2012-07-31 16:21:00
One of the locations I visited as a kid, that's always stuck in my head is the Großglockner Hochalenstraße: a nearly 50km long mountain road. I used to get it mixed up with one of our other favourite daytrips, the Kaunertal, but now the difference is clear. Großglockner, mountain road. Kaunertal, wonderful gletscher playground.
What makes the Hochalpenstraße (high alpine road) so special is that it takes you across from an elevation of ~1000m to ~2500m in a relatively short span of road (image source with more details). As Wikpedia says: "It is one of the main tourist attractions in Austria and has over 1.2 million visitors every year". It's got hairpin turns up the wazoo. It's got a 12% incline. It's twisty and windy and has lovely views :)
We didn't ride it all the way to the gletscher, but stopped 1/3 of the way at the top. That was enough for today.
Afterwards we rode down to the Freizeit Park Ferleiten again (see day 5). Dana got to play for another two hours, while we sat in the sun.
kilala.nl tags: travel, austria,
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2012-07-30 23:37:00
What a lucky strike! Marli was channel surfing and happened to pass ARTE. "Say, didn't you like Die Zauberflöte?" she asks? But of course I do! :) What a coincidence that ARTE should be broadcasting live from the Salzburg Festspiele today, with the opening of this modern re-imaging of Mozart's most famous opera!
The music was beautiful. The acting was great. The decor was awe inspiring! The costuming spot-on! The comedy made me laugh :) The three ladies in waiting were cute, funny and bitchy. Papageno was a hilarious lout. And the guys in drag fawning over Papageno on his entrance were a nice touch ( ^_^)
Markus Werba as Papageno was by far my favourite! His acting, facial expressions and singing are wonderful! A perfect rendition of Papageno! :) I see he's played the role before, in 2003. And Wiebke Lehmkuhl was just beautiful as the third lady.
I can only hope this performance ever makes it to DVD! I would love to see this again!
kilala.nl tags: music, awesome,
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2012-07-30 16:46:00
Today we spent 1.5 hours driving up the A10 towards the lovely city of Salzburg. The last time I'd been there was in 2001 I believe, with my father, Marli and my siblings. Before that, my family used to visit the city quite frequently as part of our city trips to Munich for the Kristkindl Markt.
Still twenty minutes outside the city we started noticing banners hung above the highway, about the city being closed to cars on weekdays. Closers looks showed that the inner city is car-free on weekdays between 1000 and 1400. This had us a bit worried as our navi told us we'd reach our destination by 0955 ( O_o) Luckily it turns out that it's only the Altstadt ("Old City") that is closed off, and we could safely park inside the Mönchsberg / Altstadt garage. Turns out that this huge parking facility hasn't changed one bit and the tunnels are still as hot and musty as they were ten to twenty years ago. That smell just never fades :)
We spent the first two hours walking around the Altstadt, exploring all the old streets, plazas and small alleys that I'd visited as a young boy. Again, some things never change because I could very clearly recognize some of the places I'd been to so long ago. After that, a trip up the mountain to visit the HohenSalzburg fortress. I don't think I've ever been there before, so that was worth it :) Certainly not the coolest castle I've ever been to, but no slouch.
And that's it :) Four hours in Salzburg and three hours of driving (plus some groceries) put a big enough dent in our day to finish it off quietly at home :)
kilala.nl tags: travel, austria,
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2012-07-30 16:28:00
The last few days of our holiday will be spent much slower: relaxation and staying close to home. Case in point: today we stayed in Kaprun.
We spent the morning at the Tauern Spa. Originally we wanted to stay all day, for lots of swimming and water fun. However, because the restaurant requires you to wear slippers and a bathrobe we had to quit early. With Marli's gastric bypass it's not a good idea to skip meals too long, so we had to have lunch not much later than 1400.
Lessons learned about the Tauern Spa are:
Aside from the fact that swimming is fun, we had a great success with Dana! It'd been a while since we last took her swimming, so she'd been grabbing onto Marli quite hard ever since getting into the water. But after an hour or two of floating and playing she finally got the balls to float and paddle by herself. Once she got that far, she quickly progressed to running and floating around herself and going down the waterslide at least ten times :)
We spent the afternoon at the American Sale in Kaprun, where most of the local shops have huge sales to get rid of old stock. On Sunday, the last day, prices are reduced by no less than 60%! Marli was out looking for some good hiking shoes, but found that most of the stuff she liked from the ladies' shoes never went over size 42 :(
Once we were done browsing the shops, I took Dana to the Mais Kogel Kinderparadies playground. She was already worn out from the swimming and all the running and jumping at the playground only made things worse. She loved playing, but after an hour she was a right pain :) Obviously, that's what kids do: once they're completely worn out they don't want anything anymore and they want everything and all they can do is cry <3
While Dana played, Marli rode the Maisiflitzer rodel Bahn twice. She loved it :) Well, except for the second ride where the girl in front of her was a twelve year old scaredy cat who ran the brakes all the way down. She was creating a traffic jam for at least four people ( =_=)
kilala.nl tags: travel, austria,
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2012-07-28 20:11:00
Today got off to a rocky start... Due to miscommunication, conflicting expectations, me being an ass and us all still being tired from yesterday's swimming Marli and I had a bit of a kerfuffle about the morning's activities. That wasn't fun :(
Marli got to walk the Liechtenstein Klamm, as she'd hoped. While Dana played at a nearby restaurant and I kept guard, Marli took the ~60 minute trek up and down the canyon. The pictures will show that it was quite a sight!
After a quick lunch we made our way to the gondolas leading up the Schmittenhöhe. We didn't do much there, just had a look around and then went down again :)
Because the weather was going to turn we made our way back to Kaprun for a snack and some groceries. While we were having a bite on a terrace the weather hit. No worries, as we were under a parasol. Right? Wrong! The rain started pouring down, which still wasn't an issue. But then the wind suddenly turned into a gale and picked up the parasols and just about anything that wasn't nailed down. We bolted inside :)
The rest of the day was uneventful: groceries, a family shower, dinner, TV, sleep :)
kilala.nl tags: travel, austria,
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2012-07-27 20:14:00
The changes that I've started noticing in Marli are both interesting and brilliant. Here's a bunch of stuff I noticed during our holiday.
... maybe I can think of more later <3
kilala.nl tags: life, awesome,
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2012-07-27 16:43:00
Not much to say: today we spent hours at the Strandbad Zeller See, in Zell am See. On the lakeside, the town built a swimming pool and sunbathing area. And obviously, you can also swim in the lake. Dana absolutely loved it and it took a lot to get her away from the kiddy pool. All three of us got a lot of sun.
Swimming in the lake was wonderful. Of course the pools were great, but I just love swimming in natural waters. But hot-diggity-damn was the water coming down from the mountains cold! The lake itself wasn't warm to begin with, but swimming past the downhill outlet made just about everything shrink :p
The surprise of the day: the food. It's an interesting statement when the best hamburger you've had in two years is served at the side of a swimming pool, by summer staff. Weird! But man, their bacon burger was awesome!
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2012-07-26 17:09:00
We were looking forward to an active day and we sure got it!
The plan was to visit the Saalbach and Hinterglemm valley, right behind the mountains to the north of us. A famous alpine skiing area, the valley is lovely in summer though much less active than in winter. Our goal for the day was the Talschluss (Google Maps), the "valley's closing", which is home to some very entertaining attractions. We parked our car at the bottom of the trail and hiked up to the Lindlingalm restaurant. We'd expected the attractions to be right around the corner, but we first needed to walk 2.5km to get there. That was unexpected and we were a bit moody because of the rain. But everything went fine :)
First up, what we didn't visit: the Hochseilpark, or "high rope park". That's five kilometers of treetop fun, with climbing, vaulting, abseiling, gliding and more. It's huge, it's very cool and I'd be scared shitless ( ^_^) The biggest attraction is the Europarutsch, which has you flying across the valley a few times, at 120m height! The longest cable? 700 meters. The top speed? 70km/h. NOWAI! ( 0_0)
What -did- we visit? The Baumzipfelweg, the "tree walkway", which is very cool: a 600m walkway, up to 30m tall, twisting and winding among big evergreen trees. I love the construction and I didn't even mind the height, despite my vertigo. At no point during the trip did I feel unsafe. Even the Golden Gate bridge (200m in length, 42m height above the valley bed) did not scare me. And that says a lot!
Afterwards we cooled off at the Teufels Wasser ("devil's water"): a series of cold water pools, connected by waterfalls and wooden channels. Looked like a very popular place for kids as it was very busy.
We had both an early lunch (cold meats, cheese and bread) and ice cream at the Lindlingalm, all of which was great. And again, Dana was awesome. Between walking and climbing a total of almost eight kilometers, she was enjoying herself a lot.
kilala.nl tags: travel, austria,
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2012-07-25 19:27:00
Velden in its modern-day state has lost most of its shine for Marli, so there was little use in hanging around. After breakfast we quickly got into our car and drove the 200km back to Kaprun. After unpacking and lunch, that still left us a whole afternoon for fun stuff.
First up, we went to explore the Sigmund Thun Klamm, right outside of town. A Klamm is a cleft cut into a mountain by passing waters, over the course of thousands of years. This often leaves you with a spectacular cavern to explore, which at the bottom is filled with a roaring and raging river. It's mind boggling and stunningly beautiful. Dana was a champ! We climbed criss-cross walkways and a huge amount of stairs and she was loving every minute! Personally, I'd love to go back again!
Or better yet, visit the famous Liechtenstein Klamm, which is fortyfive minutes of driving away. Although... I don't think that's suitable at all for Dana. Today's Klamm was 32m deep and 320m long, while the Liechtenstein Klamm is 300m deep(!) and 4km long. Youch. Marli would love to walk that by herself... So maybe :)
After walking back to the car we'd only spent an hour, so up the mountain we went! We took the cable car up to the Maiskogel, a smaller mountain in the region which is supposedly very family friendly. At the top it immediately began to rain, so we had a snack and rested for about an hour. I had a bit of a panic attack on the way up, but the way down was no problem at all. Very weird... Maybe we'll return later next week :)
kilala.nl tags: travel, austria,
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2012-07-24 19:03:00
Today we travelled 240km eastwards towards the Wörther See area. Over the wonderfully mountaneous route 311 and onto the first real highway we've encountered, the A10. €10 toll notwithstanding, the drive was great and seeing how it was my first time driving in mountains the 311 path was exhilerating for me.
Our destinations for the day: the mountain castle Hochosterwitz and the rivièra town Velden am Wörther See. Both are places that Marli visited with her family in 1992, when she was only nine years old, which she really wanted to visit again.
The castle is bloody awesome! Located on top of a 160m (525ft) piece of rock, it's famous for both its location and its forteen gates. In order to get to the castle, you start at the bottom and work your way upwards along a 620m (0.4M) path, passing through forteen different gates. Or you would, if gates 1 through 4 weren't closed because of rock slides. So we took the shaky elevator (built in '94) to the top and then walked our way down to gate 5 (and back again of course). The views of the valley are great of course and the buildings are beautiful. I love the design of the castle and would love to return one day, to spend a day exploring every nook and cranny. Brilliant! Here's the Wikipedia page.
Afterwards we made our way back towards Velden, which used to be a smallish town at the edge of Austria's biggest lake. But twenty years can make for a lot of change! Marli had trouble recognizing the town, aside from famous landmarks or old roads at the edge of town. One thing that was amazing is that Frau Wurzer, with whom Marli's family has stayed for many times (over thirty times), is still alive. Her house is still exactly the same and the old lady appears to be alright. For the past ten years she's been plagued by illness, but that's what time does. Velden itself wasn't that nice... It's really become a touristy rivièra town, with more BMWs and Audi than you'd shake a stick at. Twenty years have also changed Gasthof Thomann, which has now grown double its old size and has lost most of its charm.
We stayed at hotel Kirchenwirt, in the middle of town. The room was decent, the people were friendly, breakfast was good. So there we go.
Dana was a trooper today! She walked all the way through the castle and its gates. She walked around Velden. She sat through a three hour car drive. Sure, she complained, but she enjoyed herself nonetheless and wasn't a pain at all. Gotta love her!
kilala.nl tags: austria, travel,
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2012-07-23 21:21:00
The Waidmannsheil Aparthotel is one of the more recently built hotels in the small town of Kaprun, which shows in both its exterior and interior. It's modern, good looking and ready for the 21st century :)
We're renting the Fuchsbau apartment, which at 55m2 is medium size when compared to the others (rooms range from 30m2 to 75m2). The picture above says it all: two bedrooms, a living room with kitchen and two bathrooms. We specifically wanted both a kitchen and a separate bedroom for Dana, so this is what we went with. At E1490 for two weeks it might be a bit spendy, but it gives us plenty of room and comfort, which is something we're willing to shell out for.
The beds are great! Really great! I am so friggin' comfortable, it's hard to get up each morning!
The kitchen is decked out with all mod-cons, so preparing meals is easy. The freezer's big enough for a few cuts of meat and a bag of frozen veg, so we're happy. Originally there wasn't much storage space for our foods, but after rearranging some dishes and pans we were able to free up space for everything.
The hotel being right in the center of town, there aren't many great views. We're right across from the huge Intersport store, but behind that we can at least see the mountains :)
This building being as modern as it is, the insulation is awesome! Right below our balcony is the main street leading through town, but the modern double-glazed windows block out all the sound.
All in all, money well spent! Basically we've spent E113 per night, for such a big apartment. Could've been worse. The interesting part about Waidmannsheil is that you pay per-room-per-night, no matter how many people are in there. That means they were more than happy to give up this 4-7 person apartment to the three of us. It also means that, if you were to travel with a group, the per-person charge would drop with each additional person :)
kilala.nl tags: travel, austria,
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2012-07-23 20:40:00
Sometimes I wonder whether we're taking things a bit too slowly this holiday. But then I remember our splitting head aches and the fact that we can't seem to get enough sleep :)
This morning we did some more grocery shopping at the local Spar; to save some money I'll be cooking dinner at the apartment a few times. Afterwards we reconsidered our plans for the day , had a bit to eat and got in the car. Off to Wild und Freizeitpark Ferleiten, which resides right next to the toll booth to the Großglockner Alpine highway.
The route that leads towards the pass and the park (the 107, Zeller Fusch) is beautiful! At the bottom of a valley between two mountain ranges, there's plenty of green and lots to see. Then at the bottom of the valley the road starts climbing and winding. Exciting stuff, but so far our dear Honday Civic Hybrid is holding out quite well!
The park was nice. Marli remarked that it seems that, no matter where we go, we always visit a zoo or wildlife park. I guess that's true :) This certainly was one of the more enjoyable ones: on the slopes of the mountain, plenty of space, plenty of walking and running and the chance to feed the animals. As always, Dana couldn't care less about the animals and was more interested in the benches, the rocks, the other people and most of all the playground at the bottom of the hill (;^_^)
We had lunch (huzzah for Schweitzer Wurstsalat /o/ ) and then spent at least an hour on the playground. Trampolines, bouncing bubbles, motor cars, silly boats and more: Dana loved it! On the way home somehow she managed to stay awake, but when we pulled into the Neumair parking lot she finally fell asleep.
The rest of the day was simply spent at home. Lounging, reading, sleeping, dinner, shower. And soon: sleeeeeep.
kilala.nl tags: travel, austria,
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2012-07-22 17:55:00
I guess we were more tired than we'd though: today was slooooow.
We woke at eight, as is usual, but hung around in bed for a bit longer. After an easy breakfast we hung out some more. We showered, we read, Dana played. Finally, after an early lunch we returned to the Kaprun Burgfest. After that? A way around town, then back home for more resting. On our way to the apartment I heard an approaching, sizzling noise. Three seconds of thinking later I told Marli to put on her coat and popped open the 'brella. That rain shower hit fast and hard! :D
All day Dana had been whiny and argumentative. She's clearly just as tired as we are, because every little thing leads to crying, whining or shouting. Hopefully things'll be better tomorrow, after another good night of sleep.
Tomorrow we'll go grocery shopping and we'll spend the day in Zell am See.
kilala.nl tags: travel, austria,
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2012-07-21 20:44:00
We slept well, though with many waking moments, at the hotel. And after waking at seven, we had a basic breakfast and went on our way at nine. I started off the trip, past München and towards the Austrian border. I'm glad I drove that stretch, as there was a lot of roadworks in progress and lots of Stau. We finally stopped around 1130 at Rastanlage Inntal West, only a few kilometers from the border. We've certainly come to love German Rasthofe, big resting stops along the highway. I'd come to love them and the Sanifair facilities back in 2006.
At the Rasthof we noticed something that we'd already known before: Dana is outgoing to such a degree that she can scare off other children. She was playing by herself in the kids' corner and every time a kid walked up she quickly joined him or her and started to chat or try to play along. One girl, who was at least two years older, immediately ran away to her mother. Not once, but twice. For the third time she quickly snuck by Dana, then peeped to see if she hadn't been spotted and quickly sidled into the second floor of the playhouse. Where she hid. Poor Dana :(
Once we hit Austria, our satnav quickly took us for the scenic and twisty-windy route. BOOM! Into the mountains! Along routes 173 and 178, parts of which looked like backwater roads that had us doubting whether TomTom was guiding us into nowhere. But no, everything turned out well and we finally found our way to 161 and 168 (the Zeller Straße), which took us through Kitzbühel and Stuhlfelden, two towns we'd visited when I was a child.
We arrived at two, at our home for the next two weeks: Aparthotel Waidmannsheil. We've rented the Fuchsbau apartment, which is spacious, comfy and clean. It's nicer than the pictures on the site make it seem!
Marli'd already read about it: this weekend is the Kaprun Burgfest, which is to say "castle festival". The local castle is home to a Rennaissance Fair-ish event, with plenty of vendors and dozens of re-enactors who live in their own tent camp. Boy that took us back to our SCA days! We're going back tomorrow, for a better look.
We had dinner at the Mitteregger in town. Great food again! I had veal gulash with spätzle and Marli had a great bacon/cheese-wrapped chicken breast with grilled potatoes and veg. One thing about food in Germany and Austria: it's great, but it's also very rich and the portions are HUGE! Way too much for us.
kilala.nl tags: austria, travel,
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2012-07-20 20:01:00
What a day, what a trip!
After Marli's thorough packing on wednesday and thursday, we set out for Austria at 0300 this morning. Our final destination is Kaprun, near Zell am See, but we're spending the night at about 70% of the way there.
When it comes to traveling we've always been of the opinion that it's better to take the easy way out, instead of going nuts trying to make the trip. In Japan we had no qualms about taking a taxi to the airport. We also gladly paid a hundred bob to use one overweight suitcase instead of two and we also paid for "comfort" seats. For this trip, we decided to break the ~1200km drive into two pieces: today we drove for 7 hours, with the remaining 3-3.5 hours left until tomorrow.
So. We left at 0300 and returned home at 0315 because we'd forgotten our Austrian highway vignet. Our trip was uneventful and Dana was a champ. Marli and I took shifts driving, stopping every 1.5-2 hours for a break, a breather and something to eat and drink. All in all we took our time: we arrived a bit after 1300, meaning that we took three hours of breaks for seven hours of driving. As I said: we'd rather take things easy instead of wearing ourselves out.
We're staying at hotel Häußler in Langenbruck, which is between Nürnberg and München. A tiny town, right off the A9. The hotel's pretty nice: about twenty rooms, a great restaurant, good location although it is a bit noisy. Arriving well in time, Dana and I went for a walk in town, while Marli took a short nap. The drive did a bad job on her back :/ Dinner was awesome, with the both of us opting for our first schnitzel, mine having a side of spätzle. /o/
Dana was exhausted. Having woken at 0245 with only an hour or two of sleep during the day, she became very unruly by 1600. The last two hours until dinner were a struggle, but everything before that was great. Now? We put her to bed at 1915 and she went out like a light. Gotta love her :)
kilala.nl tags: travel, austria,
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2012-07-10 22:18:00
First up: Marli kicks ass! Today she did her fifth repeat of the W1Dx of Ease into 5k. Today was the first time that she officially, completely, without any workarounds ran the plan 100% /o/ Impressive, for someone who has always hated running and who's been so-so about sports. I'm really proud.
She's indicated that she would really like to finish the whole program, to get to running 5k. And after that? Would you believe that she dreams of working towards a marathon? Wow! In her words, "If the forty-something out-of-shape guy who started this whole 5k program thing can do it, so can my twenty-something out-of-shape self!"
So, while she's working on the basics, so am I... Tonight I again joined the beginners' group in Amstelveen to work on basic kendo. We did nothing but oki-men for the first forty minutes. Followed by oki-kote. I'm sad to say that the three of us were a bit brutish on Onno-sempai :| After that we practice hayai-men, hayai-kote and kote-men with Kortewijn-sempai. From all of that the take-aways for me were:
Roelof-sensei made a funny analogy: kendo is like learning the piano. Your first year is learning the scales, your second year is chopsticks, your fifth year you're banging out Liszt. :D
kilala.nl tags: kendo, running, sports,
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2012-07-08 22:37:00
Marli's grandmother's moving out. Sadly, after years and years of independent living, she's now come to the point that she needs supervised housing. This means that her rental house needs to be cleared out. Aunts, uncles, kids and grandkids all gathered yesterday to make a start with sorting things out. On her way home, Marli brought me nanna's old record player, amp, speakers, tape deck and three boxes of records.
Funny coincidence! Turns out the turntable is the exact model my father has. Turns out that the receiver is the exact model my father's parents had!
The TT is a Thorens TD-145 from 1974-75. I'm told that it's a respected model: basic, well-built, good value for money. At the time it was in the higher middle class. It still runs, though I think it needs some work. The string probably needs replacing (nine euros) and it could do with either a new stylus, or a completely new cartridge :( Also, because on very few occasions the motor actually starts running in the wrong direction (after which it'll reverse properly), I fear that the motor might be almost worn out. The motor cannot be replaced these days.
UPDATE: I'm not sure which stylus/needle it had, but the cardtridge is a Shure M75ED. From the looks, it could take a Shure NE95 ED (which is 39 euros), but I'm just not sure. Obviously I don't want to be throwing too much money at this stuff as it's purely for fun.
The receiver is an L&G R-3600, L&G being a '72 off-shoot of the Japanese Hifi company Luxman. Like the TT, the receiver was also in the higher middle class in its day and it certainly has plenty of options! It can run two sets of speakers (A/B), has a tuner built in and space for two phono and two AUX connections. Not bad at all! The insides are pretty damn impressive and the build quality is very sturdy. I for one love the looks, but I reckon that's nostalgia as my grandparents had the same gear in their living room. The R-3600 probably needs some good cleaning. Particularly, the volume slider makes the sound rustle.
The tape deck I didn't even take out of the box; no use for that. The speakers are BNS E12 (dutch made) shelf speakers. I'm sure that in the day they were fine, but right now the ones I have are pants. One is broken, the other one not so good. This is the first time in years that I regret having thrown out something during spring cleaning: two years back I got rid of my last set of speakers. Again, I don't want to be spending too much money on any of this because $DEITY knows how long we'll even keep this stuff around the house.
Most of the records I'm ditching. I've only grabbed the classical and jazz records, leaving the schlager, the evergreens, the James Last, the dutch music and all of the other stuff for either the second hand market or the dumpster. I've checked some second hand stores already and most clearly indicate that they have zero interest in buying anything that's left in our boxes. For now I've got about forty records of varying quality. Some are really good (a few Dvorak and Jose Carrerras), some are okay, some are meh (the piano rendition of Mussorgsky's Paintings at an exhibition).
I'd love to get my hands on some really good recordings though. Teresa Berganza for example! And one can never have enough Oscar Peterson or Louis Armstrong :)
EDIT, Shopping list:
The N-75ED/2 stylus is by JICO in Japan. Why from there? Because apparently they're one of the better stylus fabricating companies and they come recommended at the Audio Karma fora. JICO also create superior versions of their stylii, called "SAS models". These are apparently of higher quality, but in my case it would tack on $100. No thanks.
Why a new needle? Because I have no idea of the current state of granddad's old needle and I'm told that worn-out needles can damage your records. Of course we don't want that.
kilala.nl tags: geeky, awesome,
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2012-07-08 22:31:00
Dana's been toilet-trained for ages now, that's been great. Now we're ready for the next step: night time toilet training!
Yesterday we got a whole bunch of stuff from Ikea, including matrass covers and tarp-ish under-blankets. And since last night we've ditched the diapers. She's been great about it! We prepared her by explaining what was going to happen and how we'd handle things. "If you need to pee, you'll wake up and call us to go potty." and she did! In the middle of the night I woke up to a weakish "Mooommy!". Even on the first night she woke up dry :)
Obviously there's going to be accidents, but for now it's a great start!
EDIT:
Monday morning, 0700: Dana quietly opens her bedroom door and goes to the lavatory. After a minute or so a soft calling for mommy follows, after which she returns to bed. Soooo proud! :D
Also, as parent of a future teenager I am happy to now have officially documented the day on which Dana was toilet trained. This will no doubt provide many embarassing moments with future boyfriends! /o/
kilala.nl tags: baby,
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2012-07-04 22:18:00
Awesome! Today, Marli went for W1D2 of the Couch to 5k / Ease into 5k program.
Despite blisters, despite the afternoon sun and heat, she finished 7.5 of the 9 runs that are part of W1Dx. By this evening her blisters had grown huge and hard, so I popped them with a clean needle.
And she wasn't even going to run today! :D
kilala.nl tags: sports, running,
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2012-07-04 21:51:00
Recently we've been having issues with our iPad2: it would refuse to play any sound, the volume rocker didn't do anything and when it did play it would flip the sound on and off frequently. Basically, the dock port was screwed in such a way that the iPad constantly thinks it's hooked up to a speaker dock.
Time to get it fixed! I went home a bit earlier to visit the Apple Store in Amsterdam. I hadn't visited yet since it's opening, so this was going to be my first look. Beforehand I'd reserved a timeslot at the Genius Bar (as it's called) using the Apple Store iOS app. That was a joy! The simplicity and user friendliness of quickly booking a tech :)
Despite having reserved a timeslot they still had me wait an additional fifteen minutes. After that things went quickly: the tech agreed with my theory that the issue was with the dock port. He took it out back, to check for foreign matter, but he didn't find any. After a quick reset, just to be sure it wasn't the software, he said we'd swap it for a completely new iPad 2. Glad that we got that Applecare, so we're basically covered like this until fall of 2013. :)
So! Happy to have a new and fixed iPad I went home.
Then Marli went for her second run this week (proud!) and came home with a broken iPhone (;=_=)
The tip to keep her phone in her bra while running turned out to be a bad one: moisture damage. When she came home the digitizer of the touchscreen had flunked out completely. So! We quickly made a 19:50 appointment with the Bar again, went to Amsterdam and bought her a new phone. This really couldn't have been covered by warranty (our own mess up) and it would have been a huge hassle to go through the mobile telco. Honestly, I think the deal was pretty good! Apple don't do repairs on out-of-warranty phones, they simply replace them for €150. Brand new phone, done within ten minutes. Unlike this afternoon we were met by a tech immediately upon entering the building. Great!
Marli's iPhone's already back to normal again. Now I need to restore the iPad.
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2012-07-02 21:51:00
This is simply amazing :)
Of all the sports out there, there's only one of which Marli has always said that she would never, ever do it. Running.
Guess what she did tonight?! She ran W1D1 of the "Ease into 5k" program, together with Martijn-sempai's girl Christa! I don't care that she didn't finish all nine runs of the three intervals, I care that she went out there and did it! I'm so damn proud of her!
Rock on baby! <3
kilala.nl tags: sports, health, running,
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2012-07-02 14:24:00
This morning my colleage Kevin came up to me through Office Chat. "Dude," he opens, "I went to this awesome uber-geek store in Utrecht this weekend! It was too much!". I already had a hunch at that point. "Yeah, when you enter it's just a normal comic book store, but at the back there's these stairs that go into the basement and only the really big geeks go there!". Bingo!
Turns out that Kevin, who is a closet geek like my bestie Menno, visited the same store I used to go to every week when I was still in college. Doing some research, I stumbled upon this press release which explained that the store that I'd known as Compendium, The Cave and (to my dismay) Elf, is now known as Subcultures. And what's best of all: it's still owned and run by Tijn Rams! The very same guy I used to buy my White Wolf books and Magic cards from. ( ^_^)
I really should take some time to visit that shop sometime.
Speaking of blasts from the past... Now that I'm playing the Shadow Era TCG with Martijn and Vidjay, I'm getting more of the old feelings back! I've already relieved the opening of starters and boosters, but now the familiarity of deck building and research are also coming back. I also went onto Bazaar of Magic to spend a little bit of my birthday money on deck and card boxes. Of course it won't do to leave my cards lying around the attic :D
And one more thing came back, something that Menno will also remember: the automatic, Tourettes-like habit of making a whiplash sound when untapping allies and resources! *huitisch!* (;^_^)
Anywho... I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who's this giddy, or as Ninjaducky put it on the forums: "I'm more like "oh god, didn't I stop this hobby because it was too expensive...WHAT AM I DOING?!?!?!"
kilala.nl tags: games, geeky, awesome,
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All content, with exception of "borrowed" blogpost images, or unless otherwise indicated, is copyright of Thomas Sluyter. The character Kilala the cat-demon is copyright of Rumiko Takahashi and used here without permission.