Bikes in deutschland

So I went to Cologne, to see a friend I made in Australia. She is from germany, so I contacted her when I got here and told her I wanted to meet up and ride. She told me there was a girls day at this skatepark nearby, so I decided to visit, here are some pictures of riding bikes in Deutschland.

This isn't a skatepark, some skaters and bikers went at night and built some quarterpipes under an overpass, all in one night! Impressive.

My friend and hostess with the mostest, Jessica.

Some girls that we got to ride with, Zandile on the far left is amazing on a bike!

Cologne cathedral

Sorry for the lack of posts. I just spent the weekend in Germany, it was crazy, I'll have a few days to catch you up via photos, so, since it's sunday, I'll post some pictures of this insanely huge cathedral I saw today. It was beautiful, quite gothic. The construction began in the 13th century and wasn't completely finished until the 15th century, although due to age and weather, they will always be working on it, or at least that's what my friends told me.

If you ever catch a train to Cologne Germany, this is the first thing you see when you walk out of the train station.

The inside was defitinely awe inspiring.

Creepy gargoyle guys, look close at this one.

When it was completed it was completely white.

You can see the difference in the color with the new peices added. More gargoyles.

The 12 apostoles.

Pretty neat stuff, I guess there are some cool pictures of this cathedral during WWII, everything around it was destroyed. I need to look it up and check em out.

Garden gnomes

Are everywhere!
I need to start taking pictures of them, I love them!

Ice Sculpting Festival

We made a trip into town to take a look at the world ice sculpting festival. The sculptures were great, competitors from all over the world come out and create these cool sculptures. So here are just a few, take a look.

England

Denmark

Canada

China

Russia

Beautiful day

A few pictures of my day today.

It was freezing cold!

Pulled out the old snowboard

might be a little rusty

Getting myself put back together

A great day!

Kindergarten ski race

All the kindergarten classes in Grindelwald had a ski race today! Each kid had a practice run, then two turns to run the course. It was intense! ha, well maybe for some parents, it was cute watching the kids, some of them take it very seriously. One boy was getting so close to the gates he was hitting them like in the world cup, I wish I got a picture of him, it was hilarious.

This was the starting area

Here comes Bode! I love his face in this shot.

A dedicated fan ringing his cowbell

Another little racer

I am a horrible blogger and didn't get a podium shot, my hands were cold, sorry. The swiss breed ski racers, they start em young. I'm pretty sure I wasn't skiing like this in the Coca-Cola Cup!

I'm feeling crafty

Lately I've been feelin a bit crafty. I went to the knitting store and bought me some knitting needles and yarn, (Kenzie got me a gift certificate for christmas) So these are the things I came up with.

My first scarf, funny, I've never knitted one before.

A hat I actually like to wear

So I would say my knitting last week was a success, might need to make another stop at Fanky's and pick up some new yarn.

few more pictures

A view of the crowd halfway down the course, there were 62,000 people at the race, this is just a few of them.

Me watching Steven at the world cup!

Winners of the combined

world cup day 2

Day 2 at the world cup was crazy!  The sad thing is that Steven tweaked his back on the first day and wasn't feeling well enough to race the downhill.  It was a bummer not being able to watch him race, but it was still very exciting.  Before the races started there was a really cool air show with these crazy swiss pilots.  When that was finished the races began and the crowd went wild, mostly when there was a swiss ski racer or a crowd favorite.  It killed me when Didier Cuche skied down the crowd went crazy until he passed us then the crowd fell silent while watching the rest of the race on the jumbo-tron, listening to the comentator to hear his time.  Amazing.  Meanwhile there were people all around us cooking fondue and raclette having a good old time.

So, I'm having trouble uploading the other photos. I'll upload them , later. Sorry!

World Cup! Part 1

The men's combo was today, I was lucky enough to join the Nyman's and the Fisher's to this event.  My first World Cup experience was amazing, I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, the men's downhill!  We did get to see Steven ski by, he wasn't competing in the combo, but got a run in the downhill portion of it.   We'll see more of him tomorrow, Believe in Steven!

Fisher's and Nyman's on the train in the morning on our way up the mountain.

Scott and I hiked up the hill for this view, it was a really cool perspective.

I liked trying to take pictures of the racers

Walking down the hill the perspective changed.

Becky and I watching the slalom in the finish area

The last few turns of the slalom course.

What an incredible experience to watch world class athletes flying down the hill with such grace and strength. I can't wait for tomorrow.  Part 2 coming soon!

bread!

The bread here is too good, I eat all of the bread in the house, so I asked Kenzie to teach me how to make it.  She showed me how, and this is the outcome!

I know right! Looks great! Well, I'm sure it tastes great.  We didn't eat it, too much for dinner already, so in the morning I'll cut into it.  The truth is Kenzie pretty much made it, I braided it, but next time I'll do all by myself.

i like this

This billboard makes me laugh.

Road signs

In my travels I've seen some good road signs, Australia had tons of different animals crossing signs, but there are unique animal crossing signs here. These are everywhere, they make me smile.

So I'm breaking into normal everyday life, therefore my posts won't be as frequent, I'll try to post as often as I can, but I'm not walking around with my camera around my neck anymore.  Loving life out here!

Ahh, to ride...

Today I spent a good part of the afternoon cleaning up the old woodshop down the road, so I could ride my bike around a bit. It felt so good to get back on, I know it's only been about three weeks, but I miss it!

sweeping up the sawdust

almost there

things are still a bit dusty

ready to ride

Well, unfortunately I'm not so good on the flat ground, but I have a lot I can work on.  Already have a nice bruise on the shin. Maybe I'll start throwing together some ramps.

picture editing

I went snowboarding today, very fun. Had some hard falls, but it was fun messing around in their terrain park. Not like sundance's, that is in it's own world. I haven't got any good new pictures, so I just spent a few minutes messing around with my photo editing program and I've been having fun with it, so here's just a little picture I was messing around with.

I love the old farm houses, they are everywhere.

Working girl

So I've been really busy working, tomorrow is my last day for the week. So maybe I'll be able to get some more fun pictures to post. Today I just took a picture when I walked out to put my skis on at the end of the day.  Everyday I work I get to watch a beautiful sunrise and sunset, pretty cool I think.

memories

In honor of the new year, I will just commemorate last year with a few photo highlights from 2010.  I haven't taken any pictures the last few days, just been working, so I'll post these instead.

I went to a bike competition in April, first one I ever went to and took 6th place. Lots of fun.

New York in may, thanks MD

Crystal rapid!

It was a great summer

roadtrip with friends in the fall

And of course, Grindelwald

So thank you 2010 for being a good year, hopefully 2011 is a better one.  I'm off to a really great start.