Running

I ran from our office along the bay to the pacific ocean this afternoon. It was a very typical San Francisco summer day: nice and sunny at the Embarcadero, but as soon as I came around the bend, the fog was already hugging the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge was just a concrete footing with a white cover. I ran past hundreds of tourists at Fisherman's Wharf, and saw a sea lion browse around in Aquatic Park waiting for the kids to jump into the freezing water to come and play. Past the "Blazing Saddles" rental bikes at the Marina Green, I watched the pelicans make their way back from the bay towards their nesting rocks along Ocean Beach. The dogs were playing in the water at Crissy field while the kite surfers and kite flyers seemed the only humans who were enjoying the wind gusts that come with the fog making its way inland. At Baker Beach, I saw two red-tailed hawks playing in the wind while mom or dad was searching for dinner down below. The mansions with their beautiful views and trimmed gardens in the gloomy Seacliff neighborhood attracted hummingbirds, and they followed me up towards the Land's End trail. I watched the waves pound on the cliffs, and sometimes the sun came out to make a beautiful contrast with the fog clouds and the reflection on the water. The tourists at the Cliff House were witnessing this bizarre landscape from their fine dining seats, where it seemed that we were really at "Land's End"; the horizon had disappeared. My last of the 13 miles was hard, but the hot chocolate made for a happy end.

Sven

PS: sometimes pictures are not needed :-)

Fun in Las Vegas

A couple of month ago, my friend Shannon asked me to join her for an upcoming trip to Las Vegas for her brother-in-law Jacob's 30st birthday. Why not? I knew it would be very different from our other Vegas trips as a lot of partying, drinking and the typical Vegas stuff would be involved... Sven didn't want to join us ("are you nuts, it'll be 110 degrees..."), so I left him in San Francisco and met the "Alabama"-crowd in Vegas...

Shannon got us tickets to see the newest of the Cirque du Soleil shows named "Love", a show that combines the great Beatles music with the breathtaking acrobatics and performances of the Cirque's artists. What an amazing experience! If you have plans to go to Vegas and want to spend the money on one show, I highly recommend "Love" that's playing at the Mirage Casino. With the music blasting out of the chair in front of you, you get the impression that you actually ended up at a real Beatles' concert. To celebrate the show and the continue the fun, we visited the really cool Beatles' bar after the show:

As you can see, we enjoyed the nights drinking quite well.

During the day we walked through the Casinos and, rode the roller coater at the New York, New York. Susan and Jacob, fearless by nature (or alcohol) even made their way to old town and took a ride one the scariest of all rides at the Stratosphere. The less crazier of us went to the spa or the hairdresser at our hotel (MGM) and recovered for the next night :-)

The next evening, we had reservations at the "Red Square", a Russian restaurant in Mandalay Bay. With a couple minutes to spare before meeting the rest of our group, Shannon and I made our way to the casino. We each put $5 in a quarter slot machine to pay our tribute to the Las Vegas gambling fever and join the boys in their continuous loss of money. At least that's what we thought... Before we knew what had happened, my lucky friend had hit the jackpot! With the lights going off, the machine making crazy sounds only to be beaten by Shannon yelling even louder, Shannon won $2,500.

At the Red Square, we all visited the so-called Vodka Vault, which is pretty much a walk-in freezer where you can enjoy your Vodka shots (you get the Russian feeling). Because they want to make you feel special and not to freeze your butt off, the owners treat you into Russian fake fur coats, hats and winter military uniforms for some of the guys. What a great thing to start a fantastic dinner, thanks for spoiling us Shannon!

The entire trip was awesome. Thanks "Alabama"-crowd to invite me along, can't wait to visit you in Houston!

Abel Tasman

Sequence III in our New Zealand Series.... After crossing the Cook Strait from the North to the South Island, we went on a 2day kayak trip in Abel Tasman National Park. The name of this park obviously filled me with pride and joy, since Abel Tasman was a Dutch seafarer who was the first European to sight New Zealand. The National Park is beautifully situated on the so called Golden Coast in the northwest corner of the South Island; it gets the most sunshine in the area, so we figured kayaking would be excellent.

The first day we went on a guided trip to become familiar with the kayak and safety procedures. Our group consisted of 8 people including our guide, and was aptly named "Seals, Lagoons, and Golden Beaches". We took a water taxi north to the Tonga Island seal colony, where we were dropped off at a small beach. We headed a little further north and paddled into some beautiful lagoons. We also got to see seals and their puppies, who were 2 months old and very playful:

We saw a lot of them as we were kayaking south. For lunch we stopped at a gorgeous lagoon, with almost transparent water, and enjoyed our sandwiches and the break from paddling:

The water was warm enough for swimming. We continued on past some nice beaches as well as the actual seal colony before entering the Anchorage, where the rest of the group was picked up. We paddled back out and camped at the next lagoon over, Te Pukatea beach. There were a few campsites, one of which we had reserved, and they overlooked the beach. We put up our tent and hiked up to a viewpoint to watch the sun set. The lagoon had a perfect crescent shape, and we saw stingrays settle in for the night:

The next morning the tides had taken all the footsteps from the beach, which made for beautiful pictures (it also explains the "Golden Beaches" name for the kayak trip...):

We paddled around another island with a bunch of seabirds (like cormorants) on our way to the return point. The water was extremely clear, you could actually see you paddle in the water.

The outfitter picked us up and took us back to our car; even though we had been driving in New Zealand for over a week, we still weren't used to the left hand driving: we drove from the gravel road on to the regular road, when all of a sudden we see this big camper coming straight for us in "our" lane...... until we realized that we were in his lane and we swiftly switched....

More to come.

Sven