My journey started directly from work. I had the pleasure of taking a 2009 BMW 750Li for the trip. This made the driving extremely enjoyable, comfortable, and easy.

The first leg was Ottawa to Kingston. I needed to stop into Kingston to pick up my tent and [...]]]> Last weekend was packed full of adventure.

My journey started directly from work. I had the pleasure of taking a 2009 BMW 750Li for the trip. This made the driving extremely enjoyable, comfortable, and easy.

The first leg was Ottawa to Kingston. I needed to stop into Kingston to pick up my tent and sleeping bag. When the 416 was nearing an end an unbelievable rain storm. Cars were slowing down to less than 80 km/h; some were pulling over. The rain sensing wipers were praised, and the 19″ V-spoke wheels kept me cruising without delay.

From Kingston I continued on to Toronto. It started to get quite sunny so I put the automatic rear sunshades up. With lane departure warning enabled, active cruise control with stop and go, and active blind spot detection the car basically drove itself. My overnight destination was One King West where I valet parked the car, naturally.

In Toronto that evening I met up with Mr. Keeves. He is confirmed to be alive and well. We met after he had finished working for the day, and we made our way to a microbrewery on Yonge St. This place had flammkuchen, a treat that I hadn’t had since leaving Germany. I had as close to traditional flammkuchen as possible–it was good, but not quite right.

The next morning I met Stephanie and Erin for a run. It was awesome to meet with them on such short notice. We ran through Mt. Pleasant cemetery, and along Yonge and St. Claire. At nice as the route was, the company was better. I had some 50% off fruit that I left with Stephanie. I wonder if she ate it.

I visited MEC, the CBC’s World Cup Street Party, and Starbucks before heading into traffic en route to the Niagara region. The traffic was surprisingly bad for a Saturday afternoon. This caused me to stop for some New York Fries–I’m not complaining about that. The best-in-class infotainment system in the BMW kept me on track, in contact, and entertained. It was a real joy even in traffic.

When I arrived to Eric’s parents’ place I met with Brunke and Rebecca then setup my tent. I have a super tent that virtually puts itself up, and does so in seconds. It didn’t take long, so we managed to get some joy riding in with the Bimmer. Scott had most of his fun with the active drive mode set to Sport+.

After a delicious meal at Casa B. we headed to the Thorold Legion for Eric and Tiffany’s “Stag and Doe”. I had committed that I would win a barbecue at this event but I did not. The barbecue in question was a Broil King Crown 10. I had quite bad luck at this event, actually: after spending around $200 I had no barbecue, no money, a “fun basket” prize, and I didn’t even save Tiffany from getting a pie in the face.

The drive back to the “campsite” was pretty nice. The girls in the back seat had the massage and heating features on. They were quiet and relaxed. The amount of stuff we comfortably fit in the trunk was also quite impressive.

Sunday morning was an amazingly complete breakfast followed by a trip to see Niagara Falls. I had never been. We spent $20 to park for 10 minutes to see water falling off a cliff. It was worth it to not have to make a special trip from Ottawa to see them again.

I left the Niagara region at about 13:30 and made it to Kingston at 17:00, in time for a steak dinner with family. It was amazing, but it disabled me for a short time due to being full. I left at around 21:00 and returned to Ottawa. I drove to Ottawa via highway 15 and had enabled the automatic high-beams as well as night vision with pedestrian detection to assist with a comfortable drive back. And after hours in the car, if I ever felt restless I simply enabled the driver’s seat massage.

Alas, I returned to Ottawa without barbecue. I spent this week procrastinating from doing my school work and researching barbecues. I am happy to report that I think I found a winner.

I left school on my motorcycle and was driving along on Laurier. I had decided to take a scenic route home. I pulled up to a light in the right lane and a car entered the lane behind me, then jumped the curb and pulled up beside [...]]]> I was involved in an altercation tonight.

I left school on my motorcycle and was driving along on Laurier. I had decided to take a scenic route home. I pulled up to a light in the right lane and a car entered the lane behind me, then jumped the curb and pulled up beside me! (I was, of course, in the blocking position.) He rolled down his window and asked “what the f*** was that?” Timing was on my side, as the light turned green at just the right moment for me to fill his ear with the roar of my engine and I was off. I heard a squeal of a tire (not mine) and did worry for a block or two that I was being followed by this “cager”, but lucky for me this was not the case.

He may have had a valid complaint. Maybe I spooked him. I’ll take a lesson away from it, but I fault him for encroaching in my space. And, really, what is someone going to say to you if you pull up beside them and say that?

After the altercation I went to Puzzles and met a group of people, including Jeff Howard. Puzzles has been his bar for 30 years, and he is a self-proclaimed dart player. He was quite drunk, but he was still able to throw slightly better than anyone from our group.

Now, I am quite tired after a long day (early wake-up, gym, drive [...]]]> It was a bit of a chilly day, but an eagerness to get the bike out in the warmer weather led me to pick my motorcycle up from Kingston. I drove it back to Ottawa where it sits safely in my garage.

Now, I am quite tired after a long day (early wake-up, gym, drive to Kingston, ride to Ottawa, birthday party), so this will be brief. I will say that the bike felt very natural–like I hadn’t ever taken a break from riding. I am thrilled with it, still. I cannot wait for some nicer weather.

It was off to Stuttgart yesterday as planned. I got there in great time, as traffic was fine and the unrestricted areas of the autobahn did allow me to hit my car’s top speed of about 210 km/h. (Aside: I’m driving the new VW Golf with 2.0L TDI diesel engine, due to [...]]]> Oi, mates.

It was off to Stuttgart yesterday as planned. I got there in great time, as traffic was fine and the unrestricted areas of the autobahn did allow me to hit my car’s top speed of about 210 km/h. (Aside: I’m driving the new VW Golf with 2.0L TDI diesel engine, due to be released in Canada in October. I’d consider buying one.) Stuttgart is really much closer than I really think it is.

Church was great. The message covered Luke 15, which is pretty joyful. The congregation was bigger than I expected. I was lead to believe that 200-250 people showed up this week, but was told that the church congregation is in the 500 people area. It is primarily made up of Americans serving the US military, though there was a mix of others. (I met a guy from South Africa, for example.) One really interesting thing was singing “Holy, Holy, Holy” in a mix of English and German (Heilig, Heilig, Heilig). I’m not very good at singing German.

From IBC Stuttgart I went down to the city centre and discovered a Sommerfest! But before exploring it I made a quick detour to Starbucks to enjoy one of their world famous iced coffees. I think this made the Sommerfest even better, as the bulk of stands set up were cocktail bars–not places of much interest to me. I walked around, sat a bit, listened to some of the music, and ate some ribs. The size of the event was impressively large.

Stuttgart is a great city. Even just walking around the Schloßgarten was nice and relaxing. I thought a bit about my other visits to Stuttgart and recalled the Built to Spill concert, the rainy day with Katy, the first time I came to Germany and had no idea what I was doing, leaving Stuttgart and then letting Evan drive on the autobahn–some fine memories.

After visiting the centre I went to the Porsche museum. This was very cool. I had the audio guide to help guide me through what I was looking at. I saw some airplane engines, and learned that Porsche designed the original VW Beetle! At the end I bought a neat little book that includes photos and text about the cars in the museum, which should be a nice coffee table compliment to my book about the BMW Welt.

After leaving the museum I thought about eating a nice, traditional Swabian meal and possibly staying to watch a movie but I decided it would be much nicer to share a meal with some German friends in Karlsruhe–and, I have a large list of movies that I still need to watch at home. So I returned home and we eventually all went to Multi Kulti in Karlsruhe. I’m definitely going to miss German food when I leave.

The past two months have been incredible. I have been blessed with visits from some of my dearest friends. First, [...]]]> A couple of months ago I wrote to you about my reaching the mid-point of my year here in Germany; now, I have but four months left. Time is going by rather quickly.

The past two months have been incredible. I have been blessed with visits from some of my dearest friends. First, I met Katy in London just before Easter. We spent about 5 days in London. It was my first time in England and hopefully not my last. The weather was as-expected, but it was still glorious to be there.

We left London after the Easter long-weekend taking the Eurostar to Paris. That’s where we got lost in the Louvre and didn’t find our way out for 3 days. (I kid; but it is a big museum.) Katy successfully made some purchases on Champs-Élysées–an arguable must for any woman.

Early on a Friday morning we took the high-speed TGV train from Paris to Karlsruhe, Germany–in only 3 hours.
After more than a week of straight touring I think we were both pleased to settle down at my home. We managed to grab an A6 from my work for the weekend and took a day-trip to Stuttgart. The next day we went with a slower mode of transport, using bicycles to get into Karlsruhe.

Katy and I went to Frankfurt to drop her off at the airport and to pick up Evan and his colleague Steve. Unfortunately Evan and I aren’t the photo types so there aren’t any photos of that. Nor of Evan, Steve, and I’s trip to Munich that following weekend. But soon enough Matt and Kevin came with their cameras blazing.

I, unfortunately, had to work for a few days so I sent Matt and Kevin to Munich from Ulm (most of these photos are not of Munich, because I wasn’t there). When we re-united in Ulm we toured around a bit before heading back to Karlsruhe for the night.

The next day Matt, Kevin, and I drove to Frankfurt Hahn where we met with Evan and we all boarded a flight to Prague, Czech Republic. In Prague we had a giant apartment to ourselves in the centre of the old town. We did a bike tour, drank lots of Starbucks coffee, found a lot of washrooms, ate some goulash, and saw some strange works of art. We got back to Germany late on a Monday night and quickly drove back to my home.

The next day we did a quick day-trip to Strasbourg, France. This was also the day that we introduced Matt and Kevin to flammkuchen. We ate six flammkuchens between the four of us, and stocked up on snacks for our trip to the black forest the next day.

The black forest was quite nice. We drove through the black forest on the “black forest high road”, the B500. We stopped about half-way through and hiked up to a ski-jump platform for lunch. We ended the day with a trip to Gockelburg–the famous chicken castle–and a trip to P10–a beach bar atop a parking garage in Karlsruhe.

We said goodbye to Evan after we drove him to the airport and prepared for our final big trip: Zurich. In Zurich we stumbled upon the grand opening of the Hauptbahnhofstraße Apple Store. I, of course, insisted that we go in and claim our free t-shirts. We were drawn the water and spent a lot of time just enjoying it, day and night. The next day the weather more-or-less forced us to hike up a huge hill to the south-west of the city-centre. We walked around until we got lost, then returned downtown for a final Starbucks beverage before leaving the city. Because it was so nice out we took the long-way home, taking a ferry across Lake Costance (or Bodensee).

Matt, Kevin, and I went to Frankfurt the next day where they finally tried currywurst just hours before getting on their return flight. We got our final Starbucks beverages and then I saw them off at the airport.

Like I said, it has been an incredible couple of months. And this leaves me with only four months left here, and still plenty to look forward to: the Alpencross in July, Spain at the end of July, and a marathon in September. I hope there are enough photos here to hold everyone over until I make my trek back to Canada, though I would be surprised if a few photos don’t come out of my trip across the Alps at least.

I hope everyone’s summer starts off nicely. See you soon.