Life Update

Things have been quiet on the blog, because they have been very non-adventurous of late.  I have been trying to keep up with running, working almost non-stop…basically, a boring life.  The good big news this week is that I have a job interview for a good position in the US, the bad big news is that my family is mourning the loss of my uncle to cancer.  I miss him terribly and am sorry to think of all the rest of his family and friends hurting.

Hopefully this weekend will bring some spirit-lifting.  I am taking advantage of the three-day weekend (Friday is a holiday to celebrate German re-unification) and heading to Copenhagen to sight-see and meet up with my college roommate, Nancy.  A much-needed break from work and chance to enjoy some new sights and an old friend.  (Literally old, this week Nancy celebrated her birthday.)

Update

Well, I survived my half marathon.  It was a beautiful running route, perfect weather (mostly sunny, 60 degrees F, light wind), with lots of water stops (bottled mineral water, poured into recyclable cups), and I finished…just really slowly.  I guess not tapering–running 18 miles the Sunday before–was not a good strategy for having a speedy race.  But I felt good afterwards, I could have kept going, so there may be hope that I can finish the marathon in a little more than a month.

It is getting cooler here.  It has barely hit 60 all week as a high, and it is down in the 40s at night.  Unfortunately, the heat is not on yet in the apartment building so things like showering are a bit like working at summer camp in the mountains of Washington again.  Not to mention, the power in the bathroom was off one night this week so I had to use a flashlight to use the facilities; this was exactly like summer camp.  Anyway, this weekend I will trade out the gloves and hats and sweaters from storage in the suitcase and put my bikinis and sundresses away.  Sad.

Off To Kiel

This weekend, I am off to Kiel to sight-see and run in a half marathon on Sunday morning.  Kiel is the capital city of Schleswig-Holstein, the northern-most state in Germany (the state in which I live), and is a port city on a fjord off the Baltic.  It was heavily bombed in WWII, because it is the prime location for ship-building and submarine operations for Germany.  It’s population is about 240,000, and has a big university.

Sylt in the National News

Activities by Greenpeace off Sylt, specifically the dropping of large rocks to prevent fishing by trawl, have put Sylt in the national news here in Germany.  You can read the English version (brief) here.  Last weekend, Greenpeace had one of their boats in the local harbor in List along with an informational booth on their activities, and the people wandering around the harbor area (mostly tourists?) were quite interested. 

There is no doubt that European fisheries policy is not where it needs to be, and that trawling is indeed destructive, but there are a lot of other problems in the area that are hurting the bottom of the sea as well–for example, the mining of sand to combat natural erosion on the island of Sylt.  That is my marine ecologist input on the topic…for now, at least.

Running hallucination? No…

Today I had just finished an 8 mile run (the wind and rain stopped for a whole three hours today, so I rushed out to get exercise), and was waiting to cross the street at the roundabout near my apartment.  A loud-engined car came by, and as it passed I noted that it was an 80s-style Chevy with red and blue cop lights, and the back said “Highway Patrol.”  It didn’t really strike me at the moment, but as I watched it round the turn, I noticed that it also said “911″ and “To Protect and To Serve” on the side.  Then it suddenly struck me–I’m on a relatively remote pile of sand in Northern Germany!  Why is there a highway patrol car here?!?  I will probably never know…