reporting to you live from Warsaw. unfortunately quite ill tonight, hopefully better tomorrow. as the adrenaline kicks in, I'm sure i'll spring to life. I'm lucky enough to be perched on the 39th floor of the warsaw marriott with quite a view over the city. the building is over 150 metres high, and has likely been BASE'd; especially with the wide landing below. the pic at left is the Palace of Culture and Science - Stalin's 'gift' to the polish people in the 1950's... quite an impressive sight up close. more pics coming later

Today was a day of salvation - after dealing with government bureaucracy for the past few weeks - I finally managed success. Got the car, and got the license. It was as long time coming and I could write a long article about it, and I just might on Toytown to save someone else the time/energy. but for now... I'm just happy it's done with. I went around Colin's tonight and picked up the black beast. I gave him a few minutes of silence to say his final farewell :-) He didn't get too choked up about it. I took her out with Nic for a wee spin around the hood and was suitably humbled when (though I thought I was going fast) a yellow Lambo blew by at about 260km/h - it's left blinker left permanently on as it mowed others down in the left lane. Pic courtesy of Big Col's blog (click on link at left). For now I'm drinking tea instead of the beer I was supposed to be drinking at the Wies'n tonight. Fighting an early case of the Wies'n flu - and an early flight out tomorrow to polish lands conspired against this evening's plans.

I finally managed to upload my Sailing pics from a few weekends back - some of them turned out ok. It was a summer event organized by my company for all of its employees in Europe. Basically we sailed out from Portsmouth into the Solent Channel between mainland England and the Isle of Wight. Unfortunately our boat deck become slippery from a few sick seafarers who couldn't take the big morning waves. In the end it was good fun, and my first sailing experience. I have newfound respect for it; Nic and I are planning to do lessons next year. Here's the Google Earth Ref (portsmouth).

so this is how I'm spending my wayward adulthood - going to oktoberfest and acting like a little kid again :) There's nothing like going to Oktoberfest in your lederhose, riding the Wild Water ride and getting completely soaked, then riding the Wilde Maus roller coaster as your wet leather pants begin to shrink. That might explain the girl-like screaming in the video... enjoy :)

Ok, the weather was beautiful so Nic and I went to the English Garten today for a nice afternoon walk (GE Ref: EnglishGarten.kml). There is a well known surfing spot in the park, but today we came across a hole used by kayakers... made me wish I was still 'yakking. Maybe will restart once we've moved out of the city. Enjoy the vid!

Well it's Oktoberfest time again! Click on pic at left for more pics. h So far we've been a couple of times, once with Nic and her family and once with my company. It never ceases to amaze me what an outrageous experience Oktoberfest can be - in general it's a great atmosphere, especially when you get dressed up in the traditional "Tracht" clothing to blend with the locals. Not to mention the amusement rides, the games, and of course, the beer tents. There are 14 "tents", and I use the term loosely - they are really semi permanent structures that hold up to 10.000 people, take 2 months to put up, and 1 month to take down; all for 2 weeks of use each and every year. Before living in Deutschland, I had the impression that Oktoberfest was something celebrated throughout Germany, or at least Bavaria - in fact it's celebrated at one specific spot in Munich, called the Theresienwiesen (Theresa's Meadow), located here if you have Google Earth (http://www.mcraild.com/Theresienwiesen.kmz ). It's basically a 1km x 1km flat piece of land near the centre of the city.

I thought this might be a good way to start things off... a few pics (click on left pic) that I took in Starnberg a few weeks ago - the pics don't do it justice - it was definitely one of those rare beautiful sky moments...

Right, so today marks the public launch of my blog - it's been in softlaunch for a while, way too long in fact. But now we're open for business - let the games begin ;)

So to mark the occasion, I've celebrated with a weissbier!