Back in 2006 Sue spent 6 months studying abroad in Newcastle, Australia. While there she made friends with Christian Steinberg, an Austrian, who’s she managed to keep in touch with all these years (thanks facebook!) We took Christian and his fiancé Skye (an Australian) up on their generous offer and spent two nights in the quite little town of Feldkirchen. It was certainly nice to get away from the regular tourist beat and spend some time with a local and old friends.
Christian and Skye’s backyard where we had a nice barbecue
It just so happened there was an Iron Man triathlon going on in nearby Klagenfurt and we spent the day watching parts of the insanely long race comprised of a 2.4 miles swim, 112 mile bike and a 26.2 mile run.
During the middle of the running portion one of the inflatable banners sprung a leak and collapsed onto the course, the race volunteers had to struggle to make a path and a few runners were almost taken out. The commotion was pretty entertaining
The finish line. Marino Vanhoenacker from Belgium set a new world record for the fastest Iron Man time, 7 hours and 45 min. The crowd was really roaring as he crossed and then instead of collapsing, he was jogging up and down the finish area giving high fives and interviews (which he had plenty of time for since he was about 12 minutes ahead of 2nd place) He was just a little intense….
One of the many large and picturesque lakes in the Kärnten region. We took a refreshing afternoon dip in a smaller version back in Feldkirchen.
Thanks again to Christian and Skye for their wonderful hospitality and great homemade food (loved that cake Skye!) Next up, we head to Budapest for our first stop in Eastern Europe.
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