The first free days to do as we wished for the first time for the first time in being here were fun days of sight seeing and climbing.  Last weekend Julie and I made a day trip to a near by city called Saarbrucken.  This city is right on the French border and is full of interesting history.  As we all know, there are ancient castles and churches littered throughout Europe.  Well this is not the case in Germany it seems.  Back in WW2 a lot of these amazing places were blown up.  There are still a lot of amazing castles and churches around to visit, they are all just rehabbed back to their original form.  Although these aren't the 2,ooo year old castles and churches I was hoping to see they're still magnificent and nothing like we have back in the states.  We decided to check out a few of the museums that were in the area, The History Museum and another museum that was built on the remains of an old castle built 1,500 years ago.  The History Museum was amazing, starting back 1,000 years or more and ending in the late 20th century.  It was hard being in a museum not being able to read the description of all the artifacts, but you got the idea for most of them especially the WW2 section.  It is kind of a weird feeling being in that part of the world in a museum talking about what had happened in the past and that past took place right out side.  When we were done in the museums we walked around the shopping district a bit, there were farmers markets all over the place with the streets lined with people from all over Europe.  Luckily I kept Julie from spending all our money at the stores in the area lined with "discount" high end fashion cloths.  Normally 800 Euro's marked 50% off.  Good deals everywhere if you still want to spend 400 Euro's for a pair of shoes!  Once we finished up there it was back on the autobahn heading home.

Part of the Berlin wall!

The following day we decided to try and get some climbing in.  As of now, Julie and I have been outside climbing one day in the first 3 weeks we have been here.  It was a wonderful day of big white puffy clouds floating in the sky.  Being the only ones at the cliff for the first few hours made it difficult to find the routes and also differentiate what routes were when we found the climbs.  To our surprise we needed slings and knots to climb most of the easier routes here.  The routes in this particular are were not very long routes routes, but definitely packed a punch.  The first route we got on was a very intense slab/vert route that we later found out was an 8 or so.  Not a 5.8 an 8 out of a 1-12 rating system.  I had never heard of this rating system before, I just assumed it would be the typical French/European way of grading that most Americans are use to these days, or even maybe something close to the way the British rate their routes.  Non the less this was an adjustment not knowing how hard things were going to be for us when we tried them.  The other thing that threw us off was the fact that the routes just end at a single ring.  This ring is the same type of ring that is used for the entire climb.  It was also obvious that these were the original bolts that Wolfgang Gullich put in the wall more than 20 years ago.  This was especially scary when trying to clean the routes.  You kind of take it for granted in the states when you have 2 points of contact while cleaning routes.  

The climbing on the cliff reminded me a lot of the Red.  Soft red sandstone with quit a few features.  There was one little section of the wall that reminded me a lot of Twinkie, at Phantasia.   I decided to try one of these routes not knowing how hard it was going to be but decided screw it, at least I could clean it off of any one of those huge rings I was going to clip.  To my surprise it was a very enjoyable route, probably a bit harder than Twinkie, with a lot of interesting moves.  When I clipped the anchors on this route I was PUMPED!  After not climbing on a rope for just over 3 months I had lost all of my endurance.  No worries I thought, these routes are not very tall I shouldn't need much endurance to tick a few of these powerful looking lines.

The following route I decided to get on was one that my friend Frank Byron had suggested, he also is the one that told me how to get here so Thank You so much Frank.  The name of this route was Magnet Finger.  Lucky for me most of the bolts were pretty close together and there was a HUGE stick sitting next to the route, so the pansy I am I placed the draws on the first 5 bolts!  As I tied in I kept wondering to myself how hard this route was going to be.  It looked thin and balancy yet was obviously extremely powerful in a section of two.  I picked my sequence for the first 3 bolts and nailed it, at first thinking it was going to be really hard it might have been v3 to this point.  While hanging on the slopey jug trying to figure out what to do next I knew I wasn't going to make it much further.  My forearms were throbbing and my fingers frozen and stiff.  I managed to make it 5 or 6 moves into the crux before I chickened out/fell and grabbed my rope.  Once my frozen fingers warmed back up I took a few tries to figure out this crux section then came down to let Julie try it.  She had the same experience as I did with the numb fingers and difficulty at the crux.  I tried one more time and ended up having the same problems as I did on my first attempt.  To my dismay this route would have to wait for another day because I am just not in the shape I need to be in.  This weekend we plan on trying to get out on the rock once and move into our itty bitty apt! 

Magnet Finger is the route that follows the arete and left of the roofs.  These roofs have a lot of really good looking lines I am looking forward to climbing some day soon!

First week in Germany!

Its been roughly a week since my last post, and what a long, crazy, insane, interesting week it was!  When we boarded the airplane in DC I was excited to see so much room in the cabin with huge seats, for what seemed like the entire plane.  As we started looking for our seats we noticed that the seats in the back got a lot-and I mean a lot-smaller.  When we found our seats I thought to myself, this is going to be one loooonnnnggggg flight.  Sitting in the middle seat with my knees pressed against the seat in front of me with my lower back pressing against the back of my seat I thought, I will never make it though this flight.  After a few hours I somehow found a way to fall asleep, which made the trip go much faster!  As the plane descended, Julie and I leaned out the window to watch the sun rise and see the "new" landscape we would be living in.  My first thought was that the pilot had tricked us-that we'd been circling Ohio all night, and were now landing in Kentucky. It's pretty unbelievable that western Germany looks a lot like Ohio and Kentucky!  Doesn't feel like we moved!

That first day was one crazy day-epic.  Our ride picked us up movie-style (Julie's name on a piece of paper after baggage claim), and took us straight to one of the many military bases in the area.  There, we had to go though a bunch of logistical things which meant going from one base to another to be able to get to where we had hotel reservations.  Once we got our room Julie and I ate and finally went to bed 14 hours after landing in Germany!

The second day felt a lot better. After actually getting some sleep we had another long day of logistical shit.  Once we finished all of that it was time to rent a car to tide us over while we wait for our Element to get here.  We pull up to the rental agency and the first thing out of Julie's mouth was "I want that one" pointing at the smallest, ugliest car I will ever set my eyes on.  We stepped inside, and the salesman asked us what we wanted-something small? Something fast? Perhaps a convertible?! Julie grinned and said, "yes, we want the Fiat!"  I asked her if she was sure because it has a manual transmission which neither of us knew how to drive.  She didn't care so we decided to go for it and see what happens.  She wanted me to try and drive it back which is exactly what I did, TRY!  I got the car in reverse okay and then put it in first, Stall, I think I stalled 20 different times.  I'm sure the salesman was inside laughing his ass off and thinking what dumb Americans!  At some point I some how got the car moving and we were on our way-or so I thought!  I realized at the last round about that I should have turned there and not here.  Now on a road I had no idea where it went and no where to turn around, if I even could turn around, I was starting to regret our decision in getting this car.  Julie sees a parking lot at one point and so I had to just bee line straight for it.  There I tried to turn around, "STALL"!!!!!  Another 20 STALLS later Julie speaks up, "let me try".  She gets in the driver seat and BOOM right into first gear no problem!  Frustrated I had to match her if not one up her!  I finally get it into first gear and then I had to try again and again and again.  I thought okay I can get us back to our room.  To get back on base, we have to go through a check point.  At this check point there were a lot of cars which meant a lot of STALLING!!!!  At least most everyone around that noticed thought it was funny and they just laughed, as did all the guards.  Finally at the room we were relieved but both thinking now what, driving this car is going to be hell on wheels!

After eating some dinner and relaxing I told Julie we need to practice driving that heap of trash out there.  We finally get back at it and I have to say I sucked at driving that little crap car, but Julie was killin it in the parking lot.  At one point we were doing our little lap around the parking lot when a cop came over to where we were and parked and just watch us for an hour or so.  After what felt like hours Julie and I decided to call it quits and head in for the night.

Wednesday was an uneventful day, just a bunch of logistics.  But Thursday was a bit more fun.  We headed to the local climbing gym, www.RockTown.eu hoping to climb and meet some locals to get the info on the local outdoor seen.  Driving there I think I only stalled the car 5 or 6 times, PSYCHED!  This gym is something to think of when you watch the Vail Teva Mountain World Cup.  The walls seem to have been built to imitate competition walls.  A lot of different angles and features with a ton of jumping between holds.  When I say jumping I mean JUMPING!  All four points of contact flying through the air from one hold to another.  I've never climbed in a gym with so many problems like these.  I have to say today (Saturday) was our second time there and I am feeling pretty sore.  Maybe this new way of climbing will help my outdoor climbing, I guess time will tell.

Hopefully the next time I post there will be some actual climbing to talk about!