the day we went surfing - in the alps!

The above picture is still ridiculous to me.
Why would anyone have surf gear when you live about 350km from the nearest beach (Italy) and around 1400km to the closest ocean that actually produces some waves (Atlantic)? Okay I get the wetsuits, there is a lot of kayaking around, but surfboards?
Anyway here we were on the outskirts of Salzburg, on the banks of our beloved Almkanal, mountains in the background and everything :) Two years ago the city built this "standing wave" and it's been in use ever since.
We lucked out when Tom and Josh, two of the guys we worked with at "The Labyrinth", asked us to come along. They've surfed everywhere from Australia to Ireland and were decked  out with extra gear for us! Felix, Christine and Mandi were brave and tried it at once, while I sat with Tina and observed the whole thing, jumping into the cold water to cool off and swim, but eventually I had a go haha
The boys were the greatest coaches you could have asked for, telling you everything step by step, but always pushing you to go a bit further. C was standing on that board as if she'd done it for quite some time, at the end of the day :)

Josh couldn't get enough, even without the wave... doesn't it look like he's on a banana?!

My personal outcome was this haha

First try and I went down knee first and smashed it on some wood. T's comment "You need to fall flat Astrid! and now get back on the board" haha I went in two more times, blood trickling down my leg. 

It was bruised so badly that only now, a month later, I can kneel down again :)

Best day ever! Who doesn't like to try new things... Thanks to Tom and Josh, you guys are the best!

sibling affection - a diy edition

It was my brother's last football game of the season and as his siblings it's up to us to be proud of him, cheer him on and mostly make him a little bit embarrassed haha
I called my youngest brother and we decided to make a silly banner to hold up every time Ulrich would do something during the game.
So yesterday morning I sat down and gathered scrap fabric I have in my vast collection of naturally dyed and printed fabric and hand stitched his name on a large piece of naturally dyed cotton. Joachim sacrificed two hockey sticks and together we made one kick ass banner. Taaaadaaaaa...

For some reason I thought it would be a fun thing to create a tag line a bit like "manufacturing since 1880" so I wrote down "embarrassing my brother since 1984". It's a tough life being part of our family haha

A21 @ EuroCup 2012

image via their webpage

It's been all over the news for the last couple of weeks, that there will be increased sex trafficking over the next couple of weeks during EuroCup 2012.
The A21 campaign launched this campaign in Poland and Ukraine to raise awareness and fight the tragedy about to hit these two countries. Let's not forget that every life is precious, worth far more than rubies and pearls and that 4 out of 5 girls are forced into this business!
Read their post on why A21 do what they do and keep them in your hearts and prayers. The things they deal with is nothing most of us have ever or will ever experience. Let's get behind them and spread the word.
Thanks, you guys are world changers x

another quick hike

Last week two of my favourite Aussies stopped by in Vienna. I wrote a bit about them two years ago, while I was staying in Sydney they just became family. It's been four years since I saw them in London, yet it felt like we hung out a couple days ago. Love that!
After two weeks of city sight seeing around Europe they were ready for some greenery, so I took them to the Vienna woods for a little hike :)

there were quite a few hikers and crazy people on mountain bikes around

let's just say our forest is nothing like the Australian bush, so everything had to be documented :)

the wall in the background belonged to a toboggan run built in 1928

My calves were burning the next morning but it was good to get out and be surrounded by nature. Sometimes I forget that having the woods right outside the city is just plain luxury.

More about our city adventures later. 

Schnorres weekend pt 3

The promised video...
Schnorres side of things :) made it look like they absolutely smashed team "rest of the world", which is actually not true haha

1.EC Schnorres vs. Rest der Welt from 1.EC Schnorres on Vimeo.
After 5 competitions team rest of the world won 3:2!!! A rematch will be in order sometime next year.

Schnorres weekend pt 2

 Drew explaining football rules

 scary Ulrich

Jetty getting stuck haha

 and the sideline antics start...

can anyone detect Lisl's earring heehee

 Schniffi tackled Lisl

 defeat haha 

please notice the Schnorres team suitcase bahahaha

 my turn, compared to Lisl I'm freakishly tall so she had to stand on the bench to help me

looks like my head fell off haha

 game on

 talking strategy - must have worked, they won that game :)

Turned out that it was the last hot day of summer... the next day temperatures dropped and the day after there was snow on these mountains!!!!!
A glimpse of the girl weekend tomorrow :) find part 1 here

Schnorres weekend pt 1

Not entirely sure who came up with this idea, but it must have been on New Year's Eve when the boys decided to challenge 1. EC Schnorres(what the heck ist that? explanation here, we also donned their jerseys here) to a game of American football, since they've been bragging so much about their sports skills :)
The one game turned into a weekend of sports up in a cabin for the boys, while we decided to have a girly weekend!
Friday came and team "rest of the world" farewelled us to try their luck against the Schnorres youngsters.

since most Schnorres boys are sporting moustaches,  team"rest of the world" decided to go anti mo :) 

 a girl weekend starts with waffles

Saturday came, sun beating down on us and we decided to go and cheer the boys - well mostly lie out in the sun!

 penalty kicks

 rest of the world won!!!!

 team rest of the world(representing Austria, Germany, UK & USA)

lazy girls watching boys giving their all

next discipline: whizzy ( a Drew word for a frisbee/flying ring!!!) they had to land the ring in certain places on the field... too funny as both team were crap and the only one who managed to consistently throw well was Henning who manned the goal and threw it back to the teams hahahaha

Schnorres boys

look at those mos :)

More fun photos including American football and sideline antics and one of the funnest videos tomorrow!

the big run aka Irrseelauf

What the hell were we all thinking when we decided to do this? 14km isn't that short, we all have more or less normal jobs and therefore not enough time to prepare - so why do it? Because it's fun! It's a challenge and will take you further! If you always live the same way or do the same things and never stretch to accomplish something greater, don't ever complain how boring life is, right!
As I mentioned a couple of days ago there were 10 of us:

Tobi, Astrid, Jetty, Sophie, Ian

Andi, Drew, Henning, Timon and as he's MIA we'll call the lamp Herbert :)

After a week of sunshine it was the coldest morning ever. Great when you were running, horrible before so the pros that we're NOT tried to warm up...

 a fish grill basket helps in many ways... just ask Tobi if you ever meet him :)

poor Timon must have been freezing look at him haha

Group huddle... Schn Schn Schn Schnorres

and off we went.
While we were out running around beautiful Irrsee - Lisa, Ruth, Lisl, Daniel and Michi had fun hanging out, stuffing themselves with freshly baked Bauernkrapfen.

They were rock stars and came to km 9 to cheer us all on...

 Herbert

Timon (nr 2 in his age group!!!!)

 the UK/Germany connection

 Drew

 Andi

 Sophie

and Yaya

I'm so proud we all made it. Can only talk about my experience... my knee started hurting 2km into the run and until km 5 I seriously thought that I will hop in the ambulance when they drive past :) Weird how your mind goes to the darkest, most negative places you could think of! But just as in life, I wanted to finish. There is probably one even part of this whole round on one end of the lake, everything else is always up- or downhill. Running the last couple meters and having my friends there to cheer and more importantly handing me the fish grill basket thing, I finished strong and it was all worth it!

In the end we cut the cake Jetty & Tobi's grandma had sent us and spent the rest of the day together eating way too much Chinese take out. Kinda perfect!!