By the time we got to the bottom my jaw muscles felt like I had chewed a pack of chewing gum as fast as I could without a break and I was truly tired. A warm shower was on the top of my list.


Avignon
We went into Avignon for a day so that they could show me a bit more of France than just the riding side. It was pretty cool to look around inside the castle that many Popes have lived in. In also managed to get a few good photos

The castle at Avignon

The view out across the city from the tower of the castle

Looking back into the city

After Avignon we went to have dinner/lunch at Pont du Gard, a famous Roman aqueduct. The swimming was awesome with many rocks to jump off, and I even managed to get a really nice photo.

Pont du Gard

Food
The food was really good with baguettes for breakfast lunch and dinner, and croissants of course for breakfast. As always there was many cheeses and meats and lots of other delicious things to eat. I even found myself thinking of home when we had steak, salad and potatos

Yummm :)

Exploring
On Friday - the second last day, we went exploring up a small river. We had to walk in the river because the sides were to steep, but that was also a bonus, a nice way to cool off on a hot day. It was heaps of fun with many cool little discoveries made such as a tiny pool that was very deep and rocks where the water ran off them to make little waterfalls of showers. A very nice way to relax after a week of bike riding (but I wasn't quite finished with the bike yet).


From Malacène
After coming back around midday, we went up Mont Ventoux for the last time, this time from Malacène. It was hot and halfway up I realised I was nearly out of water, but managed to make it to the top. The climb starts off flatter than from Bédoin, but makes up for it later with around 4km in the middle with an average of 12%! With my lowest gear a 42t - 28t the climbing was hard. I had started out a little bit fast so by the time I got to the top my legs felt like I had gone up Black Mountain a few more times than necessary.
When I was waiting I managed to get two really nice panoramas from the top.

Looking down the road from Malacène

And looking down the other side and the road from Bédoin

The End of an Awesome Trip
Unfortunately we had to go home after spending a week riding, watching the World Cup, reading and relaxing in France...
We go back to School tomorrow for the last three weeks before I come home, I'm sure it will pass by in a flash.

A Trip to the German Alps

We are currently in the first week of two weeks holiday and instead of sitting around all week, we decided to go hiking in the German Alps...
I had no idea what to expect, but was told that the hut that we were staying in was just below the far mountain in the picture below...

Day 1

We started off walking up the mountain, it was steeper than anything that I have walked in Australia but the packs were light so I wasn't having any trouble.

Eventually we made it to the hut and decided we would walk up to the peak above it because it was still early in the day.

You can just see the hut, to the right of the lake. And the peak is on the left of the photo.

I thought that looked challenging enough but when we got to the ridge of that peak and were presented with the view of the valley on the other side, it turned out that Jo (Jakob's father) had different ideas.

The first peak that we were going to is on the right, the one we went to is on the far left...

When I found out that he wanted to go to the furthest away peak I was a little surprised but was happy to say that if everyone else could do it than I could probably do it too.

The day was starting to warm up by then and the sky was pretty much clear. And I was a bit curious as why there was still snow in this heat. I may have imagined it to be hotter than it really was because we were walking but I am assuming that it was one of the hotter days this year in the Alps so the snow hadn't had much time to start melting.
We kept walking, and came across some of the craziest and most dangerous situations that I have been in, walking along tiny paths with one very steep slope going down on one side for hundreds of metres, walking across snow fields that were one slopes of about 50 or more degrees and walking up super steep shale rubble that slipped every time you took a step.

One of those snow fields, fun in boots meant for the desert.

When we got to the top, it had an incredible view. Unfortunately I didn't know about the panorama application that I have put most of the photos together with and took a video instead, which is a little hard to post here.
The way down was even more fun and almost easier to my surprise. We slid down the shale and two feet skied down on the snowfields which is so much fun! All round by the time we got back to the hut it had been a 7 hour hike...

Day 2











The next day we headed out again, this time to walk back down into the valley where we started but the long way around. It was a nice day again with mostly downhill walking but no lack of uphills.

Me sitting half in Austria and half in Germany.

The rest of the day went well, and it was nice to walk on some flat ground and go for a refreshing swim in the freezing lake. Then head home for barbecue, or grill as they call it.

I have to say that is one of the best weekends I have had here, enjoying the Alpine air after being sick and getting the legs working again... Can't wait to go to France and Mont Ventoux next week!

School Surveying Camp

 At first I didn't want to go because the camp spread over two weeks and the Albstadt World Cup was that weekend (why do Germans have to plan school camps over the weekend?) but I didn't have much of a choice. Tuesday morning I was there waiting for the bus to come with the rest of my class.

The place we were staying in and surveying around was nice with an awesome marble table tennis table outside - lots of people brought bats with them so that was an added bonus.

At first the the surveying was fairly interesting, trying to work out how the surveying equipment worked in German and also starting the initial stages of the Surveying. However after a few days and doing the same thing over and over again the surveying started to get boring.

My groups awesome Theodolite 2 (it even has my initials!)

On Friday I woke up feeling pretty terrible with a really sore throat that meant I spent the day in bed. The next day I didn't feel much better and wanted to go home but Germans are also stubborn so I was still there on Sunday and feeling better, except I had a cough instead of a sore throat.

By Wednesday we had finished the surveying and that afternoon we each drew an accurate map of the areas that we had measured. It was fairly complicated so I don't think I will try to explain how we did it, but here is my map:

- The buildings in brown down the bottom are where we stayed

By the end of the camp I was quite sick of surveying but very happy I went on the camp. My German has improved so much, I understand nearly everything and I can speak much more. And also I know everyone in the class much better and feel like I am part of it, not the Ausländer anymore.

There will always be another another World Cup that I can go to (hopefully racing not just spectating), but I think going on a camp with with a German school was a once in a lifetime experience.

Wet, muddy and lots of fun!

My training basically consists of Wednesday and Saturday with Team SV Reudern on the MTB and Tuesdays and Thursdays on the road bike with a road group. Then the other days going out and riding in the Schwäbishe Alps or resting and recovering.

Tomorrow we have a MTB race at a nearby town and today's training was out at the track, I didn't realise until I was at the normal meeting point and it was pouring down with rain. It was too complicated to to find my way to the track, so when the rain eased up I decided to go and explore.
I thought it might be fun to find the way to a track called Ho Chi Minh -actually the same route as my first ride back on the mountain bike (First Week of School). I wasn't very sure of the way which went through the local forest through some towns then up into the climb. I managed to get myself lost quite a few times but I eventually found myself in a more recognisable place.

I brought my camera along with me thankfully so here are some of the pictures I took:

A bit of scenic German forest, very green after the rain.

Want any more gliders to go with your gliders?  - The local Airfield

Some really nice trails heading up the mountain...

One fairly big rain cloud coming in

Very slippery with lots of tree roots but so much fun!

Typical German

By the end of the ride I was almost glad that I had missed the training, it was such an awesome ride...

Just going out and going a ride like this really brings the motivation back up, it reminds me that it is not just the race results and training that make mountain biking important to me.

Food

One of the hardest things to get used to other than everyone speaking German, was the meal times and the food.

On weekdays for breakfast we eat bread with butter and sweet spreads (i.e. jams and honey), cheese and meat (salami, ham...). Lunch is the main meal of the day, and either we come home, go to the local bakery or eat from the school canteen. Then dinner is much the same as breakfast.
Lunch is usually a hot meal, more often something with pasta or rice and then a salad on the side. It was hard at first having a small dinner and a big lunch, though I think it works better because I don't eat as much in between meals. I also think that the German diet suits me quite well, and if I eat properly, then I don't get hungry on rides.

Linda, Jakob's sister also like to bake cakes. They are often very good and I probably eat a little too much for being a cyclist, but then again I have to embrace the German culture (as I have been told more than once before).

Linda's confirmation was last weekend, and I said I would bake a Pavlova. It turned out the best one that I have ever made, with no cracks, a very nice crunchy outer shell and soft inside, probably mostly because of the awesome KitchenAid that they have (beats the egg whites to perfection) :) Yummm....

THE Pavlova (ok ok, it does have a few cracks)

All that cake!! Mmmm....

My First Race in Germany

Yesterday I rode my first race in about 12 weeks, the last one being the Australian National Round in Echuca, VIC.
Germans seem to like the Le Mans start, where you line your bikes up and have to run to them. I don't think it works very well though because if you are right at the wrong end like I was, then it is very hard to get good position into the first part of the track, I was last in a field of about 40 U/17's.

I am second from the end furthest away.

It was so muddy that there were not many overtaking options and it was on the second lap of three that I finally passed the slow group I was stuck behind, but by then there was a fair gap to the next riders.
I would start to catch the boys in front of me on the uphill but then I would start to lose them again on the incredibly slippery downhills and the fire trails which felt so slow.
On some of the downhill sections the mud was at lest 20cm deep, others it wasn't so deep but even harder to keep a line in. Many times I ended up in the ditch beside the track which was almost easier to ride in! On the uphill of my third a final lap, my back wheel stopped moving altogether and I had to get off and clean the mud off the chainstays.
I passed a of the boys in front of me eventually, but I did't have the strength or stamina to keep the pace going.
The biggest problem was that the laps were short, around 15 minutes, and I didn't have the chance to get into a rhythm over the 45 minute race.
Overall I had a pretty good time considering I have only been back on the bike for a week and a half, and I am looking forward to next the race where I can gauge my improvement...

First day on the MTB

It was organise even before I came to Germany that I could go and train with the  local Nürtingen SV Reudern MTB Team. Yesterday was my first day allowed back on the mountain bike and also their Wednesday Training day.


It rained in the morning so I expected it to be muddy in the afternoon, but not quite as slippery as it was. There is a race coming up this Sunday so we practiced the course three times, once slow then two times race pace. The lap first climbed up the hill then came down a little a short piece on off camber really muddy single track, then a short fire trail, a fast descent that was really wild with the mud and then some more short bits of single track and firetrail.
The first time I got caught out on one of the off camber corners with too much speed and slipped out. I scored another layer of mud on my leg. The next crazy bit was the straight fast descent that only had slight corners, but in the wet with a couple of rollers chucked into the mix made it hard to keep a straight line. All three times I found myself right on the edge of losing the front wheel. The rest of it as I hit the brakes.

After being off the bike for 9 weeks I was pretty happy to be able to keep up with the U17's on the climb, but when it came to the firetrail I was left behind. Something to keep the training going with.


All of the people there have very good bike skills and are hopping around and doing wheelies all the time. I think it is time to sharpen up on the bike handling skills...


The afternoon was awesome and I can't wait till the race on Sunday. Fingers crossed the track will have dried out a bit by then.

My bike before I washed off all the mud last night.

The Road Bike

This Italian bike,a Cratoni "Colorado", was a top of the line road bike in its time (mid 80's). It still ride very nicely, and even has internal cable routing. I can see why they deveoped shifters for the handelbars though, because it can become a bit crazy trying to shift ears while riding down hills. Though they managed in races such as the Tour de France for many years.

I'm taking it to Mont Ventoux, so I'll have to train up a lot before we go so I can get that gear ratio up the hill! (I don't know what the ratio is exactly but it is not easy to say the least).

I just went to a ride this afternoon on the Cratoni and I am starting to work out what roads and hills I can use for training around Nürtingen. I have to say I am very lucky that the Zaisers live close to the Schwäbischer Alps, otherwise I would be becoming a sprinter, with no hills to train on.

Freiburg

On the Monday after Easter, Jakob, Linda (Jakob's sister) and I, headed off to Freiburg on the train to start practicing for the school musical 'My Fair Lady' (mentioned in My First Week of School).

We left on the Monday morning earlier than we needed, to so that we could catch up with Jasper, Jorin (Jasper's exchange) Lotta, Raffi and Claire.
Jasper has written a very good blog describing his three months in Germany (http://jasperlindell.blogspot.de/), and so has Lotta although she is staying for six months instead of three (http://germanydiaries.blogspot.de/). Raffi and I became good friends in Australia when he came over for six months, and it was good to see them all again.
We eventaully found Starbucks and a nice Italian Pizza Restaurant that sold such good but unbelievably cheap pizza. I think I will definately good back there before my three months are up.

Afterwards, Jakob, Linda and I caught the tram to one of the Freiburg Waldorf Schools. The next day practice for My Fair Lady started. It wasn't great for me from the start, Herr Götte (the music teacher) didn't have much music organised for me so I was reading off Piano scores for the most part of the two days we were there.
Those two days basically consisted of being kept awake untill about 1 or 2 in the morning, practicing music that I had trouuble deciphering, and eating...Doesn't sound too bad untill you keep on playing the sames songs over and over again.
I was glad to leave by Wednesday afternoon and head back to Stuttgart on the bus. Herr Götte even promised he would have my music organised by the time we got back to school! He nearly did...

My First Week of School.

The School in Nürtingen is fairly large. It has two main building, the first housing years 1 - 8 and the other has years 9 - 13. With many other classrooms within I still have no idea where everything is. There is also some other smaller buildings spread about, the Kindergartens and an art room housed within one of them.

All the year 10's are nice. I had met some of them previously practicing for their School musical 'My Fair Lady' (Ahh soo much funn...!? I'll write about it later. Although I can say that I never plan on EVER playing music again for a musical). And most of the teachers seem to be nice.

One thing about German school is that it starts at 7:45am. It is a bit early but on Mondays and Fridays we only go until 12! :) Wednesdays go till 1:30pm and Tuesdays and Wednesdays go until 3:30pm. I hav. And as a side note, every morning for the next three weeks we've got German Poetry. It's almost better than Austrlian poetry because I can't understand a thing! (No offence to those people who like poetry. I do happen to like some poetry, just generally not the poetry we do in school).

For most of the lessons except for Maths and English I sat there note really comprehending what the teacher was saying. I understand a little bit, and a few words every now and then but other that that all you get is blank stares from me. I pass the time when I am really bored by drawing in my book.

Wednesday's bored creation

I have to say one of the best classrooms is the Woodwork of Design Tech (DT) room. It is much smaller than what our school has in Australia and SO much messier. There is heaps of saw dust and wood chips and everything all over the floor but it makes it look like it is being used like it is meant to. The teacher is pretty relaxed but I don't get to find out what he is like until later in the Term because we have art at the moment...

In English we are doing an analysis of Slumdog Millionaire. The teacher made me read so much because she 'liked hearing my accent'. Next time she does that I think I should giver her a real Aussie accent.
Hearing lots of people speaking English in a German accent can also be quite funny. The English teacher in question speaks good English just the accent makes it a little bit hard to take her seriously.

It was actually an awesome week because Mayday was on Thursday so we only had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday School. Also on Thursday was my first day allowed back on the road bike, and we went for a 60km ride through the Schwäbische Alps. There was a pretty long hill climbing up to the top of the mountain range which was very satisfying for my much deprived legs.
Before every little state or town (which there are many) there is a small yellow sign telling you the name and other details about it. On every ride we go on it is a sprint to the sign, I think I am slowly getting used to road racing tactics.
I am riding an old steel road bike - it is pretty awesome and I 'll put a picture up later but bbeing steel it is a flexy. Trying to chase Jo (Jakob's father) down a mountain with a couple of sharp corners made the bike feel like it had a bit of a flat tyre; one of the biggest downsides of steel. I had no chance in keeping up and decided to play it safe.

Yesterday, being Friday 2nd May, I got back on my lovely stiff carbon fibre mountain bike and went for a ride up to a castle in the Schwäbische Alps. I am still not technically allowed on the dirt until next Wednesday but the Road bike wheel was being fixed, so we decided to ride on the dirt up (very little chance of crashing) and ride the road back down. It was a little bit cold up the top, and unfortunately a big cloud which made it hard to see beyond 20 metres. We'll have to go up there on a day without any clouds and take a picture.

Here are some pretty bad quality pictures from up there anyway (taken on Jakobs phone):

Some sweet German singletrack... pretty muddy though, I'm not quite sure if it ever dries out

I don't think I need to say anything.

And I had to put in a photo of Jakob looking swagy.

Back to school tomorrow, which I'm not really looking forward to. Only till 12 though so I suppose that is an upside :)

The Black Forest

The Zaisers share a holiday house in the Black Forest with their family and we went there for Easter. The drive there was along the Autobarn for the first half then along narrow winding roads for the second half. I was expecting it to be dense forest most of the way to their house, but there are many open spaces throughout the areas of Pine Trees.
The house is very old and quite big, the ceilings are low, the passages narrow and the rooms relatively small. It is heated using a wood fire that can heat the two mai rooms very  effectively and the rest of the house a little bit. They also have general heating for the rest of the house in winter.

The old Black Forest house, it is really built for snow.

The view looking out of the front windows

Easter was pretty similar to Australia, just with a bigger and better easter egg hunt. I probably ate way too much chocolate that weekend for not being on the bike! We went for a walk, rock hopping up a really green mossy river then through the countryside to grren fields at the top of a knoll. Jakob'sfamily have this tradition where you take hard boiled eggs with you and see who can get their egg the furthest without breaking it - you can take many small throws if you have the patience. I think I came fourth. Then we ate what was left off the eggs on top of a hill looking towards the Swiss Alps (unfortunately it was cloudy so there was no Alps to see). The rest of the day was spent playing table soccer and relaxing.
It is soo green and lucious in the Black Forest and also all over Germany. I wish we had that colour in Australia. But then it rains more over here, I don't think I would be willing to sacrifice my bike riding ;)

I knew that I wanted to write a blog even before I came to Germany but I have been a Little unorganised and only got around to it now. I will start from the beginning.

In 2012 my sister Rosie came to Germany for an exchange. We came over afterwards as a family and met up to visit Italy, France, Germany and also Switzerland. I knew at this time that I wanted to do an exchange and Beatrice (a German teacher at Orana who organised Rosie's exchange) knew a family friend of hers that also wanted to come over to Australia on an exchange. Since we were in Europe we decided to meet them so we would both know each other.

That is the main reason why it wasn't too awkward or a complete suprise when we met Jakob in Sydney airport - even though it had been two years.


Jump three months ahead and to the start of my stay in Germany:

Everything was new, but mainly everyone speaking German left me a bit confused. I have to say that I was really lucky to have Jakob translating a bit for me, though also a bit unlucky because he still automatically speaks a bit of English to me . But one of the best things of the first day was driving down the Autobahn at 160km/h. I think when I get back to Australia, it will feel like we are crawling along the highway.

My room is right at the top of the house with a nice view into their garden and out accross the German houses. The first two pictures are drawings of my room and the third is looking out of my window:

On the third day I had settled in a bit more and Jakob suggested we go the Porsche or the Mercedes Museums (both companies are based in Stuttgart, close to where I am staying). I chose the Porsche. The museum not only houses some of the worlds best Auto engineering feats but also has the coolest architecture I have ever seen



Inside was even better, there were so many cars; right back from the very original Porsche's, the Le Mans racing beasts to todays sports cars

Porsche 911 GT2

Porsche Boxster

All the -trophies that Porsche have won.

Porsche Carrera GT

Porsche Carrera GT

Porsche Carrera GT

I also saw a Porsche 918 Spyder accross the road at the Porsche shop but forgot to take a photo - it is, in my opinion one of the best looking Porsches out.

The Porsche Museum was by far the best museum that I have ever visited, and I plan on going back again when I have the chance.