Errrrr....

Leaving the gym, I excited to see that someone had parked their awesome vintage Fiat 500 outside. Then I was horrified to see how they had modified it.

WHY OH WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO PUT A LOUIS VUITTON DECAL ON THEIR CAR?!

YOU TOOL.

Belly dancing lesson

I could have sworn that Ele told me they were 'Bollywood Dancing' lessons. But no, the programme said 'Bauch Tanz' we that's how we found ourselves shaking it on a Tuesday night.

I've got to say - I've got absolutely no skill in this at all but it was a lot of fun trying to keep my arms elevated and still while trying to move my hips or shoulders or boobs. It's also great for getting over body issues. We were a class full of women of different age and body types and as our instructor demonstrated - you can't shake it if there's nothing to shake!

Elé and I have decided that we will try to continue this as our communal exercise session so watch this space!

Awesomeness in the gym

Wednesday evening in the gym. As a general rule, I prefer the elliptical trainer and/or rowing machine over all other cardio equipment. Unfortunately, it was so busy that all these machines were occupied and I instead headed to the treadmill. The treadmill isn't good for my bad ankle but I figured a relatively short 15 minute run shouldn't be too bad - I mean, I normally do twice as long on the elliptical. I started off quite slowly, more like a trot, and then after a few minutes, I thought I'd up the speed. By the end of the run, I was sweating and quite happy when the cooldown arrived and I could walk (at speed). Then I picked up  my towel to wipe the sweat off my face when...CRASH! I fell off the treadmill!

Did I scream? Yes, I did.
Did an attendant come and ask me if I was alright while I was lying on the floor? Yes, he did.
Did the guys on the treadmills next to me stop running and help me up? No, they did not! (Chivalry is dead in this country.)

I picked myself off the floor to do some pilates and core work but trying to stretch and balance while my limbs and ass hurt from when I hit the floor/equipment, I decided that it was actually time to slink home and examine my wounds. That bruise on my leg is going to be sweet when it turns purple.

Back to bouldering!

The Spanish friends with whom I tried on that horrendous red wig were going bouldering the next day and they invited me along. Lo and behold their surprise when they saw that I did the easiest colour (blue/black) very easily, and made it all the way through yellow/black polka dots, yellow/black, yellow, and then to green. I 'fessed up that I had previously bouldered in Melbs, but gave it up through a combination of Phud getting in the way and waiting for my hand to heal.

And I did enjoy myself. Since I've left Melbs, I've dropped about 3kg and I felt much more comfortable hanging up there. So comfortable in fact, that I was sometimes hanging there while friends tried to advise me on which hand or foothold to make next. Despite the seeming ease and comfort, the day ended when I did this:

That's pretty much the same damage I did to my hand in this photo!

So here's to hoping it doesn't take me another 5 years to wait until my next visit. 

So proud...

I've been pretty busy this week, what with coming back from holiday and writing another manuscript. All this work meant that I didn't have time to be interesting enough to write a blog (assuming no one wants to read about how I work, and then go home and do more work), or to even go to the gym. Well. I finished writing that manuscript today at work and I decided to reward myself by doing some grocery shopping and then going to the gym! But when I got home, I did something even better - I decided not to make myself pasta for dinner but to instead eat the groceries that I purchased as a reward.

Did I happen to have a dinner of gorgonzola cheese and Sauternes after going to the gym? Yes, I did! And it was totally worth it!

Skiing?!

Believe it or not, for the first time in over 10 years, I went skiing. There are a number of reasons for the long time between drinks - namely money and my ankle injury. I wasn't going to test my crappy ankle on the icy Australian slopes (again), and I had other (better?) things to spend the money on than fly to NZ or JP for their powdery snow. But now that I live in a cold country, the 'expense' argument is wearing a bit thin not to mention contending with weird looks when I tell them I've visited famous skiing areas and didn't ski. The ankle is a legitimate reason why I shouldn't ski, but I was persuaded to eat least try the ankle out on some European blue slopes, or at the very least, keep Barbel company given that a bunch of friends had planned a ski trip and she was the only person who wasn't in a couple. 

We were staying in a village near the Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis ski resort, in an apartment on the top floor of a farmer's house (Bauernhof). And when I say farmer's house, I mean it because they kept a pig that we fed our scraps to and a cow that supplied us with milk and cheese!

The view from our window.

So how did I go? Good news - the assessment from Yvonne and Daniel was that they could tell I'd definitely been on skis before, even though I was a bit rusty and technique wasn't that great. Hooray for muscle memory! Ladis has two blue runs, one quite short and the other one a bit longer, both of which Daniel took me along twice in the morning to teach some pointers. I made it to lunch falling only 1.5 times! Once during my second time down the longer run, and half a fall when I was trying to figure out how to use the platter lift. 

Check out my happy smile at the shorter blue run!

The bad? My leg basically couldn't handle it. My leg was pretty sore by lunch, and REALLY sore after it. I decided to stick to the shorter blue run which was a great idea because I could tell that I was having difficulty controlling my left ski, making me a bit of a hazard to other people. By dinner time, I was limping and my knee was killing me :( I decided to make the call as to whether I skiied the next day based on how my leg felt.

The next day it felt fine, actually. But the view from the window looked like this:

Yes, it was snowing like hell and I was advised to not ski. Turns out it was a good decision because it was powdery snow on top of ice and 'tricky'.

Once the snow stopped coming down, I took advantage of the dumpage to make a snow creature!

There ARE kangaroos in Austria!

They're just awesomely camouflaged.

The new dumping of snow also transformed the valley into something a little more abstract. Like a greyscale sketch.

Our last day at the snow was beautiful, but Yvonne, Barbel and I decided to just hang around the restaurant on top of the mountain rather than ski due to either being physically or financially crippled.

Seriously gorgeous day.

That restaurant served some mighty nice hot chocolate. 

And a pretty awesome strudel as well!

Watching kids learning how to ski, I wished again that I learned while still young enough to not care about injuries

And so to end, here are some shots of the Bavarian/Austrian alps on our way back to Munich.

A great thing about going to the gym

Television! 


I went to the gym and did 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer followed by some core work. Having finished that, I decided to try and do more work and so I hopped back onto an elliptical trainer when - hey ho! I realised that Futurama (auf Deutsch) was on VIVA. And not just any old episodes of Futurama - two of my most favourite ones, Amazon Women in the Mood and Parasites Lost.


Great thing is, I've seen the episodes so many times in English that I totally got the German translations and picked up some new vocab! Ich habe gesnu-snu!

Unfortunately I couldn't find the clips in German - luckily it also works in Spanish!

ROAR!!!

It took me a month of dedicated (and not so dedicated) gymming but I finally got myself back down to 10mins to row 2km! MUHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!


But now Mr. Wallace (Dr. Wallace's papa) wants a video as proof. Hummm.....

The Gym!!!

During the excesses of die Wiesn, I decided that all those litres of beer and half chickens were making me tubby. While I could try counting on the hard Winter knocking the kilos off me like it did last year, I decided it was probably time I went back to the gym properly.


Part of my resistance to joining the gym was the fact that this country seems to only have rolling one year contracts that have to be cancelled 3 months before the end of the year otherwise they roll it for another year. Not happy, Jan! But ah well, I can suck it up because I'll know if I'll be staying here for another year hopefully 3 months before I leave. But now I have joined and it's a question of how to integrate it into my life multiple times a week.


Unlike the old one, there are no classes and no pool (dammit), but they do have Concept 2 Rowers and lots of different weight machines! And best of all, it appears to be fully stocked with lots of hot guys who get a bit stroppy when I kick them off the assisted chin up machine! Viel Spass!

Biking progress update

In comparison to my recent failure(s) in the lab, my attempts at re-learning how to cycle have been much more successful!


Because we've recently had a bout of fine weather, my teacher decided it was time to leave the Institute's closed road circuit and do something a little bit more challenging. And so, we cycled out of the Institute, across the highway, and onto a bike path with other users, over a bridge, through a small gate, and then to Schleissheim Palace! 


Having judged my ability, apparently I should soon be able to graduate to cycling on bike paths on my own soon, I just lack confidence. Here's to hoping I'll be doing that before the summer is out!

Back on the Bike

When I moved here, my announcement that I couldn't ride a bike** was met with utter amazement or howls of laughter. Or as one of my companions on the weekend said, "Can you take off your sunglasses? I want to see the shame cross your eyes." Needless to say, quite a few people have told me that to really enjoy Europe (and depending on who they are, life in general), I have to learn how to ride a bike.


So it turns out someone abandoned a bike on the rear balcony of my building for at least the last year and a half and it was decided as a group (excluding myself) that this bike would now be *mine*. Someone pointed out that the bike had a lock on it and a few days later, I saw one of the Italians (who shall remain nameless) going at it with a hacksaw. With this bike newly *liberated* I have been slowly (re-)learning how to ride with help from people at work and the closed road circuit. Due to the inclement weather, I have so far only managed three separate sessions but apparently it's been quite entertaining to watch me learn how to keep my balance, turn, u-turn, lift my hands from the handlebars, brake, and do head-checks. Various people have said I look: 

• terrified
• as if I'm doing strange acrobatics (during the hand-lifting exercise)
• highly entertaining
• like a giant child (my personal favourite)

But they've all agreed that I'm better than they thought I would be (tumbles were expected!) and now there's a vague plan to make me cycle with others from work to a palace that's not too far away so that I can get used to cycling on a path with people around and put the stuff I've been learning into practice. Hopefully it will be done successfully and I can tick this one off my list of tasks to complete while living here!


**technically this is untrue - I did teach myself when I was 25. But I fell off and never really climbed back on. 

Nordbad

I had decided to change the main focus of my exercise regime to swimming while here because I didn't think I could afford the gym fees. So imagine how thrilled I was to discover a pool one u-bahn stop (or as I prefer to think of it, walking distance) from my apartment. Nordbad advertises itself as a heated indoor pool surrounded by classical architecture. It was a balmy 0C as I trotted on down to check it out.

The website advertised a cheaper late session if you entered after 9:30pm. It's a bit later than when I like to swim but I figured I could go swim 1km and still get home by 11pm.

First impressions, it really is a nice building with all those columns; I probably would have picked it as something like a library. Secodbly, who was the smart ass who decided to put a maccas opposite? Evil genius.

The surprises kept coming inside.The changing area was communal although there were individual changing cubicles. However, its still kinda weird when I sneezed and done random guy in the next cubicle goes "gesundheit!"

At the surprisingly crowded pool given the time and weather, I was a bit perplexed to see a lack of lane ropes. I quickly realised that my usual swimming method wouldn't work if I wanted to not smash into ppl. And so, I quickly swam 1km while trying to dodge ppl cutting across diagonally, those who stopped in the middle of the pool, and that trio of girls who very slowly swam keystroke in a horizontal line up and down the length of the pool.

Would I go back? Maybe, if my doozy of a following adventure lets me!

Hmmmm

As some readers may be aware, I usually do some formal exercise about...oh, 3 to 4 times a week.This would take the shape of two gym (cardio & weights) sessions a week, an hour of pilates or fitball (since this year), and sometimes an hour in the pool. My pool membership ended a week before I went overseas, while my gym membership ended during my trip. This means that I haven't done much formal exercise other than hefting around luggage and walking a lot for the last month. Anyway, since I'm not going to be here much longer, I decided to only renew my pass to fitball - a strong core is important to well being! 


During class this week, the instructor noted that I seemed to be doing the exercises with much more freedom. I said that my joints seemed to not be hurting as much and noted that I hadn't done much exercise for a month. After hearing the kind of workout I usually did, she noted that I was probably over exercising and that while it's great I can do a sub-10 2km row, with my small build, thin limbs, and hyperextensive joints, such a heavy workout may not be for me. 


On the hand, dancing, pilates, and yes, fitball! is the way to go. Bring on German Zumba classes!

Hail fail

Tuesday was a night of awesomeness and heartbreak. Firstly, I went to the gym and managed to row 2000m in 10:06. Personal best! Now all I have to do is cut off those last 6 seconds!

Anyway, it was steadily raining as I left and I decided that since I wore Dunlop Volleys in to work, I would remain in my gym clothes on the way to meet with the brother at Borders cos I knew they'd get soaked. As I strolled down Tin Alley, the rain got harder and I decided to run to the Physics building. It then started to hail. Oddly enough, it seems I've never been caught in a hailstorm before because I never realised being hit by hail is like having people form a circle and then throw a constant stream of gravel at you. IT HURT!!! And holding an umbrella did nothing because it was coming in sideways! I then decided to use the Physics Building wall as a windbreak rather than try to run for the bridge.

I huddled under the bridge and decided to ring brother to find out the status. He was 10 minutes away so I decided I may as well keep on walking to Borders *sigh*. That was when I dropped my phone into a pile of hail. And then it died :( With a dead phone, I was unable to phone and say *change of plan!* so I kept walking.

The hail piles

But as I was walking, I had to periodically stop because my gym pants are elasticised and they were now so soaked with water that they kept falling down! And because I was stopping, they were getting more wet! And constantly falling down!!!

I did eventually get home with my shoes squelching so I took them off and placed them in front of a heater. About 30 minutes later I found out that my shoes had a sponge core - and that drying them basically shrunk my left shoe :( This actually upset me more than breaking my phone because the phone was five years old while my shoes were only four months gone! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. So I this means I won't be going to the gym and getting down to 10 minutes any time soon :(

Sport of the Year!!!

Long time readers of this blog will be aware that I try to do something known as *Sport of the Year* - at the beginning of the year, I find a new sport at which I have no experience and try to attain some sort of proficiency in it. Well, I finally have my sport of 2010. It is shooting.

*crickets chirp*

I know what most of you are thinking: *Who is crazy enough to give Mallymoodle a gun?* Well, I was invited to handle some firepower on a wintry afternoon by Mrs. K because she wanted to shoot (a gun) before her dirty 30 and we went to the outer suburbs to the firing range.

Getting attired with my eye and ear protection!

Patiently watching Mrs. K receive instructions and taking aim...when are they giving me my gun?!?!

Possibly kinda important, apparently I'm supposed to hold the gun upsides rather than sideways in my hand

And making sure I point it in the 'right' direction

Getting more advice...although interestingly, not how to aim the gun...

Reloading. As Mr. K said, "Errr...you looked scarily comfortable and competent handling that thing..."

EAT LEAD, TARGET!!!!

"Don't you cheek me, mister!!!*

We both found the experience highly invigorating! You think it's easy to hold up something and aim it at something that's only 20m away, but it's not! Out of 25 bullets, I only hit the target once. I'm not concerned, it just means when a gun is in my hand, EVERYONE is in danger cos I'll spray them anywhere! I hit it more often once I was moved from the revolver to the semi-automatic pistol - when you're shooting one of those, it's like you can just fire away one after the other like a movie, if only I could hold the revolver in one hand and the pistol in the other with crossed arms, John Woo-style! Oooh yeah!

And so, the two of us have discovered a new sporting experience was as well as instilling fear into Mr. K! We're all going shooting again in a fortnight somewhere closer in! Stay away from Port Melb, people!

Peaceful shooting, people!
(Always Asian!)

Ouchies?

For the last few months while I was furiously trying to finish the Phud, I did something I'm not particularly proud of....I let myself go. I can see people like Rachie-Poo rolling their eyes in disgust at my proclamation, I do. But the truth is, I essentially stopped all formal exercise for at least 3 months, while increasing my intake of chocolate and other things I could eat at my desk while trying to write. Not to mention the Christmas lunches, CNY dinners, and celebratory bowls of pasta, plates of cheese, and bottles of wine. This has all combined to produce on squishy Mallymoodle.

But now! I am hitting the gym again with a vengeance! Except one of the staples of my former fitness regime, Pilates with Glen, is no longer possible because they shifted the class to 12pm instead of 1pm
~*(>_<)*~ <-----Not happy! I have instead started going to the class that has replaced the timeslot - Fitball. This basically involves doing a bunch of cardio and strength workouts while using a Swiss Ball. I have attended two classes so far and this is what I've found out...

• Dribbling a Swiss Ball is not too difficult although it does run away from me at times.
• I have little rhythm. And I have even less when I'm trying to swivel a 55cm diameter ball to Michael Jackson's Beat It.
• My wrists don't have the strength for me to do push ups.
• My knees don't have the strength for me to do squats.
• My ankles are shot.
• But I can balance on the ball on my knees (like a seal) just fine!

I always walk out of class slightly shaking from the exercise (possibly because my joints are crying) and right now I've got slightly sore traps from various bench pressing, flies and I can't remember what else all while balanced on a ball. Lets see how this goes and whether it becomes a weekly regular as well!

The Hike v2.0

The last time I was in c-town, I somewhat notoriously went on The Hike v1.0. I swear, I have never had so many people laugh in my face before whenever I told them

1. That I was actually going /went on a hike. Me! Hiking!?! And of course
2. The story of what actually happened on the hike.

When people found out I was going to c-town again, I got a lot of people sniggering and asking if H was going to make me go on another hike. In fact, some people wished me a happy hike rather than a happy trip (Pom, I'm looking at you!).

Because he values his life, H promised me that this time we wouldn't go off the track. Yay! Also, because I am a sun-hater, he decided we should go in the late afternoon-early evening. Double yay! And so, more mentally prepared, we went off to walk the track around Mt. Majura. I had my ipod and happily sang along to 80s movie soundtrack classic - a bit to H's and to the general public's bemusement that I was disturbing the birds. We made it to a clearing part way up the mountain and watched some planes fly in and out of the c-town airport while enjoying some fruit and muesli bars.

H admires some trees.
(EDIT - and vanillabear admires H's ass)

This wallaby came quite close!

Come back, Mr. Wallaby!

After deciding that we didn't have enough time to make it to the summit, we went on down back towards the start. Now, I suffer from quite bad hayfever. You probably all know where this story is about to go. I had popped a 24-hour antihistamine a few hours earlier thinking it would keep me sane and sniffle-free. Not so. I'm not sure when I started sniffling, but by the time we made it back to the carpark, I was full on blowing my nose.

Excluding the summit, the track was only about 3.5km long - peasy. Peasy enough that H decided we should take a walk around the neighbourhood while it was still light for extra exercise. Figuring it couldn't hurt that much, I acquiesced with what I hope was minimal fuss. Bad mistake on both our parts. By the end, hayfever had made my face and especially my eyes feel so painful that...I stopped talking.

Poor H noted afterwards that the ensuing silence made my misery readily apparent and he finally realised that nature just isn't my friend. No comment on whether he'd make me do it again yet.

The Hike

I'm in C-town for a change of scenery, visit friends, see some of the tourist highlights of our nation's capital, and a less disruptive location to write the thesis. It has been going to plan for a bit with nothing particularly out of character. Until yesterday.

So people who read this blog regularly and know me (probably because the only people who read this blog regularly actually know me :P), will know that I'm a dress-loving, high heel stiletto wearing lab scientist who likes to hang out at the cinema/gallery/bar in my spare time and maybe some theatre/opera/ballet to mix it up a bit. Outdoor pursuits? Maybe if it's because I'm pounding the pavement from one European gallery to the other! I began to hear comments from various sources that H had the brilliant plan that to enjoy C-town, I should go on a walk through the bush that surrounds the (small) city. This was reinforced by him actually asking me to bring a pair of proper athletic shoes rather than only kitten heels. :O

As I said to The Pom one day on the way to the gym, I'm like a luxury Persian cat! I can survive outside but it's best for everyone that you leave me indoors. However, because we are gym partners and therefore have a more special relationship where we can abuse the other without getting mad, The Pom released a stream of vitriol aimed towards my unwillingness to go outside my comfort zone and hit me with bullets of derision that would have felled a lesser person. Not I. Instead I was fuelled with the desire to prove wrong everyone who laughed at the thought of me doing some bush bashing. That and the realisation that H did go to the gallery with me and it would be only right that I do something he liked.

And so I went on a 6.5km hike that included some pretty steep climbs to a final 750m elevation. H was willing to do something shorter and easier due to my novice position but no, there had to be a challenge other than distance. And sunshine. Here are some pics

The view from halfway to the top.
(Stupidly, I appear to have not taken any photos from the top?!?)

H enjoys the view.

Other happy hikers.

Yes we saw some wallabies, especially for the Orangehoodies

The hike was supposed to go for 2 hours. Not a problem in my eyes because I saw that we had a nice track that many other ppl had clearly been on before. This was confirmed by our meeting some ppl on the way and at the summit. Even the steep parts weren't an issue due in my eyes, bless gym. But eventually we hit a bitumen road and H said the words "I don't feel like walking along a road, lets cut through the park to the path further down the hill."

As much as I wanted to say *hell no, lets follow the path the guidebook suggested*, I deferred judgement and that was how I ended up clinging to his back as we descended along what was essentially a game trail. It was steep - I figured if I fell, I could ride his corpse to the bottom. Two barb-wire topped fences later, one that was crawled under, the other which was gingerly climbed over, we made it back the original red clay path we set off on.

At the end of the hike, H said, "I don't think I realised how much of a princess you are until I saw that look of horror when we decided to go off-road." To that I say........................................................................well I have nothing to say to that because it's true! But this is a princess can be both the Palace flower and the warrior, just like Mulan!

(Video suggested by VB and CB)

A better view of Parliament House from Mt. Ainslie (which I didn't climb).

Bouldering!

Following pilates in 2005, teaching myself how to ride a bike in 2006, Brazillian jujutsu in 2007, I've decided that Bouldering is going to be my sport of the year partly due to The Pom's influence and since it's considered an even harder version of what was supposed to be my epic fail of a sport for 2008, rock climbing.

I can attest to the harder bit - I found rock climbing pretty easy with all the ropes and stuff. But without ropes it's freaking difficult! I can pretty much only do the super-easy green trails and need to drop the fear factor. When did I get so afraid of falling?! Especially since I'm falling onto giant crash mats?! Curse age and experience. The good thing would be that you don't need a belayer but that bad thing is I seem to only progress when people are yelling stuff at me so I need someone who doesn't mind standing around yelling at how I'm supposed to position my feet and how I'm never going to get to the next hold.

Anyway, I managed to get a photo of The Pom actually climbing and overhang but because it was on my crappy phone camera, it looks like a smudge so I won't upload it here. What I did manage to photograph is the chunk of skin that I managed to rip off my hand while I was trying to get myself from one hold to another!

Anyway, I hope to stick to this perhaps once a week augmented with gym and pilates to build up my core and upper-body strength and then we'll revisit this later in the year!

Resolutions for 2009

Well lets outline what I'm going to try and do this year...

• Take a leaf out of Kahuna's book and try to be more patient with people.
• Having said that, it has been suggested to me that I should also cut loose some deadweight friends. I may also try to do that.
• Reduce my drinking (again). I think last year was a sign that I'm getting too old for that stuff. The spirit is still willing, but forgetting to balance every alcoholic drink with a glass of water means that my flesh ends up weak.
• My new sport of the year will be dancing. I don't know what type of dancing yet. but Suboo wants to take lessons in salsa. Bring it on!
• Submit/Finish my PhD by September, and of course for old times' sake
• Lose 5kg. I probably should amend that to about 2kg, but hey, I never do it anyway!

So here's to a successful year! *clinks champagne glass*