Friday, December 28, 2007

Thermal Baths and Beer

Two of Germany's popular attractions. I was lucky enough to enjoy both in one evening. Last night Angi's brother, Sven took us to the Bad Liebenzeller Thermalbad for three hours of soaking. Not swimming, or diving, or playing around in the water....all forbidden in a thermalbad. Like most German activities, there is a very specific process that must be orderly completed. We started with a 32 degree C pool with a circuit of different massage jets. The pool tunneled outside where it was 2 degree C. The pool was steaming and our heads were freezing as we got our massages. Station one was a foot massage, two - lower leg, and so on up to the neck. Each station was about a minute. There was actually a light on the wall that flashed green to signal when to move on the next jet. After a massage and a good soak we moved on to the Steam Room. Here we stood for 15 minutes in complete silence (talking is Verboten) and breathed scented steam into our lungs. After 15 minutes, straight to a really cold shower (it suppose to be good for you, BRRR!) Then we jumped in the 30 degree pool for a quick session of water aerobics. After water aerobics comes a 10 min soak in the 34 degree pool and then start all over again. We went through the process twice but some people spend the whole day there soaking, massaging and steaming. They take a break to relax on a lawn chair and have a bite to eat. Then back to soaking, massaging and steaming.


After the Thermalbad Sven treated us to an old fashion German Brewery. We drank some good german microbrew and ate spaetzle, putenschnitzel and salat. Perfect recovery food for a hard day at the Thermalbad.

Training has not been going so good. It snowed the other day and since then I've been restricted to running and riding on the stationary trainer. I've been getting fairly good at running again since the trainer is in the basement and not much fun to ride.


Christmas was good. Angi and I spent the days with Angi's family eating, playing cards and going for walks. It was a relaxing holiday. The way it should be.


I should probably mention that Angi is now fully educated. She graduated from NAU earlier this month. Here is a pic of her outside the dome on the NAU campus.



Congrats Angi!


2 comments:

loftygoat said...

way to position the lumberjack's ax right over Angi's head...
Congrats Angi!

Unknown said...

Ha! I was going to leave a similar comment to Loftygoat's. Sure that's not JR disguised as a lumberjack?

Congrats Angi!!!