Simple Session 2015

We would have never known or gone to this even if our friend have not some stay with us and tell us all about it.  Kvintas Zepp is a 15 year old son of my best friends Ramune.  They drove from Lithuania to stay with us and visit BMX bike competition in Tallinn.  Kvintas is a big fan and an up and coming biker himself in Lithuania.  Twins and I got to go and spend big part of the day and see some cool tricks done on bikes.

US Fighter Jets F16

One of the advantages being in the embassy community is information and invitations they provide for all sorts of cool stuff, like tour of US fighter jets at the army base.  We took boys out of school for the day and went on a bus provided by the embassy to the army base to see them.  A Caplain greeted our group and gave us an awesome lecture and a tour of F16's.  Boys had all sorts of questions, this type of stuff that involved speed and missiles is right up their alley.  We also got to see and sit in the pilots seat of an Estonian antique fighter plane.  Boy were pretty giddy being in the cockpit of this historic plane.

Mallorca, Spain - 21cc triathlon camp

Our triathlon club 21cc does spring training camp in a warm weather country.  This year was Mallorca, Spain and Chris and I got to go and have some fun.  We packaged our bikes in two big cardboard boxes, stuffing every available space with bike shoes, clothes and nutrition.  Then dropped them of at a warehouse where a truck picked all the bikes from our club and drove them to Mallorca.

Chris went for two weeks, I only went for one week.  During that week my parents drove from Lithuania to watch the boys for one week: to feed them, do homework, bathe them, put them in a taxi at 7:20am every morning and to receive them at 3:30pm.  While in Mallorca, we stayed in all inclusive Ferrer hotel in Can Picafort on the East side of the island.  

View from our hotel window

Trainings were very intense starting at 8am morning exercise, then breakfast fallowed by 10am bike for 2-4 hours, lunch and evening workout entailing either swimming or running, dinner at last and 8:30pm group meeting.  Wednesday and Saturday were days off only with a morning swim.  

This is our daily running trail that goes along the Mediterranean sea and winds through a warm and quiet bush land in the back.  

What impressed us the most was how friendly the whole island is to biking community.  We went there in the of season and it turned out to be bikers paradise.   Roads are very clean and freshly pawed.  Drivers are friendly to bikers and almost every hotel caters to bikers as well.  They have bike garages where each wall space is taken by a hanging bike.  One funny thing about the Spanish culture is that they love their siestas and if you didn't get your bike in the morning then the garage is closed from 1-3pm.

My biking group mostly consisted of Dennis and 7 month pregnant Ursell - she is a beast! Other groups were for the fast and furious riders but we were sight seeing group:-)  

While biking my group would stop at every town we passed and sometimes at unique places like cemeteries.  I have never seen above ground cemeteries and with small space only available they also built walls and buried people in there as well.   I thought is was unique.

On one of our days of Chris and I rented a small car and when exploring the island.  First we took a tour of the Drach caves.  That was a very cool tour that takes around one house and follows a 1.2 km path in the caves.  The tour includes a classical music concert and a boat trip across Lake Martel (named after one of cave explorers).  We also got to see ocean life guard training.  I was already scared of the waves standing on the shore and these guys had to take turns saving each other and giving CPR's - impressive! 

Later in the day Chris wanted to take me up Cap Formantor mountain he climbed 18K on his bike the other day.  We were in a small car but I was still uneasy driving on narrow roads on the side of steep cliffs.  The views are worth the slow clime up very windy roads that made me car sick and on the way back we had to stop about 8 times for me to through up - that wasn't fun.  While at the top of the mountain with a lovely light house - we had an overcast and couldn't take good pictures but non the less and in between by barking episodes we had fun adventure. 

Family winter vacation - Otepää, Estonia

Last and our first winter in Estonia was unusually warm and snowless.  So when the second winter came around and we still had not much snow it Tallinn, we decided to rent a small log cabin in mid/southern Estonia in search for some lasting snow.  

We arrived to Otepää a bit earlier and while the house was being cleaned we decided to explore a local speed/high jump tower.  It was really neat to see it in person how high the top is and how steep the landing is.

Moments later we drove to the house and met up with our friends Erika, her husband Margus and son Joonas.  We invited them to stay for a weekend and show us how they do it the Estonian style.  So they did.  The first night Margus fired up the sauna.  We also had an owner come back and fill the hot tub (or wooden barrel) with frozen pond water so boys and we can use it later that night.  The hot tub took about 5 hours to heat up as the pond water temperature was about -3C.  While the hot tub was heating the boys were sitting in the sauna and then running into a "cool" hot tub.  Adults on the other hand did the real Estonian ice hold experience.  Erika and Margus told us how long we need to stay in the sauna and explained the heat level you should reach/feel in your limbs to be able to jump in the ice hole.  Chris and I were nervous but there was no way we would chicken out now:-)  So I went first and I couldn't believe how exhilarating it was to free your body from the heat while dunking your whole body and head under the freezing water in the pond.  Then it went Chris and I repeated the second time as my teachers instructed.  Chris was happy to have done it once and be over with it:-) Non the less it was a very cool experience one you can only find in the Northen European countries.

Next day we went to do some cross country skiing on Tartu ski marathon course also known as Song Festival of Winter because of it's proportions and international fame.  It brings approximately 10 000 participants.  Even we are not ready to cross country ski 63 kilometers yet, we had to go out and at least try miles and miles of perfectly manicured ski tracks.  After about 10km boys got tired and decided to go sledding and playing in the snow.