stephan mantler

… and we’re back!

Man, I can’t even begin to describe how great it feels to unplug completely for a while, and not even check your mail for two weeks. The only thing we looked up on the internet was the train schedule between the village we were staying in and Hamburg. Apart from that, no email, no Facebook, no blogs, no RSS feeds, no nothing. Just us, the horses and whatever we damn felt like doing that day.

Like shooting pictures. Lots of them.

Things we did, in part documented by the above slide show:

• ride Colossus, the world’s steepest wooden roller coaster (61º), and Desert Race, which catapults you from zero to 102 km/h in 2.4 seconds (peak acceleration 4.7G), at the Heide-Park
• feed (daily) and ride (occasionally) Inga’s icelandic horses
• visit Hamburg, including the famous Speicherstadt (old commercial district) at day and night
• go on longish road bike rides (often), and marvel at the courtesy of the car drivers (who seemed to prefer the risk of a head-on collision to the option of allowing us less than a full lane when passing)
• explore the Pietzmoor marsh on foot (without drowning)
• see the ship hoist in Scharnebeck that was, at the time of construction, the largest in the world

It was thoroughly refreshing.

It was awesome – although I still don’t really know how I managed to survive the Colossus.

Didn’t expect that staying off the net for such a long time would be so easy. But I didn’t miss it at all. Maybe because we were busy the whole day: feeding the horses, riding the bikes, visiting big cities, and scaring the wits out of ourselves by riding deathly dangerous fairground rides.

The two weeks passed in no time.

Hach, das klingt alles so nach Heimat..
War letzte Woche auch oben, aber mehr als einmal windsurfen ging leider nicht. Hamburch rulez!