Saw a cool video on how hang gliders are made. I never would have guessed that it involves 1050 parts! I’ll take two please…
Discovery Channel - Factory Made ep. 6 from Søren Ladegaard on Vimeo.
Hello my two friends that read this blog. Or did one of you stop coming already?
Today is the very last day of my 6 week holiday in Europe. So, is there anything to tell? Probably. But I don’t want to get carried away so I’ll just spew out a few sentences for now.
It was just a visit-the-relatives-overseas type of holiday. I don’t want to make it sound dull though. I did have a fantastic time. My cousins over here are fabulous and I loved getting to know them better. I went to Croatia for 7 nights which was fantastic. I did get sun burnt pretty badly on the second day but that didn’t stop me from enjoying all the history and scenery around. I’ll have a few photos to show at my photo-blog over the next few weeks.
Most of the time was spent in Macedonia. I was born there and have lots of family. It was great seeing them. Last I saw most of them was 13 years ago… The country itself is in better shape. That is to say it’s improving but still has a long long way to go. I would class it as third world. I could complain about the lack of systems around daily life, bad roads, poor health care, extremely high unemployment rates and low wages… but I will bore you I fear. The country has a lot to sort out and they are making slow progress.
The social/networking side of things is great though. It seems that everyone knows everyone and even if they are poor they still manage to go out to restaurants and cafes and generally enjoy themselves every single damned night of the week. I swear I’ve gone out to dinner at around 10pm every night for the past 5 weeks. It truly is an experience.
Alas, the trip is over and I’m coming home. My flight leaves Macedonia from Skopje Airport in 16 hours. I am looking forward to seeing everyone I left behind including half of my immediate family and all my friends. My dog my car, bed and shower, job and cameras and every single materialistic thing Sydney life is good for. I’ve no illusions, I am a slave to materialistic things and I do miss my life there.
Just one more thing…
On a day tour a couple of weeks ago we drove up this mountain to see some historical monuments where we ran into some paragliders launching off a hill. It looked interesting so we stopped for a picture and a look see.
They would carelessly launch off the hill and float up and up just like a feather in a cool breeze. It looked like so much fun. It stayed with me all day.
The following day I had to find a net cafe to read up on the sport. After a few days wasting too much valuable holiday time I decided to try my hand at hang gliding. As it turns out us Aussies seem to be at the centre of the sport and there’s even a popular site close to home: Stanwell.
I’m actually a little surprised I haven’t previously looked into the sport. I’ve done a few solo sky dives and I was always a little different in the fact that I preferred the canopy ride to the free fall which is what attracts most people. It only seems natural to take that canopy ride and extend the experience. Here’s to another little adventure in my life…