The Berlin Olympic Stadium: Built for the 1936 Games

 

This morning, before leaving Berlin, after just a lightning visit on our way home from Poland, we delayed the early departure that we had planned, because we both wanted to go to The Olympic Stadium that was built for the 1936 games. I was not prepared for what an emotional experience it would be for both of us. Maybe we are just a pair of great big softies but after buying our ticket to go in and then climbing up to the very back of the stadium, we both had to sit down for a while and were not able to speak to each other because of overwhelming reaction to actually just standing there looking at the scene of that quite unique games held there. In fact we did not speak for most of our stay there.

For myself, I am blessed with a most vivid imagination and could clearly see all the old newsreel film from that time running before my eyes and I know for sure that Steve could see it all as plain as the hand holding the camera in front of us. 

Now the home of the home of Herta BSC Football Club and with replacement seating, smart modern toilets too but all housed in a classical stadium that has not changed and still looks as grand as the opening time. It is a stadium with a lot to say and I think the world could not miss that message.

 

The whole site was so exquisitely planned with the Olympic Swimming Pool and diving area right next to the main body of this magnificent palace of sport, that stunned me because it is a pure art work that is also a most wonderful sporting showpiece. All of the sections are around the park placed in close proximity and that seems to me to be so much better than events venues situated miles away from each other as seems to be the trend now.

 

 

The May Tree

The May Tree

I dreamt I was an ugly, gnarly old tree

Completely hemmed in at the base,

My thick bark is armour- like to see

Through all my years this came to be

I stand firm in a cold and lonely place. 

My back growing around barbed wire

The fence pressing me forward,

My young spring branches admire

Protective thorns, each a tiny spire

Falling upon my own inbuilt sword. 

Ivy chains me to the stubbly earth

Holds me in place with strands like rope,

In my dreamscape I still have worth

The sap inside me still gives birth

Annually to sprays of flowery hope. 

Only seasonal changes gradually made

And I am held fast without self will,

Inevitability keeps opinion in my shade

Pride in my perfect blossom, air to pervade

Relinquishing control tastes a bitter pill. 

Gazing down from my top most height

Sliding under my very base structure,

I see an adder sunning in warm light

Deep hidden in my roots out of sight

Safe for now, peaceful at this juncture. 

Stand through winter as I stood in spring

I hear the message in the sleeping voice,

Arrows I must take and feel the sting

To wait for hope no friend will bring

But sadly realise that I have no choice.

 

Bike Check in and Sprint day: Ironman 70.3 Gdynia, Poland

 

This morning I woke up first thing, very early in fact thinking that I had seriously passed my sell by date in Triathlon. I had a headache, ear-ache, a bit of a sore throat and my heart rate pounding at a silly pace. Trying to stay in bed and not disturb Steve was torture and I began to think it was, after all, time to jack the whole thing in because is seems to be just plain daft to get so nervous about something that is supposed to be fun. Being longer in the tooth is not helping. 

I have always suffered from pre race nerves. When we first started doing races that were a bit more important or longer distance than the fun race we started with, I got to the point where, as Steve zipped up my wetsuit I would throw up. As that got progressively worse to the point where it was misery, I rang a hypnotist who had been recommended to see it I could be calmed down. The man I rang told me that he had recently retired for health reasons but when I told him my story, he came first to talk to us both in our home and then agreed to see me several times before my first World Championships in Muskoka, Canada. It did help actually, quite a lot, and he told me that if I did the little mental exercises he taught me that it would continue to improve, which it did. When I rang him some time later for a set of reinforcement sessions, his wife told me that he had recently died. The hairdresser friend that I went to in those days, started referring to the poor man as, ‘That guy you killed.’ I really hope that I was not the cause of his death but at the same time I must admit that it was very shortly after my course of treatment with him.  

Once Steve woke up today, I made him a jasmine tea and a cup of my home brew coffee that includes a spoonful of Manuka honey and a bit of vigorous stirring to blend it in smoothly. We both had a shower and dressed ready to walk over to Starbucks but when I told Steve that I could not find any hair bands to tie our heads of slightly longer hair than we used to wear, back for the race. We change the route and went to then next Starby’s further on, that was not much more that 500 metres away from the one nearby, on the way to coffee we found a store similar to Superdrug in the UK where we picked the packet of hair bands up.

Then we came back to our room and set out the bags we will use in the race: Blue bag for the Bike and Red bag for Run kit, then we laid out everything we needed for the swim and also what we would put on to wear down to the start in the morning. Steve checked both bikes again. 

The sprint race was on this morning and we ambled down to the end if the pier to watch how the swim exit, bike bag pickup, changing tent and transition worked and were happy to see that it was all very well handled by the volunteer crew and that everything seemed to run smoothly. That will all be cleared by the time we go down for our own bike check-in later this afternoon.  

In the morning, my swim wave start is the first wave after the Pro Athletes, men and women. Steve has another forty minutes to wait after me for his wave start that I think is the last for the 70.3 race.

 

Here are a few shots of this morning Sprint event swim finish

 

 

Race Registration Day: Ironman 70.3 Gdynia, Poland

 

When we woke and peeked out of the hotel window this morning it was looking as though it would be a damp old day. It is registration day for the event on Sunday. So since registration did not start until 12.30 pm we though it was a good time to go out and drive around the bike course. Our hotel The Marriot Gdynia, Waterfront, is very close to the race base and we took a quick walk down to see if the preparations were any further forward. In our many entries to Ironman races both full distance and 70.3 (half Ironman) like this one it is all usually very professional.  There had been a busy night for the volunteers, that was evident since much more of the barrier work and the Ironman Village was now in place. We popped into the Starbucks right next door, for our morning hit of our favourite coffee to start us off in a good mood. We don’t usually take breakfast. 

Not in your wildest dreams would you want to attempt to bike around any of the starting miles of the course because that would involve trying to find your way through very heavy city traffic. Not nice. Not wise. So we got Petra the Peugeot out of the hotel parking and set off with a map, Steve’s phone on SatNav and with the bike course showing on Steve’s iPad.

We tried to drive the bike course expecting that at time in this late in race planning that it would be clearly marked along the route but it was not marked out at all, and we went wrong several times in heavy traffic. The only indication that there would be an important event going on very soon was some road closure notices but they were not just on the route. The start miles are horrid, inner city, built up and being quite honest, plain ugly. 

We went on to plan B, and set the SatNav on the phone for the first marked point out of the city centre. Keeping an eye on the ipad showing the bike route, to try to keep us in check. Another failing, but this time on our part was that we had not got the hang of more than a few words in Polish and signage is all Polish, sometimes with a choice of spelling the same name. 

After sweating blood and spitting feathers and lowering the tone of our language, we eventually made it out onto the distance loop of the bike course. I have mentioned previously whilst blogging on this holiday that Poland appears to be, for the largest part, anyway of the areas we had seen, one huge, endless but rather pretty, thick forest. The distant two thirds of the bike route for the race is all forest. Again I have to add that it is very pretty but it has some quite bad rutted roads passing through it. So no chance of being familiar with it since neither of us could remember anything resembling a noticeable landmark.  As far as degree of difficulty, there is a long climb from the port, out to the main loop, then it is undulating every bit of the way, but no worse than the general Sussex roads and hills of our home bike routes in the UK. There is a long downhill stretch back to the port to finish. I’m feeling a bit worried I have to say, but that won't help I know. If I get lost on the bike I will never be found again!!!!!! Forest, forest and more very thick, dark, forest with dirt roads going off to either side with no sign of life. 

Yesterday we explored the run lap course and that is pretty straight forward so I will feel better if I make it out onto the run. I will require all those fingers belonging to people who know me to keep them crossed on Sunday please.

 

The old Port area of Gdynia is lovely and has very interesting war and maritime museums.

 

 

First Impressions: First Day in Poland

Yesterday’s Journey 

Our day started after breakfast in Dresden piling our bags into our little white van that we call Petra the Peugeot; all our vehicles have names and Petra was bought second hand from a friend whose name is Peter. Our little black VW Golf was also bought second hand, when my daughter took possession her new car. She had named the VW Marcus. We tried to re-christen Marcus, changing the sex to female started her new life with us as Marcia thinking that all cars should be female, but my daughter Jacqueline was outraged by this suggestion and nagged so much about it, that we caved and went back to Marcus. 

From Dresden we took the route suggested by Google maps, first to Berlin then later turning off in the direction of Gdansk; our destination of Gdynia is one of triplet city’s with Gdansk and Sopot. Rest stops were rare. The Polish scenery on the route we took was the E28- A6 where the scenery was very much like all the country side we had driven through approaching Dresden since we were driving in what had been known as East Germany that had been cut off by The Wall. We had expected there to be hundred of miles of forest and we were right in that assumption. There were areas where in was undulating and opened here an there on to moor for a while, but mostly there was forest, forest and more forest. Trees are very beautiful but they do block off the rest of the countryside that one is driving though. 

The breaks in the trees gave way instantly to huge wind farms and now and again solar panel farms, in fact I have never seen so many. It’s almost as if having thankfully done away with that dreadful 'Wall' barrier and discovered the vast expanses of nature, that the powers in charge during that time thought “Hey, here is a place where there are so few people that there is nobody to object to a mass installation of modern power sources.” I would say that every town or village had its own wind farm except that I didn’t see many towns and villages. Wherever your eyes fell there was a wind farm, either near or far. Rest stops were small compared to motorway standards, just a petrol station with a small shop or café. 

There was little in the way of dual carriageway and very often utterly atrocious road surface. Hundreds of miles of the roads were just single lane and we witnessed an abundance of death defying overtaking even on double centre lines and bends. We became fascinated with the concrete bus stops that always had a person there who was selling produce using the cover of the bus shelter as a makeshift store. The main items for sale that we noticed in passing were honey, in large jars and some with big jars of wild mushrooms that there would be no shortage of in the endless world of trees. A few were selling melon and apples. There were also four sightings all in the middle of nowhere, truly miles from anywhere, of young women with long blonde hair, wearing very tight short shorts and high heels either standing or sitting on folding chairs: They were all holding umbrellas because it was drizzling. 

The poor quality narrow roads lasted until we drew closer to the suburbs of Gdynia and Gdansk and finally into heavy modern city traffic. It was a long day on the road since we had started off at 8.45am and did not get to our hotel until 7pm. We got to the end of our first Audio book of our holiday, Obsession by Nora Roberts. We both enjoyed the book that was about a serial killer, the affects on his family and a follower’s obsession with the imprisoned killer’s M.O. Steve lost to plot a little with the love story that is intertwined and explored at length.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book and there was a personal thread for me because the main female character is a talented photographer as is my daughter and she adopts a dog she finds on the road that she calls Tag, that is another link to my daughter Jakki since her first pet was a Rough Collie dog called Tag who we all adored. 

Once that story ended we started Desperation, written and read by Stephen King. This one should last us for the rest of the holiday and much or maybe even all the return journey since it is predicted to last for 21 hours according to the blurb from Audible.

 

 

One of Jakki' fun photo's of her present dog Louis taken in the Bluebell woods earlier in the year.

 

 

 

Zwinger in Dresden

 

Being a tourist is such hard work! This is especially true in a city that seems to be entirely devoted to the arts with more culture to the yard than anywhere else I can think of including London that is more spread out. In Dresden they are crammed in together Galleries, Museums and Theatres. 

Having taken in a recital in the Frauenkirche last evening we put on our comfy trainers and first took a walk along the river bank to just look across at the opposite side that we have not even stepped on yet. So we ambled along to the Semper Oper for a tour. The Season has finished and the new season not yet started, so we were able to take a look inside without having to pay an arm and a leg to get in to see one of the prettiest and most theatrical opera houses in Europe.

 

  

I had blow dried my hair before we left so it was the straightest it ever gets but it was an overcast slightly damp old day and it was not long before my curls fought their way back. The tours of the Semper Oper were leaving every twenty minutes and we only waited outside for just about half an hour. Waiting outside is not such a bad thing since it gives you a chance to turn in every direction at the amazing architecture surrounding the Theatre Platz; Dresden is simply astonishing. 

After having our jaws drop in quite a resounding chord, once in the auditorium we were able to sit a while to take it all in, including the grand stalls, dress circle and all three upper circles plus boxes and the glory of all the reception areas. It was just mind boggling.  

We needed only to walk a hundred metres or so to the main entrance of the Zwinger, an arts gallery flippin’ extraordinaire. That was a real killer and we did not make it completely around everything there was to see, that is impossible in one hit. We did find the painting that I had looked forward to seeing, that was Die Schokoladen Mädchen by Swiss artist Jean-Etienne Liotard. It’s so hard to pick favourites when there are thousands of old masters, I do love Vermeer though and then there were miles of Canaletto’s another big favourite. 

 

 

By the time we left the paintings behind, we still wanted to walk across the courtyard to the Porcelain Museum because we are in Dresden after all and that means Meissen too. That left us both completely speechless and totally thunderstruck, gobsmacked an all other expressions of that ilk doubled and then trebled and no need to take away the number you first thought of. 

We had to make it to the next café for coffee, cake and a rest.

 

 

Amazing Dresden

This evening we are in Dresden. We are thunderstruck by the beauty of and grandeur to the old town centre. We are only here for two days and that is so obviously not long enough. Our hotel is slap bang next to the magnificent Frauenkirche where we just by super chance managed to get into just before the organ played for a while, before a short service to welcome visitors. Stepping inside is a jaw dropping experience. We have checked the places that we wanted to visit out on google and had looked at photos.  But those do not give the feeling you have gazing gormlessly at the breathtaking interior. We have visited churches hundreds of times but have never been stopped in our tracks and been so astonished that we had to sit down in case we fell over whilst gazing up into the vast tiered done and the indescribable chancel scene, carvings and paintings reaching up to the organ loft. Its whole effect is that of a most elaborate circular theatre like interior. 

On leaving the Frauenkirche we took another couple of loops around the outside gawking up at the Dome. Although the atmosphere outside was a strange contrast to the peaceful stillness inside. This was due to the strongest police presence that either of us had ever seen anywhere. There were four of five police vans on every single facet to the church and more surrounding the open space the church stands in. There was a demonstration going on with a stage in front of which was gathered a group of flag and sign wielding people preparing for speeches and that were followed by a march. Once the chanting built up to full strength the police added their bulletproof riot gear and donned their helmets and made ready their batons. 

All of this went on for long enough for us to eat a two course meal and for Steve drink his mineral water and me to demolish a glass of wine. Sitting watching I could in my field of vision see eleven police vans. We have wandered back to our hotel and I have downloaded photos and written all this whilst outside the demonstration still rages angrily on.