SCOTLAND. SOON ! (:

last week in short:

-did a lot of planning for scotland
-CSV orientation training
-got sleeping bag
-got my maps
-resolved walking boots problem (my parents will send me my ones from austria)
-ordered camping stove and my beloved knife (exactly the same that I used to have for ages before I lost it)
-went out at the gig house and the spin club in wokingham
-watched a rugby game of our boys' team


I'm now really excited about our scotland trip, and especially about my first great trail. I will start in edinburgh, not too far from the castle, more exactely near tollcross. my route runs along two canals, first the union canal and then the forth and clyde canal. as far as I know you normally do that trip the other way round (starting near glasgow) but since we first stay a few days in edinburgh I'll just start there.

the canal starts between fountainbridge and tollcross

the plan is to do about 30-35 kilometers a day which should not be a big problem, so in total I'd need three days, that means two nights in the tent. since the area is quite densely populated I think I need to check out some potential places for wild camping in advance.

equipment I plan to take with me:

-backpack: pieps alpinist pro (1200g, 36l)
-sleeping bag: mountain equpiment starligt IV (1800g, comfort limit -12°C)
-tent: north ridge altitude 2 mountain tent (4400g, hydrostatic head 3000mm)
-boots: salewa condor evo gtx (1800g)
-stove: karrimor X lite titanium stove (48g + 345g gas cartrige)
-ordnance survey explorer maps 342, 349 & 350
-first aid kit
-headlamp
-food, water, saucepan, cutlery (still have to think about these things, what, how much, etc)
-clothes (as little as possible, still have to think about that too) + second pair of shoes for the city trips
-camping mat

knife <3

so in total, without shoes, food, water, clothes, cutlery & crockery I have about 8000g, which I consider not too bad. of course, if you spend 200-400£ more you'll probably have 1000-2000g less, but that's not worth it for me.
all in all, I spent approximately 240£ for tent, sleeping bag, stove, maps and knife, I think that's alright. especially since I plan to use that stuff more often in the future.

I've already done a trial packing, only difficulty I had is the sleeping bag's volume (approx. 23.5l) - so I'll need to find the right technique to stuff everything into my backpack.


stay tuned, I think I'll write one more entry before scotland.

cheers,
matthias

rugby, cycling, great trail - you can also do sports in the UK

hey guys (:

time flies by, another week's over. very busy again, the planning of my scotland trip is more difficult than I had thought. since I wanna do another great trail in the higlands if the one from edinbourgh to glasgow is a success (which I assume) I need to buy proper equipment (tent, sleeping bag and shoes). finding stuff that's not too expensive and still good quality is tiring somehow. however, I'm almost done. but before I go into detail I wanna tell you some other things.

on thursday (04 september) julie and me had our first more physical contact orientated rugby training. it was all about how to tackle effectively, how to support other players if they kiss the dust and how to act if you're the one who goes down. at the beginning it was quite hard since our technique is not very good yet but after practising intensely it became sleightly better. during this training I kind of realized how much rugby is about supporting each other: if you're on your own you'll not really have a chance, but as soon as you get some support - no matter whether in defence or offence - it gets much easier to deal with all this physical contact. and also the risk of injury is then lower, I think. in that training I for the first time was buried several times by both my team and the opposing one, but nothing really happened, which really surprised me. but that's what I'm trying to explain, with the right support you are relatively safe. however, I'll buy a gumshield soon.
also on that day I sorted the membership-issue out. I'll now pay my membership fee by installments (since I don't earn loads as a volunteer but that's another topic). I was first not sure if I should pay the fee which now makes me a member of the club (including clothes for games etc) since you only have to pay it if you want to play games; if you only want to attend the trainings it's not necessary. when I had decided to pay I still had not been sure if I wanted to play some day, but since yesterday I know I wanna play if possible: julie had her first game yesterday and it was great to watch it! finally at least some of the things I constantly had been told during the trainings started to make sense. it also somehow helped me to reduce the "fears" of physical contact in a real game, though I assume that the boy's games are a bit rougher (so before making my final decision I want to see a game of our boy's team :D).
that was a lot about rugby now, I hope you also find it a bit interesting.

the next day I had to face another one of my fears:  going to the hairdresser's.. and not only that I don't like having my hair cut, this time I had to explain the hairdresser in english what I wanted him to do with my hair. BUT: all my doubts and anxieties were causeless! the whole procedure lasted for about 10 minutes, and when I then left the building I surprisingly was content.


saturday. somehow I'm a bit annoyed of doing this as if it was a calendar. monday, tuesday, wednesday..
but I don't really know how else I should summarize.

I try to shorten the next part, am a bit tired (right now it's monday, 09:03pm), let's see.

edinbourgh - glasgow:
-3 days walking (26th to 28th of september), two nights wild camping,

things I need for my trip (and don't possess yet):
-tent
-sleeping bag
-boots
-camping stove
-maps

so in order to buy my tent (fortunately it didn't take me long to find a good one online) I went to basingstoke (because they wouldn't deliver it), about 57km from crowthorne. train connection is bad, don't have a car - so I rode the bike. 3 hours out and return, huge store, nice cycling trip. and great tent for 100 pounds instead of 300. only annoying thing was the bike which is too small..

sleeping bag was more difficult, they all were crap or really expensive. however, finally I found one, ordered it today.
also I ordered my maps today, 3x ordnance survey - I can really recommend them, if you ever need a map of any part in the UK, buy one of these!
I've already found some boots, a compromise between light and fast & stable, but I need to wait with ordering until I have got money again.

I'm really looking forward to that trip, I don't know what is waiting for me, will be exciting. I will then write a more detailed entry.

what else happened this weekend?

well, there was the moon festival, which is celebrated every year in several asian countries (upon others china, south korea, japan, taiwan). our asian housemates prepared lovely food and we had some barbecue, all in all a nice evening. highlight was lighting the flying lanterns which we found in the local charity shop (I LOVE THIS SHOP!). we were not totally sure if it is illegal but anyway it looked nice.

 

you see, my descriptions are getting shorter and shorter, it's already 12:16am.
there's only one day left. on sunday as I already mentioned julie had her first rugby game, I'm glad that I could motivate myself to cycle to the pitch and watch the game. although our team lost the friendly game it was a good experience for julie, I think. so was it for me, I will watch some professional games when I've got some time, that should help understanding some more rules and tactics. by the way, we bought tickets for a professional game in november, england against some african country, forgot which one.

that's it, I need to sleep now, tomorrow we'll go to london - csv orientation training.

I hope you're all fine,
and I have to say it's really nice that a lot of you text me, I'm sorry when I'm not always able to answer immediately.

lots of love to everybody,
matthias

there's no headline for so many things

sooo, it's time now for a new entry.

since I've put off writing for so long (I posted my last entry exactely 3 weeks ago), I think it's better to divide it into the three weeks, makes it easier for both you and me.

week 1:
a basic problem is that I can't really remember what I did during all these weeks, so I'll probably jump from weekend to weekend. though, I do remember that the first week (of these three) was characterized by disney - we watched tarzan, mulan, lion king, the emperor's new groove & the others also watched atlantis. all in all, a week of simply amazing entertainment.
on saturday, we had our first dafna day. basically, the idea is that one day in the month all the people from our house spend some time togehter; that week we went to the coast, more precisely to brighton. however, on this first dafna day two of us couldn't join due to work/other plans..
in brighton we were picked up at the train station by daniel, another csv who's living in that city. together we spent some time at the beach and the pier before our group split in two smaller ones due to different interests. daniel, bianka, julie, katrin and me, we relaxed for a while in a park at the royal pavillion and later went to the seaside. daniel, katrin and me actually really went swimming, was great, quite big waves!
after that, daniel showed us a nice café and some sort of shopping street which is made up of a mixture of "alternative" and tourist shops. btw, there were loads of graffiti in brighton, pretty cool. also I got two awesome posters for my room, £ 1 each.

f.l.t.r. Bianka, Julie, John, Finn, Diana, Daniel, me and Katrin

Selfieee :D

royal pavillion and Daniel

week 2:

on that week's time scedule there were the first two trainings for most of the dafna people. "introduction to norwood" & "jewish way of life" - as the names already reveal kind of basic courses which would have probably been more useful at the beginning of my placement. anyway, I found the training about jewish culture including festivals (especially shabbat), food rules etc very interesting.
moreover, in that week for the first time I supported one of my residents in the swimming pool. since a lot of the other volunteers had already been doing that for a while, I had been truly wondering if I had done something wrong which possibly could have made my managers believe that I'm not reliable. :D but now I'm going swimming more or less regularly, so it's fine (:

on saturday morning, julie, minji (volunteer from southkorea who is currently living in oxford), pamela (one of minji's friends; she's from mexico) and me started our journey to creamfields festival which we all had been waiting for excitedly. unfortunatly, the wellington boots which I had ordered two days before (naturally with "next-day-delivery") had not been delivered, so from the moment we left the shuttle bus at the festival area the next two hours were a really muddy experience for me. I put two plastic bags over my feet and fixed them with duct tape which was good in terms of preventing them (and me) from the mud, but on the other hand that was really bad for my stability since it made the whole thing even more slippery. however, somehow I managed not to fall down.
after some time (it felt like ages), we found some vacant place at the camp site, pitched the tents and finally enjoyed our first beer with our new neighbours.
creamfields' shows were incredible, so much lights and lasers, pyrotechnics and absolutely mental music, of course. apart from deadmau5, steve aoki, showtek, armin van buuren and nervo, the show of calvin harris was absolutely mind-blowing!

f.l.t.r. clean Julie, me, Pamela and Minji on our way to Creamfields

copyright by marc de groot blah blah

calvin harris

f.l.t.r. not clean anymore; Minji, me, Julie & Pamela

week 3:

we returned from the festival on monday - bank holiday. the following days I was very tired but had to clean all my stuff, terrible..
on thursday my parents who before had been travelling for about 6 days in the UK arrived at ravenswood, they would stay here for a couple of days. in the evening we had dinner at the prince, our pub in crowthorne, but before we went to the rugby training, my parents were watching.
I finished work on friday earlier in order to have enough time to go to windsor with my parents. although the weather was not perfect it was a really nice afternoon in this tiny but pretty town. on our way back we had some difficulties with finding the right way (my dad drove the car, I read the map :D you might not believe me but it was not my fault :D).
in the evening we had a nice birthday party in dafna, elisa and katrin were our birthday "children".

mummy and me in ravenswood

julie and my daddy with nice colours

me, john and bianka (new caps btw !)

> only two days left, yeay <

saturday: after about 3 or 4 hours of sleep I got up, but not as tired as I should have been. my parents and me, we went for a walk around the village and then to heath lake which is quite near. not only was it very good to see and to speak to my parents, but also it did me good to hear and speak my language, especially my dialect which I'm sometimes really missing.
in the afternoon our paths separated again, my parents headed towards stansted and I went to oxford together with julie where in the evening the birthday party of pamela would take place. there we met several people from different countries (all in all there were mexico, venezuela, italy, south korea, spain, germany and austria represented). sunday was very lazy, we first made burritos and then in the afternoon enjoyed the lovely weather at some incredibly idyllic place near to the river thames.

three myselves

I can't believe that I'm finished now, has been soo much to reflect.
my goals for this week are now to sort out some things, clean up my room, write some postcards, stuff like that. moreover, I have to plan my next trips in detail and think about the following months.

I hope I manage to write the next entry sooner, it's horrible to sum up so many days and weeks..
enjoy yourselves and stay tuned.!


ps today we had a power cut for about 40min, and for the first time I really realized how dependent we are.. no telly, no wifi, no charging, no playstation - all these essential things are not possible without power supply. no, seriously, for the first time I was really a bit worried due to a blackout, all our food in our freezers and fridges, no information, no landline, etc.. just saying.