The year in review

The year in review, a delay yes, but so be it.

Top 5 experiences of 2010…

1. Greece. I love the place, have always been interested in the history and grew up with it through computer games and the like. It was great to finally be able to go there, visit the sites and spend some times on the amazing islands that litter the Aegean. Any excuse to go back and I’ll take it.

2. Spending over a third of the year in a hotel room in over 21 foreign countries. This year I travelled more than anyone else I know, visiting random places such as Karachi, Sao Paulo, Jeddah and Taipei all without spending a cent, awesome! Of course it was no holiday but it’s pretty cool to be able to do your job from a different country each week.

3. Oktoberfest in Munich; even though it was only one weekend that we spent there it was a fantastic weekend none the less. Beginning the weekend with Skydiving with a best mate you haven’t seen in years was good in itself but then to be followed by a day’s drinking in the Beer tents and no hangover on Sunday, priceless. Next year a must do on the list.

4. Supporting the All Whites throughout their 3 World Cup games, what a great experience that was to see the boys go so far and better yet to see the country get behind them throughout it all, long may it continue! To all those who thought they shouldn't win the Halberg Awards, live get real! It's about success against quality competition, when you only have a few other competitive nations or individuals competing, how is that success! The All Whites deserved it so suck it up and move on, or resign like some of you did who got your way for the last 20 years when NZ didn't compete on the international stage!

5. Living in a foreign country for the first time. Whilst the Danes pretty much all speak English, it has been an experience in a foreign country none the less. Different foods, drinks, cultures and ways of socializing have all meant that I’ve learnt a lot in the 6 months that I’ve been here.

Others experiences of note from this year:
1. Skiing in the Swiss Alps
2. Horse riding and dining in the Dubai desert
3. The general amount of weapons on public show in Karachi
4. 2 x 15 hour flights from Dubai to Sao Paulo and back in the space of 4 days
5. Both me and Dave being dominated at beer drinking by the local Taiwanese women from the office.
6. Seeing both ends of the socio economic spectrum right next to each other in Mumbai – 5 star hotel then right outside extreme poverty.
7. 2 hours in the Jeddah immigration line, tip for new travelers, when someone says ‘run’ when you get off the plane, do it! Otherwise it’s a good 2 hour wait in the immigration line for you
8. Extreme Earthquake in Taiwan whist up in a high rise! And what do I do, walk to the window to see if any buildings had fallen down…stupid Kiwi.
9. The Northern European winter – picturesque but damn annoying when it comes to cycling a road bike to work.

The awards for 2010 places to visit:

Best cities: Athens (see above), Sydney, London and Auckland (both great cities, clean, great weather, friendly public, safe and of course there’s no place like home.

Place I’d like to visit more of before deciding: Sao Paulo, we had a great night out and saw some pretty cool things during a half day travelling round but I simply didn’t stay long enough to make a decision on the place. Maybe a trip back in 2014 is on the cards? Dhaka also takes this award as if it wasn’t for the extreme congestion we might have actually been able to go further than 1km from the hotel.

Hottest women: Copenhagen followed by Munich and Sydney

Lack of women: Jeddah based purely on the fact that as a strict Islamic state, everyone’s covered up, for all I know they could be amazing but you can’t claim it if you can’t be seen.

Busiest city: Mumbai & London

Dirtiest city: Dhaka or Mumbai (too close to decide)

Most foreign city: Taipai or Qingdao, probably the most foreign of cities but at the same time everyone was very hospitable (except some random taxi drivers)

Friendliest city: Gothenburg, a shock entry but I don’t recall meeting a single rude person the entire weekend, what a great city.

Best beach: Greek Island by the name of Kefalonia, just north of Ithaca on the west coast of the Peloponnese, Greece.

City I feared most for my life: Hyderabad (only because the taxi driver was stoned & I thought he was going to careen of the side of the highway!) Surprisingly I felt quite fine in Karachi, thanks mainly in turn to the great bunch of expats that reside there.

Best food: hands down it has to be Greek; you just can’t beat a classic Greek salad, shwarma and Mythos beer on a hot day on the Greek Islands. Followed by some delicious Lebanese, surprisingly experienced in some great restaurants in Dubai.

Best restaurant: It’s a close one between Rhodes Mezzanine in Dubai or a Japanese place in Sao Paulo (I still can’t get over how good sashimi on Pringles can be!)

So now we’re moving into 2011 and of course the 2011 Bucket List has been released:

 Bryan Adams Live in Concert
 Take the weekend ferry to Oslo
 Rock climbing out on the west coast of Norway
 Watch the All Blacks dominate the World Cup
 Head home to visit my new niece/nephew
 Phil Collins Live in Concert - if he actually decides to put on a concert!
 Complete all 6 continents (only Africa left now!)
 Climb 1000m of a mountain higher than 2,000 m in the Swiss Alps
 Visit Anton at Umea
 Dog sledding & northern lights in the far north
 Stay a night in an Ice Hotel
 Run the Copenhagen marathon in under 3h 15m (May 22nd) - optimistic!
 Have Sports Central business plan completed
 See Liverpool play at Anfield
 Have a 5 min conversation in French
 Spend a weekend in every European country
 Ride the Transfagarasan mountain road & visit the Peoples Palace in Romania
 Swim in an ice pool in Russia
 Visit the Eagles Nest in Bavaria
 Visit some more of Greece
 Spend the week at Oktoberfest
 Tour Vietnam on a crappy old motorbike
 Find a place to live (done!)
 Pay off student loan (done!)

Merry Christmas

And so passes my first white juledag and my first one away from home too. I must admit I did miss the copious amounts of food that come with having Xmas day at home, but I think me and the boys managed to cook up a pretty good feast here to celebrate the season.

As I look longingly out of the window of my soon to be departed apartment towards the meter long icicles hanging from the building next door the snow begins to fall again. It’s actually been a number of days now since the last snowfall and for a few brief seconds of madness I thought that maybe we might get a respite from the winter and the snow would melt. That doesn’t look to be happening though but I don’t mind it much now. I’ve learnt how to cycle through the clumps of snow on the roads, I have the gear to keep me warm and dry and it’s still quicker to get places on a bike in the snow than it is in a car! My ski goggles have finally been donned when cycling to keep the snow out of the eyes, and they have the added bonus of being able to spot reflections on ice when cycling so I know what to watch out for.

With the winter though comes the inevitable lack of exercise, which I’m ashamed to say has hit. Sure you could go running (and many Dane’s still do) but the running that I see them doing turns out to be more like slow jogging due to the snow and risk of slipping in the ice. That really defeats the purpose for me, there’s no point getting all wrapped up, then going out and jogging through snow…so instead I have had to journey to the depths of the basement at work and challenge the gym. For those who know me the gym was never my first choice of place to do fitness but beggars can’t be choosers in these winter months. I’ve decided to run a marathon in May so I can’t afford to not do at least something once a week.

December kick started what was hoped to be a number of months of travel in my new role, something that is now looking to be a bit of an anti climax as the travel is petering out (for at least the time being). It’s not entirely bad though as we are running on some tight schedules now and travelling lots in the coming months will probably just result in a stressed team tasked with producing results but without enough time. Something’s need to be sacrificed by I don’t mind as I’m currently working on building the new products for the project which keeps me more entertained that market research tasks. Come pilot time and eventual roll out of the products there should hopefully be ample opportunities to go gallivanting around the world again.

Early December saw a quick trip to 4 countries all within a week, all pretty rushed but I managed to fit a lot of things in in each place so can’t complain. The first began on Saturday with Sweden where myself and 2 friends bussed up to Gothenburg to go to a concert put on by a band I’d never heard of – Foals. They weren’t too bad actually though and it turned out to be a really good night. There was definitely a different feeling in Gothenburg than in Copenhagen even though they are pretty much just across the water from each other. The people there were incredibly friendly and polite, I even had a man let me in front of him in a line because I had fewer things than him to purchase, who does that! They also have wide streets and restaurants, cafés and bars with big windows out front so that you can see what’s inside, something that Copenhagen really just doesn’t have at all. It was quite a novelty to be able to see inside a bar before going in, in Copenhagen you could walk down a cafe street during the winter and not even know there were places there. Gothenburg is a great city and one that I think I’d definitely head back to if I get the chance again.

I had to fly out to Hamburg that Sunday night which meant a very rushed bus journey back to Copenhagen, some quick packing/throwing stuff in a suitcase and a mad rush to the airport to try and make the Hamburg flight. Managed to do it all no problem but I think I should have taken that experience as a warning that I shouldn’t push time to the limits in future (more to come). I only stayed in Hamburg 2 days so didn’t get to see much, but we did manage to head down to the famous German Xmas market that evening to try the delicious gluhwein on offer. That stuff is fantastic on a cold winter night but watch out if you get the one with the shot of rum in it as that will put you on your face pretty quickly if you have too many. Thankfully the German’s probably know this and so the market shuts down at 9pm, enough time to have 3 gluhweins and head back to the hotel feeling rather tipsy. Unfortunately I didn’t get to spend much time in Hamburg so will just have to head there again another time next year.

After Hamburg it was back to Denmark for a night and then straight off to Liverpool. Now this flight was a close call! I thought I’d leave work with around 2 hours to spare before take-off and this should have been fine, however things didn’t quite work out that way. Firstly the taxi I’d ordered turned up straight away and I wasn’t ready so it drove off, then I had to get another one who proceeded to take me to Norreport instead of Airport. After we got back in the right direction we ran into extreme traffic and ended up sitting in that moving about 10 meters every 5 minutes. Buy now the check in time had come and gone and I was quickly beginning to realize that I might just have pushed this one to the limit. A colleague was waiting for me at the departure gate and he was relaying back to me that people were now entering the plane! I was still stuck in traffic and the taxi driver decided to take the alternative route to see if it was any better so we backtracked and went round the outside of the city. By now all the passengers had entered the plane & I was still in the taxi! We made it to the airport 10 minutes before departure, everyone was on board, gates were closing and I was in a mad rush to check in. The check in people rang through to the plane and let them know I had arrived, another rush to the oversize baggage area to check in my suitcase (speedy baggage boarding) and then a sprint to security. Thank god for gold status but even with that there was a few (what some may call rude) elbows heading various people’s way as I pushed through to the front of the line. No time for apologies as the plane was due to take off! I raced through to the gate as my name was read over the loud speaker for the final time. All the gates were closed by then so after checking through I had to open the doors to the walkway myself and race down to the plane. A couple of smart remarks from the air hostess and I was on; time before take-off – 3 minutes!

So after all that, I was on the way to Liverpool and London for some local office and customer visits. Not really much exciting happening on that trip but it was great to be able to spend some time catching up with Steve, Rochelle, Mike and Tom in London and then spend the night with the family in Liverpool on the way back. Jack was kind enough to drive me back to Manchester as his knee is now much better than it was last time I visited.

Last weekend was another trip away, this time to Switzerland for skiing. Can’t complain with the fact that you can get on a plane Friday, be in Switzerland that evening and skiing in the Alps the next morning. I couldn’t have asked for a better day either as Saturday really turned it on for us, crystal clear blue skies, and hardly any wind. Only problem was the -15 degree’s on the mountain! It was really nice to be out in the mountains again, something entirely different from the flatness of Denmark and something I definitely prefer. We had a bit of an entertaining trip up and down the mountain in the car though, Wiebke’s car seemed to have a broken window washing liquid spray thing so the road spray/salt mix kept freezing on the window and we had nothing to wipe it off with. This made for some rather dodgy driving but thankfully I was in good hands as she’s travelled the roads many times before and knew them like the back of her hand. A good weekend all in all and I’ll definitely be trying to return for some more weekends in the New Year if I get the chance. I never took my camera with me so unfortunately have no pics from all these short trips...

Well that then leads up to this weekend just gone and the Xmas festivities. Craig, Josh and I had Xmas dinner at my apartment followed by many beers and the eventual snow fight in the back yard. Dinner turned out to be quite a treat actually with all 3 of us chipping in with some tasty foods. We even had the traditional kiwi Pavalova with kiwifruit for dessert, delish! After dinner and probably a few too many Xmas beers we journeyed out to the snow and messed up the back yard a bit with an attempted snowman. Funnily enough though even with half a meter of snow, we couldn’t build one. For some reason the snow was just like flour and wouldn’t stick together at all, you couldn’t even build a snowball and throw it without it breaking up in midflight. So after that manic failure we headed out of the lakes to do some attempted skating. This pretty much involved walking to the middle of the frozen lake, shifting some snow aside and then running and sliding across the hardened ice – sounds simple but it was hell of a lot of fun!

I hope everyone reading managed to make it this far, and if you have then well done and a merry Christmas and happy New Year whatever and where ever you may be. Enjoy the summer back home and the winter if you’re up my way. Bring on 2011 and whatever journey’s that may come with it!

Welcome to winter!

Firstly what a tragedy it was to wake up this morning and hear about the Pike River miners. I guess after the recent Chile trapped miners I probably just thought everything would be fine, I was wrong. For such a small nation as NZ that’s a tremendous loss and being half way across the world I can only read about it on the news but my condolences are with all those West Coast families affected by this tragedy, I can only imagine what it’s like back home.

So we had our first snow fall a few day’s back, unfortunately it didn’t last long and was all gone by around 9am, but it was a snow fall none the less and even though some may argue it was only sleet, I’m claiming it as the first snow! Even though it’s not even winter yet I’m prepping up for another solid next few months of white out, fingers crossed it happens now.

I didn’t have long to prepare though as last night put on a good helping of around 4 cm’s of fresh snow. As chance would have it I just so happened to be heading out the door to indoor football, around 20mins cycle ride north. Now snow by itself is fine, no problem cycling through that if it’s falling vertical, however last night’s fall was accompanied by a solid wind which made things nasty. Cycling into a headwind with snow falling isn’t the most pleasant experience in the world and one that I now need to prepare a little more for in future. So this weekend it’s off to buy a helmet (in case of slippage) and a balaclava (in case of more horizontal snow)! We were lucky enough for the snow to hang around all day and likely there will be another helping tonight.

Some first timer tips on surviving the snow on a road bike:
1. Don’t use a road bike.
2. Always cycle in a straight line.
3. If you have to turn a corner, stick your foot out and glide round.
4. Going faster only increases the risk of bailing but it does mean you’re out in the cold longer, your call.

With the first big dump of winter also comes the first accident and tonight cycling home was when I saw it. Thankfully it was not me, instead as I was driving past the lakes on the way home I saw a car that had slid in some ice, gone over the bike lane, down a 5 meter hill and ended right way up in the 1m deep lake. They must have been travelling pretty fast to get all the way to the lake so one has to laugh at the stupidity of the whole thing.

If anyone read my previous blog (many weeks ago) I mentioned that we were gearing up for the Maersk super cup, a big indoor football tournament. Obviously my team didn’t win or you would certainly have heard about it sooner, but it was a great event all around followed by a big night out! Our team didn’t make it through qualifying and ended up coming away with a win and two losses, well beaten in the final game by none other than the team who sit just down the hall from me, gutted…

This week is now my last week with my current project, from next week I begin a new project that should take me through to August next year, about time to head home to see the Rugby World Cup maybe, how coincidental. We’re having our team xmas party this Friday though and it’s really doubling up as a project closure and farewell to some like myself who are heading out a month early to join other projects so it should be a hell of a night. Only thing is that this Friday also doubles as the coldest forecasted night since last winter! The one thing with moving to the new job is that I sacrifice the ex-pat role I currently enjoy and have to turn local. I’ll be searching for a place to live in the next month, hopefully not too far out from the city but likely a bit further away from where I am now.

This weekend just been I was lucky enough to put another tick on the bucket list for attending a local FCK match. Me and a few of the boys headed to the FC Kobenhavn game just down the road at Parken stadium. It was a great Sunday out, game was average itself but I think we probably spent most of the time watching the local fans bust out their dance moves! Next on the list is a weekend skiing in the Swiss Alps in December with Wiebke, can’t wait!

Jusqu'à la prochaine fois, (j’etudie le Français)

Stu

Welcoming in winter

It’s been a bit of a while since my last blog, for this I blame the fact that I haven’t been travelling much lately, obviously I need to get back out and about. It’s starting to now get pretty bloody cold here in Denmark now and even the jandals have had to take a back seat in the cupboard. There’s no sign of snow yet but the days are certainly getting shorter and the nights longer, unfortunately you still have to get out of bed and go to work at the same time. I've been on a bit of a spending spree lately too as the cold weather settles in; have picked myself up some waterproof pants for cycling (and they're good enough for mountaineering should I ever need to do that) as well as ordering a new bike to replace the one i'm currently borrowing. Next thing to buy is a big warm winter jacket.

Stepping back in time; at the beginning of this month I had the pleasure of taking a 3 day weekend to Munich, German to catch up with an old University mate Steve who is a skydiving instructor. Me and a friend Lisa left Copenhagen around midday Friday and were on the road to Leutkirch, a small town south of Munich, by mid afternoon (oh the beauty of living in Europe!). It was a race against time to get there as if we didn’t get there with time enough to jump before sundown then we’d have to wait for the Saturday which happened to be fully booked up.

We must have arrived at Skydive Nuggets HQ just before 5pm and looking up at the weather it wasn’t looking promising. There were dark clouds circling all around the jump zone but thankfully right above the jump zone was clear skies. There wasn’t much time to think about that though as as soon as we had arrived we were kitted up and heading to the plane for the very last jump of the day. It must have literally been no more than 10 minutes between getting out of the car to getting into the plane and heading up.

One can’t complain about the view heading up, it was quite breathtaking. The sun was setting behind dark clouds as we headed up into what looked like the eye of a storm to jump out of a plane! Looking south I could see lake Bodensee that borders Germany and Switzerland and then further south again could be seen the beginnings of the Swiss Alps. After about 15 mins flying round and round in circles to reach our desired altitude it then came time to jump. Again there was no mucking around, once the door opened 2 of the local crew just fell out leaving only Lisa and I in the plane. Lisa went next and even though I know she was freaked out there was no showing it as like the rest of them, she just fell out. So me and Steve were the last one’s left, and as per what was becoming the norm, we moved to the exit, learned back and were gone. It was pretty chilly in free fall as the temperature must have been low single digits at that time but that was the last thing you think about when you’re falling towards the earth.

I won’t describe how it feels like to free fall as you should all have a go and feel for yourself, but if I were to describe in I would say that it makes you feel alive in a way that nothing else can. Everyone landed safely and we stayed with Steve and his partner in their trailer that night. One couldn’t have asked for a better beginning to the weekend.

The next morning it was back on the road to Munich, just so happened that there was this big event called Oktoberfest in the city and it was in its last weekend, what are the chances that we just happened to be in the same place! You can imagine how Saturday unfolded; we arrived at Oktoberfest late afternoon and set about trying to get a beer. One would never have thought it but getting a beer proved what seemed to be an impossible task! We couldn’t find any where that sold the stuff and it seemed that the only way we would get some way waiting in line to get into a beer house. A smart man once told me the key to getting into these places is wait for a fight to break out, then just slip under the fence and past security while they’re distracted, and that’s exactly what we did (thanks Jordan). It didn’t take long either and before we knew it we were outside the Hofbräu-Festzelt beer hall, again trying to get a beer. Albeit this time we were surrounded by people with beers which made it even worse.

Tip number one for those heading to Oktoberfest for the first time; you can‘t buy beers unless you’re sitting down at a table. We quickly learned this lesson and somehow managed to find two spots at a random table already rather full with people. It was a the beginning of a great night of 1 litre beers, amazing half chicken roast, giant pretzels and plenty of people all having a great time! It was interesting, everyone was having a great time and the only time we ever saw any trouble was due to the heavy handed approach of the security teams, other than that it was a great time and many, many shouts of prost!

Since Munich it’s been rather uneventful back home in Copenhagen. I have been lucky enough to secure another job (yet to sign) for next year which is great and will mean I remain in Copenhagen for at least another 9 months. After that, who knows but for now I’ll be moving from one project to another one and hopefully some more international travel to come with it.

A couple of things to look forwards to coming up, it’s Super Cup time next weekend which is an indoor football tournament for all Maersk employees followed by a huge party afterwards! I’m not sure how good my teams going to be but I’m at least hoping to make it through the first round and into the knock out stages. After that it’s off to London for the All Blacks and fingers crossed Liverpool vs. Chelsea at Anfield if we’re lucky enough to get tickets! And last but not least I get to pick up my new bike, bought in the UK as Denmark bike prices are horrendous (crazy given that everyone has a bike so you’d think demand would be high and thus lower prices, things like economic theory don’t work like most other places in world here).

Peace out,

Stu