Gregory Kemp

Sledding is Badass

Last week we took our annual ski trip to the town of Maria Alm, Austria in the central Alps. Maria Alm is about an hour south of Salzburg in an area known as the Hochkoenig.  Classic scene: lots of friends, overcrowded apartment, slopes all day, too much food and drink at night.  Repeat.  The Attaché was a late arrival this year.  She had an important meeting in Vienna and joined us mid-week.  In the past, she has given me a lot of abuse for poor trip planning.  Most of her complaints are valid: like the time I forgot the map or I didn’t confirm the hotel reservation.  But in the thirty plus trip we’ve taken in the last three years not once did we end up in the wrong county.  That’s what the Attaché did when came to join us.  I gave her a printed train itinerary and explained when she was supposed to switch trains and what town I’d pick her up in.  Instead of arriving in Birschofshofen, Austria she ended up in Munich, Germany.  That’s like heading for Lake Placid and ending up in New York City.  Her three hour, sixty dollar trip ended up at eight hours and about 150 bucks.  Shameful.  Shameful indeed.    

Fortunately she arrived with enough time to join us for the most kick ass winter event known to man.  I’m talking about sledding.  Old style sledding.  Sitting on a small wooden sled and sliding down a hill.  Yes, I’m serious.  Yes, I’m talking about that thing five year olds do in the backyard when it snows.  But I’m talking about doing it on the 9 mile Wildkogel Rodelbahn track in the Alps.  It’s insane.  So insane, in fact, that I made a short video highlighting the trip.  Let me say I only had the camera on for a fraction of the time and some of the best stuff was missed.

I’m surprised we even attempted sledding.  All of us are skiers and snowboarders and the conditions were pretty good in Maria Alm, but after a day or two we learned about Wildkogel and the fact it has the longest sled run in the world.  We all thought it would be a nice feather in our travel cap.  Until last week my sledding experience had been on a plastic trashcan down on a small hill in Maryland or pulled behind the Attaché’s old Tempo (which turned out to be a bad idea).  Well, Wildkogel did not disappoint.  On one side was the face of the mountain.  On the other sheer cliffs.  It was steep.  There were hairpin turns.  You steer and brake by digging your heels in the snow and there was a pub mid-way down.  As far winter sports go, I always considered skiing and snowboarding just about perfect.  I realize now those sports are for neutered cowards.  Sledding is where it’s at.  

Paul 502

If it seems like we do a lot of half-marathons we do.  At the start of the year, the Attaché had completed half-marathons in seven different countries:  Malta, Iceland, Holland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and the US.  I’ve only done half-marathons in six countries and my list is different than hers, but I won’t go into that now because this story is about the Attaché’s running list.  This story is about her goal to reach ten by the end of the year. 

Let me back up a few weeks.  It’s February 1st and she needs three half-marathons to reach her goal and she wants to do them this year.  I booked two quickly.  She hasn’t done a half in Austria so I booked Vienna’s Anker half-marathon for April.  Then I stumbled into a great deal on flights to Latvia so I booked Riga’s half for May.  That left one race for the entire year.  Out of nowhere our friends Paul and Mimi told us they were doing the Barcelona half on Valentine’s Day.  I began the airfare search, wary that it would be too late for a good fare.  I got lucky.  Vueling Airlines: 110 Euros per person. 

I always book the plane ticket before the hotel and the race registration because my experience has shown that airfares are not final until the transaction is complete.  Too often I check ticket prices and see them change when I go to book.  You know what I mean, the dreaded message: “fare unavailable”.  A few times I have found the actual bookable fare has been three for four times more than original search result.  I don’t risk it anymore.  I get the plane tickets first.  The other stuff works itself out. 

Well, most of the time.   In this case, Vueling Air was for real at 110 euros so I booked the flight and a 1 star hotel for 70 euros.  Then I tried to register for the race and found race registration was closed: maximum number of entrants reached.  What does this mean?  Can you enter a race without being registered?  It was worth a try. 

The plan was simple.  It involved a device known in the race fraud industry as a photo copier and the following equation:

(Real Race Number + Photo Copier) X 2 copies = Greg and the Attaché in the race.

Enter our travel buddy Paul.  Paul was registered for the race because he knows how to plan things.  The night before the run we followed Paul to number pickup and snagged his number.  Normally you get a plain old race number like 2410, 3307, or 894 (other examples available on request).  My theory was that no one could possibly recognize two (or three) “2410” racers on the course of thousands.  But for the Barcelona half-marathon we found the numbers were not just generic old numbers but the person’s name followed by the number.

In our case: Paul 502. 

 

That made it interesting.  Can we pull off running with three identical race numbers, all with Paul 502?  Bigger yet, can the Attaché pull it off as a female running with the name Paul?  In our favor was the mass of five thousand other racers.  Against us was the fact that there are no color copiers in the whole of Spain.  It didn’t stop us.  We used the hotel photo copier, burned a couple of crappy black and white photos of Paul’s number, and off we went.  To tell you the truth I was hoping a race official would see Paul and I running together with the same number and try to disqualify me (or him) just for the blog value of it.  Too bad.  No one seemed to care, not even when we all posed at the start with the same number.

We had some bad weather when we arrived.  We had to find our puny little hotel while it was sleeting.  Race day the weather was only a little bit better.  The Attaché finished the race notching her eighth country.  No, she didn't set a personal best time; in fact, she was fourth from the back.  They sweep the course with a couple of chase vehicles to be sure no one has died and the ambulance kept trying to pick up the Attaché and tell her to quit.  She wouldn't let them.  That’s my girl.  

The trip to Barcelona was short and sweet.  It was Valentine’s Day weekend, and Carnival, so Barcelona was lively.  We ate tapas and paella, and visited a small local bar where an old lady in a bath robe serenaded me.  You know, normal Spain stuff.  In all a good trip.

 

Late Nights and Katarina Witt

I stayed up past midnight Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this weekend.  The last time I did that was never.  Friday night I geeked it out playing video games while the Attaché watched Burn Notice and White Collar on her laptop.  She gives both of these shows four stars.  For the record, she gives Alias and Dirty Jobs the full five.  I don’t know what a bad show might be to her but it’s probably The Office because whenever I watch that she leaves the room. 

As for Saturday, I wanted to get my money out of the tuxedo I bought I mean I wanted to see my pretty wife in a nice dress so we went to the Hofburg for our second ball of the year.  Prior to the ball, we hosted a happy hour at our apartment.   I prepared strudel and brownies for twenty, then we all walked to the ball as a rowdy but well-dressed group.  It was a fun night.  The Attaché danced stylishly to 80s music.  I got a few blisters trying to keep up.  We got home at 2am and I had a headache until noon. 

Naturally the final day was the big challenge of the late night feat.  Fortunately I had a clear goal on Sunday: the Superbowl.  The Superbowl is the only NFL game we get here on Austrian TV and I was fired up to watch Peyton Manning choke.  I stole a nap at 7ish and was feeling good at the 11:30 pm pre-game show, but the pre-game show in Austria amounts to a couple of ex-NFL Europe players sitting in a cheap studio explaining Superbowl trivia like how much commercials cost, the toilet flushing phenomenon, and a full five minute piece on the importance of guacamole to Americans, all in German.  Frankly, I think the guacamole thing was inaccurate.  Just after midnight (the three-night feat complete) but still before the 12:28 am kickoff, I was about to give up and head to bed but then Katarina Witt came on and predicted the Saints would win the Superbowl in a penalty kick shootout.  (She laughed for a solid two minutes at her joke.)  I googled Katarina Witt because quite honestly I had forgotten her reason for fame and stumbled into some rather interesting photos of her.  Hmm.  I won’t post any of those pictures but you should be able to type “Katarina Witt” in any search engine and claim ignorance.  (If you type “Katarina Witt naked” then you can’t claim ignorance.)  Ms. Witt got me to the 12:28 am kickoff and then I was doomed.  Watching the game on Austrian TV is relative torture.  You get the generic raw feed from the US meaning the Austrian commentators are trying to figure out what’s going out just as you are, but they seem to be a step behind.  During the breaks in play they don’t cut to commercials typically, instead the camera just holds on a wide view of the stadium.  When the programming finally did break away for an ad I got to see previews for an upcoming German language version of CSI six times.  I gave up at half-time.  The triple-nighter had been achieved, but sadly I missed Manning’s collapse. 

 

  

On our way to the ball...

 

The Ladies on the Dance Floor

 

I've posted photos from the ball here.  Also, a friend posted better pictures here.  There might be overlaps.

Mid-Winter in Vienna

What’s been going on recently?  I went skiing for the first time of the season last week.  A friend and I went to Stuhleck.  Stuhleck is the second closest resort to Vienna, a one hour drive when you don’t miss the turn.  The weather was good for skiing, sunny and around 28 degrees, and because it was midweek there were no lines.  Snow conditions were hard packed with a spot or two of ice.  Could have been better conditions, but I’m not complaining about being able to go skiing while the Attaché is at work. 

Kent and I on the lift at Stuhleck.

Me snowboarding.

 

It’s cold here.  Doesn’t compare to east coast cold but it’s the coldest we’ve seen in Vienna in three years.  Often the highs are around 35 degrees.   We tend to reacquaint ourselves with the inside of a movie theaters when it gets cold.   There’s an original language cinema about ten minutes walk and we saw two films recently: Avatar, which we both really enjoyed (photo there is Pete and I with our 3D glasses at Avatar), and something called Gamer, which qualifies for my elite list of the ten suckiest movies in recent memory  (a few others: Godzilla and The Master of Disguise, although Master of Disguise did have one great scene). 

Gamer looked like a fun movie, reminiscent of Schwarzenegger’s Running Man from the late 80s.  It’s the future and death row inmates can choose to be controlled like a video game character in a real-world first person shooter game with the hope that if their player does well they can be free.  Not too fantastic a plot line but what hooked me was there appeared to be a neat twist where the controlled convict was fully aware of a system lag but had no ability to react quicker than his gamer because he was truly a puppet.  In the trailer, he begs his gamer to “Let me loose!”  Never made it that far.  The Attaché was ready to go at the 12 minute mark and we only stuck around long enough to finish our popcorn.    During that time there were about five breast shots but sadly that wasn’t enough to convince the Attaché to stay. 

I guess we’ve been out and about more than normal because last Friday we went to our third Viennese Ball.  The Blumen Ball (Flower Ball) is in the Rathaus, the seat of Vienna’s city government and probably the most important public building in Austria.   These balls go on all night but us old-timers were home just after midnight.  Got to say, the flowers were nice but the Attaché put them to shame.  Here are a few pictures.

Rathaus

Festivities Hall

The Attache and I in front of a flower arrangement.

(I'm not looking at the flowers either.)

 

Can't remember which 80s song they had playing but it didn't matter, my moves are all the same.

Lastly we got to see our second NFL game of the year.  Our friends Crocket and Mimi hosted a party and broadcast a streamed version of Minnesota vs. Dallas in HD.  Although I’m not a Brett Favre fan (he annoys me almost as much as Peyton Manning,) I found myself rooting for him in the game.  I’ll confess.  I’ve got this twisted fantasy of a Indy vs. Minnesota Super Bowl, (a Favre/Manning geezer showdown) and both getting knocked out in the first quarter.  The party was fun and I learned a few things while I was there.  I  now know what Cincinnati Chili is and my double buckle Armando Silva shoes are on the forefront of shoe fashion.  I started wearing the single buckle back in the fall of 1996 and decided to lead the fashion craze again with the two buckle.  I’ll be going three buckle in Spring of 2022.  By the way, I call these shoes my Lisbons.  Can you guess why?

My Lisbons

South Africa Part II

After visiting Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula we rented a camper and drove east along the "Garden Route".  The Garden Route strings together a bunch of coastal villages and towns where many South Africans take summer vacations.  Along the way, we visited 2 private game parks (Buffelsdrift and Plettenberg) and did guided safaris there.  We also did self-drive tours through two National Parks: Bontibok and Addo Elephant Park. 

In the end we saw plenty plenty of wild animals: elephants, lions, rhinos, buffalo, warthogs, jackals, five different types of antelope, hippos, fifty different bird types, ostrich, penguins, great white sharks, and more.  The only animal I wanted to see but did not were hyenas.  I took 2200 photos, mostly of animals.  I narrowed them down to about 200.  The first portion of our trip I post last week and includes Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula. 

The rest of my photos are divided between our shark-diving trip and our camper trip. 

I hope you enjoy them.

Greg

South Africa Part I

Happy New Year everyone! 

Winter is here in Vienna.  It's been lingering around 32 deg for a week and we had our first real snow since we moved here 3 years ago.  We got a about three or four inches  on Wed. and another inch today.  An hour away in the mountains they get loads of snow, but Vienna's weather is relatively mild.  It's great to see snow outside my window. 

This weather here is a big change from what we saw in South Africa over the holidays.  It was typically 60 degrees at night in South Africa and 80 during the day.  I got sunburned and the Attache has tan lines.  It rained only once in two weeks there.  It was fun spending our holiday abroad.  We started in Cape Town (close to the southern tip of Africa) and drove east along the southern coast (known as the Garden Route). Excluding the first few days in which we stayed in a hotel in Cape Town, we traveled in a Maui Spirit 4 camper. We’ve done the camper thing before: three weeks in Australia for our honeymoon and then a month in New Zealand in 2002. We find it the ideal way to see the countryside. Personally, I hate checking into and out of hotels. With a camper we never have to unpack. We always have food, cold beer and a toilet. We also spend more time outside enjoying nature instead of in cities and towns. South Africa is a wonderful place to travel. I rank it fifth on my list of foreign destinations behind Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and the Bahamas. South Africa is a beautiful country with friendly people. It’s an exotic place but very comfortable because it’s a fully westernized, English speaking, safe and has good shops and restaurants. Although it’s 11 hours flight from Europe, it’s not bad because the time difference is only +1 hour so no jet lag. I’m posting pictures of our trip in two batches. The first batch is Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula. Next week I’ll post pictures from the second half of our trip which includes our shark diving pictures and safari pictures.

Cape Town

Arrived in South Africa (Cape Town to be precise), my third trip to the African continent. South Africa is nothing like my previous African trips: Morocco (filthy) or Egypt (filthier). Thus far SA is every bit as nice as the best cities in the world. It's squeaky clean and brand spankin' new. I'm only speaking about Cape Town and the surrounding area, as that is all we've seen thus far, but this place is truly one of the nicest, most comfortable travel destinations on earth. It has all the amenities of western living yet it is african exotic. Although there are six major languages English is spoken by everyone. Cape Town is famous for two things. The sensational waterfront (think San Fran) and table mountain (a truncated version of Everest on the south side of town). Both of these features are world class. Nearby beaches are wide, white, and packed with big waves. There is one side of this place that leaves a mark. It's the townships. Between the high rise office buildings and ritzy apartments are slums one step above cardboard box homes for thousands. If there is electricity in these townships I'd be shocked. These townships are an ugly remnant of the country's sad past and something that looks slow to change (it's now 15 years post apartheid). In my normal call-it-how-I-see-it-in-spite-of-being-fully-informed style I'm saying these townships are fucked up. So for the stunning views of table mountain, fresh fish at the restaurants, native arts and crafts, and glamour of the waterfront I say this is a place you should visit. And because of the townships I say this is a place you must visit. -sent by email so excuse any typos

Happy Holidays

Dear Everybody,

Blog posts might be limited during the upcoming weeks because we'll be in South Africa over the holidays.  I'll try to post a few short updates from the road as we traverse the country in a camper.  Planned craziness includes self-guided hikes in the jungle and shark-diving. 

From all the staff here at gregorykemp.com, we wish you all a safe and happy holiday season.  

Greg

Krampus Day Festival

Austria has a rather cool Christmas tradition.  Santa has a helper in Austria.  He’s a horned, devil-figure called Krampus.  On Christmas Eve (Dec. 5^th here, not Dec. 24^th) evil Krampus accompanies Santa during delivery of gifts to the children.  Just like in the US, kids who have been good for the year get nice presents.   The bad kids have to deal with Krampus.  Sometimes Krampus takes back the gifts Santa left or he might beat the kids with a birch switch.  Krampus has even been known to carry bad children away.   

A friend told me about the practical application of Krampus.  On the gentler side of the Krampus tradition, kids who go to visit Santa (like the mall Santa) must contend with Krampus who sits at Santa’s side.  As the kids tell Santa what they want, Krampus tries to grab them.  That’s the lighter side of things.  At the other extreme, some families get together in a house with all the neighborhood kids on Christmas Eve and one of the parents asks the kids if they’ve been good.  Meanwhile, a different parent or neighbor is dressed up as Krampus and bangs on the front door.  The parents tell the children, oh no, one of you has been bad and Krampus is going to take you away.  The kids hide in the house as Krampus comes in and stomps through the place looking for the bad little kids.  Eventually Krampus goes away and the kids are all relieved.  The parents then clean the shit out of the kids underwear. 

Last week was the Krampus Festival in Austria.  People dress up like Krampus and do what Krampus’ do: they scare kids (and me) to death.  They cordon off an area of the street, crank up some sinister music, light a big bonfire, and twenty Krampus’ figures go looking for trouble.  It looked part pagan medieval, part branch davidian.  It was insane and awesome. Except for my pirate costume of 2003, these Krampus costumes were the best costumes I’ve ever seen.  Just when I was going to run away crying, the Krampus’ unmasked and made friends with all the kids.  

I think Krampus is a great tradition.  It’s a delightful improvement on the pansy-ass US Christmas, and I suggest all parents incorporate a bit of Krampus in their holiday.  I posted some pictures from our trip to the festival here if you want to see more. 

Me and Those Aid Workers in Africa

When I was a kid my hometown organized a mock plane crash to train local emergency responders in handling a crisis.  The event organizer recruited drama students from the local high schools to be victims with horrific injuries and to role play panicked bystanders.  I was not a drama student and too young for high school so I was left out of the big event.  My brother was family drama-boy and landed a role as “injured passenger”. 

Devastating plane crash.  Explosions.  Panic on the tarmac.  I was terribly jealous.  I don’t remember Drew teasing me that I was too young to go--he generally didn’t do stuff like that--but it makes a better story if he was an asshole to me so imagine big brother strutting off to the airport with all of his dramatic friends while poor little Greggie had to stay home.  If it helps to make the story better, make him a smoker too.

The day of the plane crash surely sucked for me.  All Saturday sitting at home.  I would have come down with a solid case of little-brother-gets-shit-deal-again attitude.  My parents would have been angry that I was a moaning little brat.  It wasn’t until dinner that Drew got home and we heard about his big day.  My guess is we would have been eating beef.  We ate a lot of beef.  It came from my grandparents’ farm: a year’s supply of meat packed into the freezer in the garage.  I’d say we ate peas that night, potatoes, perhaps a butter roll.  Drew would have been sitting to my right as he told the story.  I was dying to hear what happened because he looked utterly miserable.

That day was cold in Florida and it rained nonstop.  Apparently, after Drew got dragged from the plane the first responders left him in a nearby field and forgot about him.  He shivered in a wet field for four hours.  Not once did he get up and go tell the paramedics they forgot about him.  He stayed in his role the full duration, sort of like a method actor.  A method actor with no audience except a cold rain and a bleak sky.  There’s something to be admired in his commitment.  I didn’t admire him.  I was only thinking of myself.  For once being little brother turned out okay.  Bad luck, drama-boy.

Last year there was a similar drill here in Austria.  The Red Cross simulated a bombing and the Attaché was quick to sign up.  I warned her about Drew’s experience.  She pointed out that these events are not designed for the fun of the participants but to support important institutions such as the police, fire department and paramedics.  I was like, whatever.  So off she went.  I stayed home.  Turns out I blew it.  There were genuine explosions and smoke.  The Attaché  got to ride in an ambulance and was interviewed on local Austrian TV.  She had a blast and got credit for being a positive member of society.  I told myself I wouldn’t let the chance to serve my community pass me by again.

My chance to be good citizen finally arrived last week.  Our friend Astrid teaches at the Red Cross here in Vienna.  She asked if the Attaché and I would play victims for some paramedic training.  I drew on all my past experiences in making my decision.  My biggest concern was that I didn’t want to spend the day on a wet field in Florida.  Astrid assured me that would not happen and described the Red Cross training facility.  She said it is like a Hollywood set, all indoors.  There are several different sets.  A car crash set.  An auto garage.  A construction site. A hospital room.  The Attaché and I were slated to run our scenario in a cozy little apartment.  Sign me up, I say.  I am all for serving the community.

Astrid’s scenario was genius.  Supposedly, I was opening a parcel with a rusty potato peeler and put a 1 inch gash right through my wrist, severing the vein.  I was equipped with a small pump full of flake blood that I could squirt out when the mood fit.  The Attaché played a supporting role to Greg the Star.  She was “in the kitchen cooking when she heard me scream.”  The Attaché in the kitchen.  Hmph.  Clearly a made up scenario.  Naturally she had a lot of technical questions about what she was supposed to do there.  I convinced her she doesn’t really need to know how to cook, just play the part of housewife.  It was fun role reversal.  So she’s in the kitchen, hears me scream, and spills burning oil on her arm.  What made the gig even better was we were encouraged to speak English to our German speaking paramedics.  The confusion was wonderful.  Paramedics walk in.  I’m spraying blood all over the place.  The Attaché is screaming for help in English.  I’m asking if Austrian doctors are as good as American doctors and if possible, can they get me an American doctor.  All the while the Attaché is getting in the way and trying to give me Schnapps to ease my pain.  It was not hard for her to be in the way, seeing as we were all crammed into the bathroom section of the apartment.  Imagine four adults in a bathroom.  Two are paramedics with huge all-weather suits, big medical kits.  I’m spurting blood with flair.  Part way into the scenario I was supposed to feel faint from the half-gallon of blood I had discharged.  The paramedics would ask me to sit down and I’d say no thanks I prefer to stand.  They insist.   I resist.  Being a pain in the butt is good fun.  The Attaché says it is my forte.   I think that means I am a really good actor.   To top it off I get credit for doing international volunteer work for the Red Cross.  Did you hear me?  International Red Cross.  I’m in the company of those guys that go to Africa and save starving children.  Are you?  No?  Well get on it.