Since I missed last week's entry this one will be longer than usual. As I am writing this I am sitting in Dusseldorf airport at midnight. My flight from Spain was delayed due to technical difficulties so I didn't land until nearly midnight. Instead of taking a train with at least one layover in the middle of the night I'm electing to sleep here for a few hours and get an early train back to Bonn.
Anyway, last week we had three midterms. One of them was German which was perfectly fine. The only problem was that the others were really loud during the test and I had to leave the room for a few minutes. They probably weren't being much louder than usual but my anxiety always seems to be worse when I'm tired. The next was the signals and systems test which I may or may not have passed. I don't really want to think about it. The physiology retake was just after that and I managed to earn a ninety three which is my highest grade ever on a physiology exam. Then on Friday we had an extra long Enmodes session which Austin attended. Next session we are dividing up into larger groups to focus in on a few key ideas. Basically the project is kicking into high gear.
That night I headed off to Dusseldorf airport. It was snowing quite hard as I walked to the bus stop. I took the last direct train to the airport and arrived after eleven. My flight was at 6:50 in the morning and despite my best efforts I wasn't able to get any sleep that night. I did, however, manage to fall asleep before takeoff on the plane and didn't wake up until about ten minutes before landing. So about two hours sleep total. In Alicante I waited around for a few more hours for the others to turn up then we all got in the taxi to the villa. The others were two Norwegians called Lena and Rolph, an Italian called Ricardo, Liz from England and Julie also from England. Another pair of Englishmen, Andy and Zach were just there for the weekend. Our guides/instructors/hosts were Trevor and Des.
We started climbing on Sunday and it quickly became apparent that my indoor experience does not translate well to sport climbing. I struggled to make it up 4s and 5s for the first couple of days. It turns out that my technique is extremely poor. I rely on big footholds, trail my back leg and pull up on my arms. The problem is climbing gyms typically encourage this sort of behavior because the only way to make a route harder is to space out the holds and force the climber into awkward positions. On a rock wall there are an infinite number of footholds (in theory and of course some are better than others). This means that it should be possible to keep your feet under your body and move them up incrementally without taking huge steps that waste energy. In short climbing up a rock wall should be similar to climbing a ladder. Once I got this idea through my head I started doing a bit better. I had to put more faith in small footholds than I usually like to but my arms had much less work to do as they were basically acting as stabilizers instead of my main source of upwards force. Most of the week I spent top roping but I did manage to lead four routes total. The first was on Tuesday, I think it was a 3; very slabbed with a lot of ledges but it was a fairly long route. The next three were a 3 and two 4s at Alkalali on Friday; these were not slabbed but did have a lot of ledges and easy holds. I think I did fairly well on them considering my history with leading. The closest I came to a real panic attack was on the second Alkalali route where I looked up at the fourth quickdraw and it looked more than two meters away. In truth I think it only took three moves to get there but it looked like a big distance. I finished the week by top-roping a 6a with some pretty neat footwork in it. The best moment was a heel hook practically at shoulder level. The less than ideal hand holds meant I really had to rely on the feet to lift myself up to the next block. Unfortunately no one photographed me doing this which is another reason for me to write it down now. It was a pretty cool move though most readers may not appreciate it as much as I did. Anyway I managed to top rope a few 6as this week and I am very happy with that.
On Saturday we all took a taxi to the airport early in the morning. My flight was at 17:10 so I waited in a coffee shop for most of the day. That flight was pretty empty and I had the entire row to myself. We landed in Mallorca and I was hurrying to find the check in desks as I needed to get back through security in an hour. In the end I shouldn't have worried. The flight boarded more than half an hour late and then, about three minutes after I sat down the pilot announced that we had to disembark and go to a new aircraft due to technical issues. Forty five minutes later I was boarding my third plane of the day. When I finally made it to Dusseldorf it was after midnight. Since I didn't think that trying to get a train back for 3:00am and then hoping for a taxi back to the house was a good idea, I stayed at the airport for a few hours and then got an early train back to Bonn.
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