The Earth has music for those who listen

Happy Valentine's Day to all you faithful, sporadic, first-time, band-wagon, and whatever else other readers of Grenoble WMD! You're all in for a really nice treat today as it's that time of the year again- no, sorry not a photo bomb post- no, it's that time of the year again for a traditional blog-style update on our lives. Please try and remember to keep breathing...

Today is St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 2015, A.D. Exactly one year ago to the day I found myself in the Queen's hometown of London, England winding down the end of a work visit to the capital of the Empire, watching Canada kick some behind in Olympic hockey, drinking Guinness pub-style, and dining Italian-style with old friends. In the year that has passed nothing exceptionally substantial has changed in our lives. We live in the same city in the same apartment, and frequent the same jobs (contrast this with comparing 2/14 in 2013 and 2014: jobs had changed, apartment had changed, city had changed, heck, even the country was different).

That being said, there are always things you can find if you are willing to spend enough time thinking about it. First, this time last year there was no running for me whatsoever as I was still, at that period of my life, living every day with at-the-time-recently-enlarged holes through my abdominal-area muscles! Cool! Contrast that with this weekend and, though I'm fighting a debilitating case of rhinopharyngitis (common cold, don't worry), we will be (as long as the rhino doesn't really get the better of me) participating in our first running race of the year tomorrow at the Winterlaufserie 20km in the Olympic Park here in Munich. We're not expecting any breakthrough results as the running hasn't been a top priority around here lately (we haven't even come close to running that particular distance), but as long as I can make it out of bed, I think it should be fun.

Though running hasn't been the top priority lately, we have been doing some of it. Our ascendance into the vaunted halls of the München Road Runners Club has been a great success so far. Most Saturdays we've been swimming with the club at a private Hochschule pool that we rent out for 90 minutes and on Sundays we do two hours of indoor cycling near the Donnersbergerbrücke area. We're missing both events this weekend for the first time since we started though because of the race tomorrow and partly because of my continuing battle with the Rhino (as I call it). Tuesday nights we do a 1 hour endurance run with the club through the Olympic Park. It's preceded by the coach running down (metaphorically speaking) some recent club news and announcing results and upcoming races. This is the part of the night where I stare off into the night wondering what the heck he might be yakking away about.

The weather this winter has been cold. Uber cold, even. I've mentioned this before but it deserves mentioning again: it never dropped below zero last winter and we didn't see a flake of snow. This year there has been snow on the ground since early January and it has rarely gone above zero. However, we may finally be emerging from the woods, as it were. The high for yesterday was 10 degrees (though we didn't quite make it there) and today the sun has been shining on the ambient temperature's way up to a theoretic maximum of 9. River bank BBQs and picnics are just around the corner.

What else is around the corner? A whole lot -- finally. After a chilly winter of hibernation and staying around Munich, we will venture out and greet life and the glorious sunshine head-on! First, we will make weekend trips in the next several months to London to visit Brittany (OK, maybe there won't be so much sunshine here, but you never know); to Hannover to visit Sophie; to Åsa/Gothenburg to visit Thony and family; to Nice for Thony's Ironman; and to Timișoara in Western Romania (home of the start of the 1989 Romanian Revolution) for a friend's wedding. There is also our big visit to Crete coming up at Easter as I mentioned before. We'll be staying in the south-somewhat-west area in the mountains and close to the beach to be able to easily head down to the Mermaid Café (where the night is a starry dome) and hear them playing that scratchy rock n' roll beneath the Matala Moon. And then maybe we'll go to Amsterdam, or maybe we'll go to Rome. Rent us a grand piano and put some flowers around our room... (note the word 'maybe' before that last part).

Long-time blog readers will also be excited (or horrified) to learn that I've started writing a novel (so that I could join the club, you know). Look for it wherever books are sold (pretty much just Amazon these days, I think) in perhaps 1 to 2 years time...

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Special Grenoble WMD Valentine's Edition Contest: please send in a topic that you would like to be addressed in an upcoming post. Tell us why you want it covered and the most popular submission decided by the editorial team will win! Please leave your input in the comments below.