Spoiled

I admit it, I am truly spoiled.  In this case, I am referring to my bicycle.  The lovely little green two-wheeler which waits for me at home, was made by Hugh Black and is one of his True North bikes.  It has my name on it and more importantly, it was built to fit my body (with one arm longer than the other -- who knew?), and designed for my riding style (no more drop handlebars).  It has components which meet my needs and with its S and S couplers, can be taken apart to fit into a suitcase as big as one of the wheels.  Unfortunately, the airlines got wise and started charging huge amounts for bicycles, so now the most travelling it does is in the back of my car.

Since being here, I have had the bike on the boat -- a step through, very heavy 7 speed which performed well; the rental bike in Freiburg on which I did the 95 km (not a comfortable seat);

and here where Jennie has generously loaned me her bike --also a step through with a very handy basket and three speeds.  It is perfect for riding around town and amazing for grocery hauling.

But I miss my bike, which, more than any other bicycle I have ever been on, is a delight to ride!

Hanging out with family

Make no mistake, I love new and exciting adventures, but what really gives life its contentment is hanging out with the people you care about.  Fortunately, this trip has provided opportunity for both, so that makes it really fantastic.

The latest aspect of this, is hanging out with Richard, Jennie, Tova Elise and Rowan.  Richard works as a teacher and administrator at the largest middle school here in Gavle, Jennie is a researcher who just got back from Italy, Tova has just started Montessori first grade and Rowan is now a senior at the daycare.  They have busy and ordered lives, which I am blessed to share for a while.  So, I have made supper for the kids, and put them to bed; worked in the flower garden; helped around the house a bit, all the normal stuff.  But we have also done crafts, played games, gone out to lunch and walked by the sea, gone biking and today we helped at the cleanup day for the cross-country ski club which Tova and Jennie frequent.  It was washing cupboards and cleaning windows and painting fence sections -- normal things done with a great group of people.  They are all the things that make life good.  A mother is delighted when her kids have good lives.

The Plant Mystery

Those of you who have been reading my blogs for a few years, have undoubtedly heard/seen the amazing rhubarb that grows in Jennie's garden.  I was never sure if it was the variety or the soil conditions -- Jenn said that she never fertilizes the stuff.  However, needless to add, it is ENORMOUS! Sorry I couldn't find a picture, but the stalks are truly the width of my forearm. 

Anyway, I was working in the garden today and now I have made a very interesting discovery.  It is not just the rhubarb which is mutant, look at the plant to the left of my size 9 running shoes -- it is one dandelion.  I have never seen anything like that!  My hypothesis is that there is something in the soil/area which has long been forgotten by the people, but not by the plants!

Yes, I positioned the picture to also show the rhubarb, which, in September, is still going strong.

Travel Junkie

It is Thursday morning at 9:30 and I am sitting at Arlanda airport outside of Stockholm waiting for my train at 10:42 which will get me to Gavle at 11:46.  My 6:20 am flight from Basel actually left the gate early and we arrived here about 25 minutes before the 9:10 advertised time. 

I don't know what in my DNA or childhood experiences inclined me toward this pleasure, because most of my sisters and brother are not travelers, or at least not happy travelers.  I know that my Father was a love-to-be-at-home person.  It always made me wonder how strong the motivation must have been for him to move from Germany with wife and 3 kids to start all over in Canada.  He returned to Stuttgart once in 1963 to visit his Dad. 

My Mother never went back to Europe after the transatlantic immigration in March 1954.  From what I have gleaned of her childhood and early adulthood, she was an enthusiastic participant in family excursions and later in travels with other adults.  After Dad died in 1995, I offered to take her back without her having to worry about any of the arrangements, but she said it was too late for her (72 years old).  She did, however, eagerly watch all the pictures and videos of my travels, right down to the Norway trip in March 2018.  She loved to hear about new places and experiences, but only saw them through the eyes of others for the last half of her life.  Especially this trip, when I was around Stuttgart, I wished that she and I had made that trip and she could have told me all about the places she had been and the people she had known.  I got more of the pictures and stories of some of those people when I visited with Franz, Inge and Johanna, but Mother would have had a lot of history from the other side of my family. 

Many people make collection -- spoons, fridge magnets, tea towels, shells, coffee mugs, etc. etc.  I collect places, some of which I have known the names of all my life, and others which I have only just met.  I used to believe that with organization, anything is possible.  I delight in planning train and plane schedules: the joy of the trip starts with the anticipation.  The Europeans have an integrated travel grid so that getting around is timely and predictable, and now with the internet, it is so easy to make bookings.  The line-up at the ticket office in Strasbourg was 35 people long.  I stepped outside into the station, made the booking on my phone and downloaded the ticket.  No waiting.

Particularly joyful is when travel brings me together with people that are important to me.  I had not seen my cousins in over 30 years and now we have reconnected and they are thinking of coming to visit.  Rhonda and I pick up where we left off the last time -- my best friend.  And now, it is off visit Richard, Jennie, Tova and Rowan.  Despite being in the same city, I never got to really know my Oma.  The poor woman died when I was about 9, but 15 childbirths and the stress of family had so worn her out, that all I remember is an old lady sitting around.  So, I am trying to be the Oma that has fun with the grandkids and shares experiences with them so they will remember who I was, when I am gone.

While I am able, I will pack the suitcase!!

Achieving Goals

When I started cycling along the Rhine seven years ago, I did not set out to do the whole river.  I enjoyed the first chunk which was actually the same section that K and I did 2 weeks ago.  And so, I was motivated to do some other riding along the river while visiting R who lives just outside of Basel-- the start of the northern course of the river.  Over the next few years I rode other sections as opportunities presented themselves. I got to the North Sea and cycled the industrial portion at the north of Germany.  Last year I did the piece from Strasbourg to Mainz.  That just left the piece from Freiburg to Strasbourg.  There were intentions to do it in conjunction with some of the other adventures but it just never worked out.  So this time I deliberately left a few days open in the itinerary.

I did not ride up a 10% grade hill.  I did not swim in chilly water.  I did not run at all.  But I did make my way to the river's edge and cycle into a significant enough wind that it made whitecaps going up river.  I did ride around Strasbourg for 45 min till I finally figured out how to get to my hotel.  And I did do more (on an increasingly uncomfortable saddle) than the 80 km that Google said was the minimum distance. So I think that made me the top Canadian woman (65 to 69) who finished the north flowing Rhine on Sept. 2

Celebrate the personal achievements!

Discovering the past

For today, I set up an unbelievable schedule -- according to Hamilton standards.  I had trains to Bern, Basel and Freiburg; then a luggage drop at my hotel; and finally trains to Karlsruhe and Muhlacker in order to arrive and have my cousins pick me up for coffee in the afternoon.  Trains were fabulous -- all on time, clean, and connections easily made in the 10 minutes scheduled layovers.  Sham showed me how to download the tickets onto my phone so that I could use that method for tickets despite not having mobile data or an wifi connection in most of the spots.

Franz and Johanna picked me up in Muhlacker.  I might have recognized them, but their voices were still the same as the last time I saw them which was about 30 years ago.  We had a lovely afternoon coffee session examining old photos, some of which I had seen before as my parents had duplicates and others which were new to me but I recognized the people or the situations.  There were aspects of my family's former life in Germany that I had never heard.  I saw, for the first time, a picture of my grandmother who died when my father was 12.  She was Johanna, in fact, I had an aunt Johanna, my cousin is Johanna, and my daughter is Joanna.  Obviously a popular name in my family.

We caught up on each other's lives and children's lives.  Franz and Johanna had visited Canada and wanted to know about my brother and sisters and their families.  Their younger daughter Nina was at their house also.  She is a lovely lady forensic veterinary who recently married and is now expecting a baby girl in February.  We had a hurried supper at a local spot, enjoying a back garden and some great Swabian food.  It was a fast ride back to Muhlacker to catch the train back to Karlsruhe and here I am on the ICE headed back to Freiburg.

I can't say enough positive about the trains here.  After ditching the luggage, it was one of the adventures that I had always dreamed of -- backpacking through Germany into places whose names I have heard all my life, but are only now gaining meaning as I visit them.  I took lots of pictures of the pictures in the photo albums which I will share with family.  It will give them a better understanding of where we come from, just as it has opened the past for me.

The race

So Joanna said to me yesterday, "When I was 8, did you ever imagine me here?"  The answer was an immediate and resounding "NO!!".

'Here', of course, referred to competing at the World Triathlon Championships.  Back in Grade 3, she was an awkward, math-brainy, socially shy, bad-toothed kid with no interest in athletics and seemingly no aptitude, except for swimming.  We insisted on the latter just for safety, and she had always been a fish, having learned  to swim (although ungracefully) in the spring before she turned 3.

The teeth were straightened through a long and painful orthodontic process.  We discovered that the awkwardness was due in part to one eye being near sighted and the other far sighted.  Glasses and then lasers corrected that.  In high school, she joined the band and found a good social group in music.  She also met her BFF, with whom she shares a birthday, who was her Maid of Honour, and who is still her confidant.  The "math-brainy-ness" continued and steered her into engineering where she happily works today.

Part way through University, a group doing a relay triathlon in Deep River asked her to do their swim leg and that hooked her.  She decided that doing the whole race -- swim, bike, run -- would be interesting and so it started.  She remarked today that she had been doing triathlons now for 20 years -- half her life.  I guess that makes it a passion, but it also makes her good.  She trains year round, usually getting up at 5 to get in the workout before the family life begins.  If it is not a dessert day, you can't tempt her even with the most luscious chocolate concoctions.  And it brings her to this--competing in her age group at the World level in Lausanne Switzerland.  

On a hard, hilly course, she was 13th on her age group, first among the Canadian women 40 - 44 years old.  

No, my darling daughter, there is no way I ever imagined that when you were 8.  Feeling so blessed that I get to share it.