5 Juni - Modesty

Bright and early, we went to the office and got some work done.  The place is still so quiet with everyone on holiday.  Once I put all the pieces of my write up together it was much longer than I thought, so on Monday, I may actually need to trim it down before meeting with Wendelin. One thing I don't usually have a problem with is writing :)

This afternoon we ventured over to the climbing gym that is here in Heilbronn.  Before we had gone to the one in Heidelberg and haven't been very impressed.  The one in Stuttgart is awesome with it's outside walls and everything but is kind of far to go to on a regular basis. This gym is about a 7km ride to the edge of town near somewhat of a warehouse area.  The gym is amazing though!  There are 3 bouldering areas; one on the first floor that is pretty standard, one upstairs that is like a giant rock with rouets up and around it, and one huge area along the upstairs back wall.  There are top ropes and lead climbs on both floors and the climbs on the first floor are nearly twice as high as the ones at Vertical Endeavors.  There is also some fun balance stuff like the that twisty ladder and another twisty contraption that is very unnerving.  Most of the climbs are lead climbs and all of them after a certain point of difficulty are.  

The guy that was showing us around reviewed our belaying skills and was kind of weirded out at the way we belay.  Where we slide the top hand down from above the belay device, they do it from below (I realize that may not make sense, but I can't think how to explain it).  He told us why it was safer his way and I tried it, but muscle memory is hard to break, so he said it was fine if it worked and it seemed to.  He introduced me to another climber, Michaela (sp?) that was there by himself so we could climb together. Michaela is here from the Alps in Italy working on his PhD at the aerospace university.  Turns out he was an exchange student in Duluth when he was in high school.  He is really nice and very good climber, so top ropes probably wasn't what he was looking for.  I haven't done any lead climbing in months, but I located the easiest ones in there and did my best... back clipping my first clip for old times sake :)  One thing I really liked, that gave me a much stronger sense of security was that the clips were just a tad closer together than the clips at VE. I know out in Red Wing or wherever the clips are farther away, but there are varying degrees of the learning experience that help.  Michaela and I exchanged email addresses because I can never remember my phone number so we can get together and climb again.  

Back to the locker room that dances circles around what VE calls a locker room, I changed and was just getting ready to leave when this woman walks out of the sauna... yep there is a sauna... buck naked and then yells something back into the room where she just came from where a man answered her back.  Then she starts talking to me still with nothing covering her and I know I was looking at my feet and probably completely red as I explain I can't speak German. She asked me why I wasn't trying the sauna and I said I was in a hurry to get home before dark because we biked there, still looking anywhere but at her.  So there is this coed naked sauna at the gym... ok... I can just imagine the climbing group back home getting together to relax after climbing like that... scary. 

On to the bike ride home with map in hand trying to navigate the directions backwards and trying to avoid the highway this time.  Not a good idea... we took a wrong turn and ended up in another town, I think Neckersulm.  Skylar gets onto me to ask directions or ask people this and that and it drives me crazy because I stubbornly like to figure things out myself even if it takes twice as long.  So there is this man walking his dog and I finally give in and ask him where we are on the map.  I know the words was (where) and hier (here) so I thought I could at least get him to point on the map. I don't know what he was trying to tell me, but he motions for us to come with him, so we do.  Back at his house he pulls out a bigger map and I again just try to get him to tell us where we were, but he just doesn't seem to understand and wants to know where we are trying to get to.  I told him once we were in town we could get home from there.  So instead of giving directions, he puts the bikes in his car and takes us downtown.  We had gone quite a ways in the opposite direction of home and it was dark. Already feeling like this was a stupid move, I just wanted him to drop us in town and not where we live, which I finally got him to do, but was far more difficult than it should have been.  I know he was just being nice and I don't know if this is more common here, but I was a nervous wreck getting into car with a stranger having Skylar with me.  Luckily everything turned out fine.

Back in town we found one of the few places still open and got some yummy korean food for dinner.  Again they gave us cordials after dinner... must be just what they do here.