2013 sailing season has begun!

These past two weekends I have been coaching the Real Club Náutico de Madrid Optimist Race Team, a team I started coaching last year after miraculously discovering the sailing niche in otherwise dry Madrid. Despite the agreeable weather Spain's reputation promises...the conditions have not been great.

The first training session last Saturday, February 23rd boasted a steady 35 knots, gusting to 50...and cold, oh so cold. Suffice to say not weather Spanish kids aged 10-13 can hack.

After a typically long Spanish lunch the wind died down enough for us to head out. The kids, however, were not keen and didn't last long in the cold. 

The second training session's conditions weren't any better. Thankfully the cold wasn't present but unfortunately neither was the wind...

Thanks to the kids' keen coach, we head out nevertheless, getting in a few tacks every occasional gust.

The next time the team and I meet we are off to Burriana once again, to a training centre on the Mediterranean coast. 

Un cap de setmana de diversió a Catalunya (A weekend of fun in Catalonia)

First weekend of February I had the opportunity to participate in the Liga Catalana, the Ultimate Frisbee league in the autonomous community of Catalonia. Interestingly, Catalonia is much like Quebec in that a good portion of its population is independentist. Its capital is Barcelona and, along with Spanish, its official language is Catalan.

Foto credit to Wikipedia.

Fellow guiri and Dulcinea, Chelsi, often participates in their league and decided to organise a women's team to enter in one of the Liga Catalana's weekend savage tournaments. Beach Ultimate is played 5 against 5, and savage means that there are no substitute players, always the same 5 on the field throughout the whole game.  It was my first savage tournament and was a ton of fun.

Photo credit to the Liga Catalana.





Our team was composed of three Quijotes players (Chelsi, Rosa and I) and two players from Catalonia (Anna and Esti). A rather haphazard team, we were the self-proclaimed Arreplegades, which, as I understand it, means 'the pick ups' in Catalan.






The tournament was on the Sunday and took place on Castelldefels beach, south of Barcelona. We left Madrid the Friday prior and returned Sunday evening. In an attempt to keep things cheap I was lucky enough to stay with an Arreplegades and Quijotes team-mate, Rosa. A native Catalonian, Rosa is from Centelles, a town north of Barcelona. Their annual Carnaval festivities were taking place while I was there (pictured left). Throughout my stay in Centelles I was exposed to a lot of Catalan, either chatting with Rosa's family or friends. I found the language to be a mix of French and Spanish and although I couldn't understand everything I was able to understand the general topic of conversation.




Talking with Rosa's family, who are pro-separatism, gave me a perspective on the province of Catalonia I had never been exposed to before. Being from Quebec, the controversy of separatism is not a foreign concept to me. However, being non-separatist myself, it was really interesting to listen to their thoughts and ideas about the topic.

The name of the tournament was Campi Qui Pugui, which translates to Every Man for Himself.
Never having played together, the Arreplegades went in with no expectations. Despite that and an extremely breezy day (pictured right) we ended up making it to the finals, winning all of our games in pool-play. Once in the finals we unfortunately got killed... don't remember the score, probably because I've blocked it from my memory... An awesome day of savage play nonetheless! After the long day of playing we hopped in the car all sweaty and sandy and made the 6-hour drive back to Madrid.

Photo credit to the Liga Catalana.

The Liga wrote up a summary of the tournament, for anyone who can read Catalan... if you're missing that skill set you can simply check out some photos from the tournament. 

Glückliches Neues Jahr! Bonne Année! Happy New Year!

Just a few days after Christmas, Herm and I made our way to Gatwick Airport for a flight out to Munich.

This was my second time visiting the city and I have to say that I am a fan. Last time I was in Munich was in 2010 with Bronwyn, whom I was living with at the time in Logroño, Spain.



Bronwyn and I visiting Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Royal Castles outside the city in 2010.

We arrived and went straight to our AirBnb apartment. It was perfect accommodation, good location and cheap. Upon our arrival we were welcomed by marzipan on the pillows and various informative brochures on the city. 

We spent our time touring all over the city. Doing the usual touristy stuff, eating some great food and tasting some amazing German beer.





Augustiner Weißbier

Nürnberger Rostbratwurst

Lowengarten, an amazing German restaurant close to our apartment.

For New Years, our friend Max, a native Bavarian, invited us to a New Year's party with friends of his in the city.

The party was a blast. As midnight neared we went outside to a nearby park (where the annual Oktoberfest celebrations take place). The tradition in Munich is to set off fireworks and so Max bought Herm and I a ton of them to set off in the park. It was a bit sketchy as there were groups of people every 10 feet setting off fireworks... despite the apparent danger, it was an awesome sight!














On New Year's Day we picked up our rental car and set out on the autobahn.

Not knowing what specific car we had reserved we were pretty psyched to find out it was a Mini Cooper. 

For those who don't know, the autobahn is the German motorway that has virtually no speed limit... 

We drove west, crossing into France, to Strasbourg. We stayed in an apart-hotel for 3 nights making various day trips. 

On the first day we checked out Strasbourg for the morning and in the afternoon we drove down to the town of Colmar. 

Herm and I in Strasbourg.

Eating tarte flambee, typical of Alsace,
and vin chaud in Colmar.

On our way back to Strasbourg we had a craving for fondue (yes, neither French nor German....) and so we found some in Obernai, France. 

The next day we drove to Freiburg, where Herm's grandparents are from.

Herm eating some Curry Wurst in front of Freiburg's Cathedral. 

Stopping in St. Peter, a small town Herm remembered visiting as a kid. 

We also made the time to drive around the Black Forest and the Canadian in me was quite excited to see some snow. 

Wurstsalat, a typical dish of southern Germany. Unfortunately I would not recommend it... 

We drove back to Munich the day before our flight back to London. On our way we stopped in Karlsruhe to visit our friend Andy who had been living in Madrid not too long ago. He showed us around the city and his university campus.

Since we had an insanely early flight we decided to stay close to the airport. We ended up going all out on a luxury hotel right at the airport. 

The television even greeted me... :-)

Herm and I in the Black Forest

(Photo courtesy of Herm's skills)

Happy (Belated) New Years!

(Throughout our trip we sent a few postcards to our good friend Reca, take a look at a blog post of hers about receiving them! Quite funny...)

A British Christmas in 2012

On December 20th I was off to have a British Christmas! An unusual holiday away from the family I attempted to bring some of the Kennell family traditions to London.

Herm making 3D snowflakes! 

Not actually an annual tradition but something I had made my students do in school...naturally Hermann suffered the same fate. 

Stringing popcorn!

Homemade egg nog!

It being a staple at Christmas and virtually impossible to find in London, we made it ourselves, a first for both of us. 

Trip to Brighton!

Ok so maybe not a Christmas tradition... but a nice weekend trip over the holiday. 

Not the best weather...but of course very British. 

Christmas Tree decorating!

And the final product, presents and all.

Herm made Calzones for Christmas dinner!

Christmas baking!

Mince meat pie

Christmas cookies

Happy (Belated) Holidays!

Last bits of 2012...

After a brief (ok...rather long) hiatus I return with some updates! Much has happened over the past few months including some travel, celebrations, work and a bunch of Ultimate.

Starting where I left off...the week after returning from CFC I was off to London to visit Herm for the first time.

Herm's new home in Finsbury Park! 

(Top floor)

Herm and I at Tower Bridge














I returned to Madrid on the Monday evening and Herm wasn't far behind as he arrived in Madrid only a day later for an upcoming tournament.

Thanks to a long weekend the Quijotes were able to organise a day tournament for local teams, Ultimate Frisbee in Madrid.

Post-game salutation

It's no high-5 in Spain...kisses are customary!

(Photo credits to fellow Dulcinea, Vanessa)

That weekend was Chiripones, a  beach hat tournament in Huelva organised by Fribillanas, the Andalusian team based in Sevilla.

Q+D at Chiripones
(Photo credit to Frisbillanas)











It was a great weekend spent on the beach. The tournament had a tribal theme and so my team was called the Zulus (pictured right).

(Photo cred to Zulu teammate, Alvaro)

I was honoured to be given the team's "talisman" for being a team player (pictured left).

(Photo cred to Ruthie)

Post-tournament, Herm returned to London and the following weekend the Quijotes celebrated the autumn finals of our in-house league.

Unfortunately my team lost both semis and finals...but was a great time and I was proud to win top offensive and defensive player!

(Liga photo credit to Vanessa)

In the evening I was host to the team's Christmas party.

I prepared for the party with some decorations (left), food was contributed by everyone (below),...

...and a good time (not pictured) was had by all! 

My apartment on the other hand took a bit of a hit and the neighbours weren't too happy. 

Max helping me clean and enjoying some leftover jamon...






The week after I finished work for the holiday season!