23-07 Hamburg-Germany 2

Hamburg-Germany 2,

July 11. 2023,

Hi Everyone,

Dominique drove me to the airport. There are 2 separate lanes to get you here and the line up is round the block. We have the most brilliant city planners in the world. Once into the airport things went quite quickly and I was through customs in 30 min. I had enough wine to drink courtesy of my bank and was the last person to board the plane. After 2 Ativans and a repeat dinner I fell asleep for 6 hours. A good combination of wine and sleeping pills always does the trick for me on a long plane trip. I arrived in London and had 45 minutes to cross the airport to catch my plane to Hamburg. They were just about ready to close the doors when I boarded the plane. It was a short flight, peanuts and a glass of wine for lunch. I switched my SIM card for a local brand at the airport allowing me internet but no calling out of the country unless I use the 20 number phone number.

I took a taxi to my 2* Ibis where all the Canadians are staying. There are 150 of us in total so it should be fun. Some of them brought their own bikes but I rented one here and will pick it up on Thursday. The hotel itself is quite nice for a 2*, clean and very modern. I have a pretty good impression of Hamburg at first glance. It is modern but the buildings have a nice old style compared to the glass towers that seem to appear out of nowhere in Montreal and Toronto. I walked along the waterfront and had a beer on a terrace facing the water. There were a lot of small sailboats sailing around. The change of time started to effect me so I walked back to the hotel and crashed for 4 hours.

I am now sitting in a restaurant across from the train station. I ate pub food that was plentiful but not particularly tasty. The German beer is great. At one point a ‘street women’ walked up on the terrace asking for money, All of a sudden, without warning, she grabbed a lady’s beer off the table and drank the whole glass. The lady got up and started yelling at her. Her husband thought that it was rather funny and laughed it off. The waiter came along and told the women that it was ‘nit gutt’ and made her go away after she had downed the beer. He then brought the lady another beer.

Love, Brian

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23-07 Hamburg-Germany

23-07 Hamburg Germany 1,

July 10, 2023,

Hi Everyone,

I am sitting in the Banque National lounge at Trudeau Airport waiting for my flight to London and then to Hamburg. I can eat and drink here for free due to my Elite Master Card status. The food is actually good and there is an open bar for wine which is to my taste. I am already on my …..glass. Unfortunately there is no scotch.

2 songs seem to come across my mind. My taste in music is mired in the 17th century with Bach and Beethoven and then skips rapidly to the Sinatra big band era followed by music from the 60s and 70s. I don’t think that I could even name a band or singer from the 80s onwards. “ All my bags are packed and I’m ready to go, I’m standing here outside your door, I am so lonely that I could cry. I’m leaving on a jet plane….” (John Denver). “I’m sitting in a railroad station, with a ticket for my destination, ooh ooh” (Simon and Garfunkel). Enough of that memorabilia.

How did I get here? Well that is a long story. I was playing 80 games of hockey a year and 50 games of squash. I was skiing and racing a sailboat. How could I have a cardiac problem? Like every good doctor, I had a blood test regularly every 30 years. Unknown to me, my cholesterol was ski high and in spite of my over active personality, my thyroid had virtually stopped functioning. I had 2 heart attacks playing hockey and 1 walking on the street. I stayed home, hoping to discuss this problem with my friend, the cardiologist, but a kidney stone intervened and brought me to the hospital. 3 days later I had a quadruple bypass at the old Royal Vic.

Following the bypass I entered into an intensive cardiac rehab program at the YMHA. My surgeon had promised me that I could play hockey 3 months after the bypass. Actually I started skating 3 months later, raced my sailboat at about the same time, reffed hockey over the summer and started playing 5 months later. The rest is history.

About that time my friend Glen told me that I should try to do a triathlon. A triathlon? I couldn’t even spell the word. I thought it was spelled with a Y. Anyway, the following summer I did my first sprint triathlon (swim 750m, bike 20k and run 5k). I won a gold medal in my age group. Since then, I have participated in 11 triathlons including the Olympic, (swim 1.5k, bike 40k and run 10k) and half Ironman relay where I did did the swim (1.9k). I have won several gold, silver and bronze medals in my age group, 65-69 and 70-74. There are not too many people over 70 who can do all 3 disciplines. If you out live the competition you can do really well in triathlons.

Last year I did the Sprint at the Esprit Triathlon in Montreal in the Old Port. Several months later I received an email from Team Canada inviting me to be a member of the Canadian National Triathlon Team, Sprint, Age Group 70-74. I accepted of course, not really realizing that it was self financing, (Canada really does not support its budding athletes) . So I am on my way to Hamburg to do the World Triathlon Championship, Sprint, Age Related. We will be 150 persons on the Canadian Team and probably 4000 athletes in all categories. I have a t-shirt that says Canada, a team jacket, shorts, a hat and a tight, tight tight bathing suit that shows a little too much.

I have been training like crazy for the last 3 months. 1 play 2 games of hockey a week or 1 game and do a sail boat race. On the days that I don’t play I do a sprint triathlon, split up during the day. For example, I would run in the morning for 40 min (5k) swim 20 laps in the afternoon (750m) and bike of 50 min in the evening (20). I lost 13 lbs. I cut back my wine drinking to 2 glasses a day without getting the DTs and cut out my Friday night scotch entirely.

2 days ago I did the Gatineau Triathlon. I came 185th out of 201 participants, finished the race in 1:57 and won a silver medal in my age group. I finished in the 4th quarter and the fellow that beat me in my age group did it in 1:20 and finished in the 1st quarter. My finishing should probably be good enough to be invited to the Worlds in Malaga, Spain, next year.

Love, Brian

2023-01 Jackson Hole 6

Jackson Hole 6,
Feb. 4, 2023
Hi Everyone,

It was a grey bird day today with the occasional sunny period between the clouds. I rather enjoy skiing in the sun as opposed to the shade which makes it difficult to differentiate the bumps. In ski terms we call this a white out. I spent the greater part of the day chasing the sunny periods which miraculously appeared to always be where I was not. For the most part I followed the crowd and stayed away from the steeps, the trees and the bumps. The freezing and unfreezing made certain runs undoable.

I used my carving skis today and practiced carving turns on groomers which are a prerequisite for a level 2 instructor. I will probably enrol in a level 2 course in the near future having done a pro day at Orford earlier in the season. The temperature averaged from -5C to +3C which brought out the Saturday crowds. Nevertheless there was never more that a 2 to 5 minute wait and often no wait at all on the upper mountain slopes. At the end of the day the sun had warmed up a bump run, softening the snow and allowing me to try out my Rossi skis on something more interesting than a groomer. As you might recall from my previous classification, their blues are really what we call blacks in the Laurentians.

I have a dinner tonight at the designated conference hotel and I will fly out tomorrow. I have met many urologists from all across the States but there is only 1 other Canadian here.

Love,
Brian

2023-01 Jackson Hole 4

Jackson Hole 4,
Feb.1, 2023,
Hi Everyone,

I went to my conference this morning and checked out for skiing at 10:00. The conference started this morning with breakfast at 6:00 and a lecture at 6:30. The Americans are a little crazy with their hours. It was about -15C with no wind and blue, blue skies and warmed up to -5C. The snow is getting hard packed and although there is no ice, the groomers are slippery and the tree runs are becoming more difficult. The moguls in between the trees are huge, 3-4 feet high or deep which ever you prefer and it is not easy to link your turns. Nevertheless, there is no grass or rocks showing as they have had 350” of snow so far this winter.

I met my ski pal, Sebastian, who grew up in France at the base of a ski centre. He had never skied here so I was able to show him the mountain. As expected he skis like Jean Paul – Barry – Glen combined. I tried to ski fast enough so as not to have him wait for me. I have been using my Salomon, QSTs, semi powder skis, 92 under foot. They slide a little on the groomers but are well suited for the bumps on the mogul runs. Tomorrow I am going to try my Rossignol, Elite, multi turns, 74 under foot to see how they are on the groomers and on the bumps.

I have a head cold that is rather annoying and have been loading up with Sudafed which makes me somewhat excitable. I got home after skiing, lay down for 15 minutes and awoke 1.5 hours later. I must be getting old as I don’t remember being this tired after a day of skiing. I am now sitting in the hotel bar, eating onion rings and drinking a local amber beer on tap. I am going to try an Italian restaurant this evening.

Love,
Brian

2023-01 Jackson Hole 5


Jackson Hole 5,
Feb. 3 2023,
Hi Everyone,

More of the same except that the temperature ranged from -5C to +5C with a bluebird sky and sunny all day. I went to the conference which went until 10:00 and then headed off to the ski hill. I have a 5 minute walk back to my Hostel and then a 5 minute walk up to the base area with all the lifts. There was a small line up at the aerial tram so I elected to take one of the 8 person gondolas that go almost up to the summit. I tried my Rossi carving skis and was really impressed with their performance. I could go faster with good control and could easily carve my turns. The ski has some titanium underfoot for stability but carbon in the tip which allows for flexibility in the bumps. They are also good in the well spaced trees but I didn’t venture into the steep tight tree areas as the snow was getting hard due to the freezing and unfreezing caused by the sun and changing temperatures.

I met Sebastian at the base of the aerial tram at 11:45 as planned and we took the tram to the very top of the mountain. They cram 100 people into the tram and I found myself in the middle, squished in between a couple of 6 footers. Thank goodness the ride is only 12 minutes long. We arrived at the top and took some great pictures. There was a 50k wind at the top which was wind swepted so we skied into the bowl and then into a bump run.

We skied mostly on the western part of the mountain as we had done most of the eastern part yesterday. The place is so big that you can not do the whole mountain in a single day. At some point we arrived at a place called ‘expert chute’. I forgot that when they say ‘expert chute’ that it really means expert chute. We arrived at the top and there was no way out except down. I was not going to climb 100 feet to get out of there. The chute was 75 meters long, 3 meters wide and had a pitch of 40-45 degrees. The snow was hard packed but not icy. Sebastian had no trouble going through but I must say that I did. I jumped my first turn, caught an edge and lost a ski. I didn’t really fall but the ski was 10 feet above me on the slope. A nice young expert skier, skied down, picked up my ski, jump turned around me, placed the ski on my downhill side (which is the more difficult side to put a ski on, and supported the ski while I jumped into it. I hope that he was not wondering what I was doing here. Anyway there was no way that I was going to attempt a jump turn again, so I safely side slipped the last 20 feet. I think that I had reached the summit of my abilities on this mountain and will read the signs more carefully in the future.

I had a quick capuchino and chocolate bar for lunch while my friend devoured a slice of pizza. We then worked our way back to an area just below and took the Howbacks out. The moguls have grown bigger, SUV’s rather than Volkswagens, but the sun beats down on the hill and the snow was soft with no ice what so ever. Again my skis performed really well.

I had a lasagna at an Italian restaurant and will have Swiss food tonight. The food is delicious but the prices are outrageous!

Love,
Brian