From Austria to Turkey

Our travels from Abtenau went smoothly for both of us. A short taxi ride followed by about 3 hours on the train had us back at the Munich airport. Sue caught a standby flight right away to Nice, and I flew to Istanbul, and then to Denizli, with further transfers to Pamukkale. I had a few difficult moments at the Lufthansa ticket counter after I was informed that I was allowed only 20kgs (44 lbs) for my luggage, and that every kg over (2.2 lbs), I was going to be charged 10 euros (about $14.00). I'm traveling with about 65 kgs so that was going to be an additional $600 dollars just to carry the normal luggage I travel with.... The ticket itself was only $160.00!! Needless to say my heart skipped a beat when I was told this.... I'm used to paying, well let's see hmmm- nothing for extra baggage!! I eventually got the agent to treat my paragliding gear as 'sports equipment' which goes at a discounted rate. Then fortunately when I went to the different counter to pay my excess bag fees, the agent got it all confused and only charged me 70 euros (about $100) so I guess I got off easy.... Turkish Airlines out of Istanbul was much easier on me and only charged me 20 Turkish Lyra (about $15.00)

There aren't enough world cup pilots here yet to warrant a practice day so today I relaxed in the morning after an interesting breakfast.... In fact that's probably the best way to describe the food here thus far - quite interesting.... I don't get the olives mixed with chunks of lemon for breakfast. There was a huge buffet for dinner also, and I didn't recognize much of anything except the chicken.... Anyway, late this morning I went walking, and not 10 minutes from the hotel I found myself at the footsteps of the Pamukkale and Hierapolis, one of the most important tourist attractions in Turkey! Over 1.5 million visitors each year!! I had no idea whatsoever that this tourist site was located here.... So today I took a few steps back in time (about 2000 yrs worth) and did the best I could to be a tourist for the day and see what I could see. I won't get into it here on the blog but I've included a few links if you want to look deeper. Standing in a stadium on the very stones where people gathered over 2000 years ago was fascinating, to say the least!!

The pwc Turkey starts on Sunday, and runs for 7 days. Most pilots will be showing up on Friday for the official practice day on Saturday. I'm hoping to get a few flights in this week so that I can get a feel for the place. Looking at the sky today it looked like one of the best cross country skies I've ever seen, with cloud base at nearly 4000 meters and light winds aloft. Sure hope this keeps up!! I just reviewed the pilot list for this comp and many of the big guns are here so it will take every ounce of effort, focus, and skill I have to put it together and be competitive with this field. Many of the top pilots didn't travel to either of the first 2 world cup stops this year, so they are all hungry to make it into the top 15 and secure a spot in the Superfinal in Italy this fall! This will be by far the most competitive comp I've ever flown...

You'll have to copy and paste these into your browser window if you want to view them....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamukkale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierapolis