Our garden, apples and rainbow

Sicily

Finally we found time and willingness to go through the pictures made in Sicily in October. This is perhaps a problem of digital age, that one can make more pictures than necessary, but later these pictures need to be sorted out. But on the positive side, it is good to go through the memories once the first impressions have faded. So here is link to 82 pictures from Sicily.
SmugMug

Here is one picture to start with:

Palermo fishing

On a morning walk in Palermo I noticed such a nice scene on the coast in Palermo center. Eva was already busy with her job related conference so I could have fun. I promise to post soon a set of Sicily pictues, some of which are quite nice.

More pictures from Val Thorens

Val Thorens was wonderful place. I must say that by the end of the second day I could already feel comfortable on snowboard and I hurt myself only couple of times after that time. It does not mean that I stopped falling, but I fell much less and somehow naturally new how to fall in soft way. So third day I felt already OK to bring with me my relatively expensive and heavy photo gear. Carrying the load was worth it, or at least I think so.



One track was from the left upper corner of this picture to the lower right corner, some 900 meters of descent.

More pictures in Smugmug.

Winter Xdream and marathon

A week ago I participated on a wonderful event called Winter Xdream. This specific Xdream is different from regular Xdream which consists of various tasks on feet, bicycle and canoe. Winter Xdream was at least this time basically a Rogain (specific long orienteering type) event with 7 hours time limit and during this time a team of 3 had to find 20 control points on lakes in Southern part of Estonia. Wonderful idea.

Then reality kicked in. It was -20 degrees to start with (got warmer during day) and lakes were not properly frozen. Even my specifically bought GoreTex (waterproof) shoes did not help but got very wet so by midway I started to have problems with my large toe. This problem got solution when I changed socks (thanks to my team-mate). The other problem was with my left knee, which started properly aching (it was strange already before the event), so I could not run much any longer. But on positive side, our team found all points and we did pretty good. Total 41 km. Here is map with track of winners. We chose to use more roads, so we covered longer distance but avoided thick snow. Here is the team:

More pictures:
http://funding.ee/xdream/imagepages/dsc_0496.html
http://funding.ee/xdream/imagepages/dsc_0497.html
http://funding.ee/xdream/imagepages/dsc_0498.html
http://funding.ee/xdream/imagepages/dsc_0500.html

Anyway, this weekend me and Eva participated in Tartu Marathon - 63 km in classic style in very nice Otepää region. We both made it, thought time could be better (my time was 6 hours and 25 minutes). Improving time is task for next time. I already know that I need to have my knee fixed, I need new skis for classic style and I need to properly apply grip to the skis, because first 22 km without any grip was good for training my hands but very inefficient use of energy. Profession ski service was useless this time somehow, perhaps because of changing weather conditions.

Now I am happy and can forget sports for a while to cure my knee.

Most skillful snowboarder

Val Thorens is a wonderful place high in the Alps. Very enjoyable and I would suggest this experience to anyone.

Brown Christmas

This winter has not been most wonderful though on the positive side, there has been relatively little of snow-salt-sand mix on the streets. Now there is snow and I'm trying to get on the fast track to get ready for Tartu Marathon, a 60 km skiing race. It will be tough.

Balloons

Most unexpected wedding gift that me and Eva got was a trip on a hot air balloon. This trip was a nice experience. Most thrilling moments were those when we bumped into fur tree to pick some cones and chestnut tree to pick some chestnuts. Otherwise the trip was rather calm and we nicely flow right above treetops, some meters from river and more than 1000 meters above ground. Speed record high above was more than 40 km/h. Rather nice speed for a balloon. This trip lasted for about an hour and it was rather dark - because the couple that had to fly with the other balloon that you can see on pictures was late for an hour. Close to sunset this hour makes VERY significant difference.

So would I suggest ballooning to you? I'd think that taking longer trip would be rather amazing experience. Otherwise there are million other amazing things that can be done, including parachuting. Or hiking. But obviously location, time and weather can make all difference and we did not have too much luck here.

More pictures: http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/2326040

Rooftop

From Kihelkonna church in Saaremaa such view could be seen on a gloomy December Saturday.

Uzbekistan

You are welcome to see some Uzbekistan pictures made during honeymoon trip to this amazing country that got heavily bashed by Borat.