A week of this and that

We biked to Brunico one day to find out how long was it going to take.

This week has been quite rainy so we have stayed indoors in front of the computer collecting "the exercise bank." We have also finally done something for the sports therapy course! Markus made up a task for us; we had to write up instructions for a fictional person who has problems with her back. We found out that we already had some information related to this task - it had come up while searching for regular exercises with BOSU ball. We have also taken tons of pictures of Aino doing exercises with resistance band. Today we finally got them all and moved on to BOSU ball exercises.

Finding things to do on boring Sundays.

The hotel's owner made a wish that we could some day instruct a little workout for the people in the hotel, so we planned a simple resistance band workout for them. We will probably organize it next Tuesday.

The picture shows our great innovation to get stuck sheets out of trees from balcony. A string attached to a coat hanger which had an ankle weight on it so the wind wouldn't swing it. It took about half an hour to get the sheet back up (we were actually trying to drop it down but strangely it got stuck on the hanger). It had fallen out while being drying out and it was too high to reach from below but too low to reach above. We could have just grapped it if one of our room mates were still here, because it had dropped just at the level of his room's window.

Tomorrow we'll go to Venice.

Biking to Cortina

We got pretty lucky during these two days. For Monday the weather forecast promised cloudy but not rain and for Tuesday it promised rain for the whole day. Well, we decided to stay in Markus' practice for the whole day on Monday, searching and writing down some BOSU ball exercises and it turned out that IT was the rainy day. Today on the other hand, we biked to Cortina, which took us pretty much the whole day, and it only rained when we reached back to Niederdorf!

The bridge

Best cake ever! Only 3,50!!! should bike here every day.

Cortina is 32 kilometers from Niederdorf, South from Toblach. The route was familiar all the way to Dürrensee, which is located halfway. We used the opportunity to take some cakes in the nice restaurant next to Dürrensee and continued forward. It was downhill from Dürrensee to Cortina and the scenery was magnificent on the way. We biked in the middle of the mountains and next to a clear light blue river, cycled over a bridge that crossed the river frighteningly high and pedaled through dark tunnels through the mountains.

Creepy tunnels!

Cortina is beatifully surrounded by mountains

It felt easy to reach Cortina where we ate and checked out some shops, but the way back to Dürrensee was uphill. Fortunately it wasn't a steep uphill, but uphill all the same and Aino felt all ready tired. However, we stopped a lot to take pictures so it didn't feel so bad after all.

So we sure learned that the weather forecasts are pretty much the same as they are back in Finland... only broken promises.

Heights

Looking dangerous...

The climbing part!

Markus had planned another adventure to Pragser Wildsee for us. We biked towards Pragser Wildsee and left our bikes in a parking lot about 3 kilometers away and walked over the mountains to get there. It was very hot day again, but we left earlier than last time so it wasn't that bad.

The walk up was steep and we felt tired quite fast, taking short brakes and having a sip of water every 15 minutes. When we reached a crossing to Herrstein, Aino felt eager to reach another cross yet again; so we started walking up. It didn't look so bad from below, but there were at least two "fake tops" which we had to reach only to realize that the top was even higher still. The last part was fun; we had to literally climb up to the top, there were only a metal chain to help you drag yourself up. We had our first bigger brake up on Herrstein, where there were surprisingly lot of people enjoying the views. Herrstein is over 2500 meters above sea level, the topmost mountain we have yet conquered!

Top of Herrstein

Aino's camera is broken so we have fewer shots of Gleb :(

The route we had taken at the beginning doesn't seem so dangerous anymore

We continued down to Pragser Wildsee slowly. The route was the same we had taken at the very beginning of our training in here - the dangerous one. But the route wasn't dangerous at all now that the snow had melted away. Only to people with fear of heights would it be a problem, and we faced one on the way down. A girl was struggling bad on the very steep and narrow part of the route. Her friend tried to help her get going, but the girl seemed shocked and stuck. Gleb helped her through the frightening part, and she thanked him a lot. We warned that there would be a couple parts like that later on the route, but she insisted us to keep on going, saying she didn't need any help anymore. Fortunately, as we kept on going, we realized that the other parts weren't so bad after all, so we guess she made it down all right.


After reaching Pragser Wildsee and having couple of Colas we walked back to our bikes and rolled down to Niederdorf. We discussed with Markus and it seems we have a lot of Computer work in front of us. We should keep on working with the Active Holiday Packages and take more pictures to be able to finish the guide to kettlebell, stick and resistance band exercises.

Two crosses

Climbing up

We went hiking after long time today; Markus was in a different village giving massages for Finnish sportsmen, so he only left directions for us at his practise in Niederdorf. We felt pretty lazy at the morning so we woke up at 9 and were in Niederdorf at 10:30. The instructions were to go by bike to lake Toblachersee and then to take a hiking trip trhough the nearby mountains. It said in the instructions that it would be nice trip to go and visit two mountain tops; Lungkofel and Sarlkofel.

We stopped on every stream to cool down

We biked pretty fast since the route was familiar and started walking up the mountain. It was a beautiful day, but soon it felt pretty horrible, because of the heat while walking the steep hill up to Sarlkofl. We walked past a hütte while walking up but it wasn't open, so we had to eat some peanuts and energy bars on the way. The walk up to Sarlkofel seemed to take forever, and it felt pretty bad after week of basically doing nothing. When we were on the top of some little mountain near Sarlkofel, we thought we were close, but we had to walk back down a little and again head up.

Aino struggeling behind

After passing a few "scary" herd of cows, we reached the sign that said which way was to Lugnkofel and which to Sarlkofel, we decided that we would not go to any mountain top, since we felt so tired already. We thought that the way down went near Lugnkofel, so we followed the path there. We found out soon that we had taken the wrong turn, and decided to continue up to Lugnkofel. The top was beautiful, frighteningly steep but the view seemed to go on and on. We rested a while and headed back to take the another route down.

Gleb on the top of Lugnkofel

The steep Lugnkofel

We found a shortcut to a different crossing, near Sarlkofel. The sign said it would take 30 minutes to walk up, so Aino felt eager. After a while of persuading, we headed up to Sarlkofel as well. The route was cool, there were parts which had rope to help you climb, and the path was in some parts very narrow with a drop right next to it. After reaching the top, we again admired the view for a while, signed the guest book, and started the way back down to Toblachersee.

Gleb leading the way

The way down was even more horrible than the way up, because our feet were already exhausted. It took nearly two hours to get down and we spoke rarely. When we finally reached Toblachersee, we took two big cokes for the both of us, one liter of water and we ate pizza. The first meal of the day at 6 PM... fortunately it was mostly downhill back to Niederdorf, so we rolled it down quite fast.

The route had lot of ascent and quite steep parts as well, so it would be nice to a sporty person. We on the other hand felt like it was maybe a bit too much after such a while, but the view and feel of achievement after reaching two crosses in one day made it all worth it, once again.

Lot's of sitting and Vitamindrink

There was a mountain bike race in Niederdorf yesterday, Dolomiti superbike. We had been preparing for it the whole week, making brochures and organizing a little Foam Rolling workshop. So the whole week we have been basically sitting in front of the computer and eating excellent food in the hotel. On Friday we kept a little Foam Rolling workshop with three clients,, one of them even bought a Foam Roller afterwards. Saturday, while the race was on we shared free juice to people passing by. Aino got really tired of smiling after an hour of trying to give juice and brochures to people, with happy face she kept repeating "Vitamin drink?" "Vitamin drink?"

There was surprisingly lot of people during the Dolomiti superbike in the little village. The people who had cycled in the race got some beer, bread and massage afterwards. There were two races, one 60 km long and the other 119 km. We could have arranged the advertising of the Foam Roller workshop a little better, but the juice thing worked well.

No pictures :( But we'll head to the Kronplatz tomorrow, on the top of the mountain nearby Bruneck since we're having a free day, and there's this giant swing on top of the mountain which Aino would like to try, so let's hope a good weather!

Photo post!

I'm sitting here in the boring room
It's just another rainy Sunday afternoon
I'm wasting my time
I got nothing to do
I'm hanging around
I'm waiting for you
But nothing ever happens
And I wonder
                                     Fools Garden - Lemon tree

So Gleb went to the gym and I'm bored so here's some photos:

You can see The Three Peaks at the center

Abandoned house

BUNNYRABBIT!!

Gleb enjoying modern art.

Young love

Scary moo-moo

Gleb's nightmare

The kettle we walked around

Anybody home?

Adios motherfckr (name of the drink)

Two routes and some cleaning up

Biking, after long time! Sure it feels great after so many days of sitting in front of the computer screen. We left immediately after learning what route to check. We biked to Innichen, which took us about 40 minutes and walked to Haunold Hütte, which is on the side of the nearest mountain to Innichen. The walk up there didn't take so long, but we had a good look at the mountains on the route. Many people were taking a ski lift up to the mountain and then walked down. We walked down at the slope back to Innichen and decided to check another route.

Gleb and the giant Dolomites

The other route was all way uphill to Drei Schuster Hütte, the same path would have taken us to Drei Zinner, but it would have been too long a trip for today. We cycled all the way; even Aino did it, without walking her bike at all! It was nice after one hour of biking to get to the Hütte, but it was again even better leaving the Hütte and cycling the downhill without making any effort. On the way down though, there was a traffic light, underneath it was a sign that said it was valid also for bikers. The light was red so we wated for 10 minutes, but then got frustrated and biked it anyway. We didn't meet any cars whatsoever on the route. 

We are waiting...

Only downhill to go!

We were back at the practice at 14:30, just for time to clean up! We cleaned the waiting room while Markus took care of the massage room. We also decided that it was time to set up some targets for the rest of the training, since we have already been here a month. So far we feel that we have gained some valuable information about entrepreneurship and about developing it. Checking the hiking and biking trips is the fun part, while writing all the information down is the important part of it. By reading the feedback from the Finnish group we have understood to take account of things we perhaps would not have realized ourselves. We feel that we have been doing an important job for Markus and he has given us a great deal of responsibility. Sure we have learned a lot by so far, not only about development of the entrepreneur, but also about ourselves.

Four days on the computer...

We took the weekend easy, relaxed and spent time watching Game of Thrones and that's pretty much it. On Monday we sat on the computer and figured out some foam roller exercises. We searched the Internet for them and wrote down some theory about using the foam roller in Finnish and English.

Tuesday we had a little hike, about an hour and half long, walking up a steep path that led to Pragser Wildsee. We checked if there was any snow left on the hill by walking it up somewhat. When we could see the top we figured there wasn't any snow left, and walked back down. Later we found out that Markus had taken the same trip and there actually was snow left, on the very top. He had to make five a bit dangerous snow crosses, but apparently it wasn't so big a deal.

Wednesday we stayed at home, working on the computer seven hours straight... at least Aino worked. Gleb helped her at first but afterwards he had the time to go to gym and make some dinner while Aino wrote down five pages of exercises to do with resistance band, in Finnish and then translated them into English. Day well spent. Fortunately it was a rainy day.

Today we worked at Markus' practice and Gleb wrote down foam roller exercises and translated them to English. He also wrote a sale package list for Markus for the Dolomiti Superbike, a mountain bike race which will take place the 12th of this month. Gleb did all this, while Aino did nothing. Afterwards though, Aino modelled for Markus' foam roller pictures for the instructions to customers.

After all that hiking and biking, being on a computer all day long, really feels boring and tiring. Gleb have learned some English words for muscles and some marketing skills. We also checked out the contents for sports therapy course, so we know if we were doing it all right.