So, back in May when Eddie was making the plane tickets he insisted that we were going to fly Luftansa and not Delta… the slightly cheaper ticket.  At the time, i didn’t understand what the big deal was…   Here is just a few reasons why Luftansa pretty much rocked our monkey faces off.

Numero Uno: personal pillow, blanket and socks.

Numero Dos: personal entertainment center with everything from the latest cinematic adventure, brit-pop concerts, to national geographic style documentaries.  we decided to get psyched by watching “Oceans” … part of the Planet Earth series. I seriously heart ‘planet earth’.  This place is freaking cool and i get psyched when cooler people make sick films about it.

and Numero Tres: unlimited free drinks. Eddie had a tall pour of whiskey on the rocks, and i had a glass of delicious red wine.  then they came back for refills.  DANG.   Apparently Pat Goodman got denied a third glass of wine on his Delta flight.  Oh Snap!

So speaking on the topic of Americans vs Germans…

Enter Rachel and Eddie into the Munich Airport.  So, the Muich Airport is pretty much a destination itself.  An intrepid world of whirring and German engineering.   It was like a functional, well-oiled version of Dwell Magazine.  The first thing I noticed, besides the gattaca gridwork of sterile-mod furnishings, was actually the absence of something:  McDonalds.  Yup, the entire terminal we toured was completely void of any fast food, and replaced with fresh food bistros that cooked to order.  SWEET!  Also, located at semi-regular intervals, like belay stations throughout the terminal were free coffee bars.  These small machines that would spit out just about any coffee drink you can think of into a small euro cup.  I pretty much stopped counting after eddie had his 6th free expresso, and hoped he wouldn’t have a complete caffeine induced tweak out.  On the contrary, he became completely entranced by staring out the ginormous glass windows at the airplanes milling about.  He said it was like watching an ant farm… and he loved it.  Then he started commenting on how hot the female airport personnel was… HA.  Personally i thought they looked like anorexic calvin klein models.  Whatever.  Next stop, Athens!!

We spent the night in Athens at this quaint little hotel that served us breakfast on a platter at our door, but i swear, it was in the ‘projjys’ of Athens.  Definitely a first.  We hopped the first flight out of Athens to the island of Kos (just south of Kalymnos).  From here we were able to take a ferry into Pothia the port city of Kalymnos, our destination.

Since we were psyched to see the cliffs, we didnt spend any time in Pothia, but took a taxi straight to Massuri, where where our studio was located nestled amidst the tufa riddled limestone cliffs.  How rad is that.  To think that there are more tufas to be wrangled within a 15 minute walk from the door of our studio than we could ever manage to summit in a lifetime of climbing, is quite a surrealistic and overwhelmingly amazing thought.  The now world famous “Grande Grotta” crag (thanks to the Petzl Roc Trip) is straight up the hill from our pad.  I cant even express how breathtaking this place truly is.

Yeah, so our buddies Pat Goodman (PG) and Jessa Goebel arrived yesterday morning…    Im sure Pat can alpine his way up to Grande Grotta in a mere 5 min, but, realistically it takes me about 15 min to summit to the base of the crag.  Im not ashamed.  We are super psyched to see our homies who came bearing gifts of cliff bars.  Heckyeah.

So… on to the climbing…guys, its so UNreal.   Its like watching a film in 3D for the  first time.   It just comes out and grabs you and if you don’t cowboy up and wrestle back you will be going for a ride!  We are so psyched.  AND….Its “catch your breath” beautiful here.  Our crib is totally deLUX.  Thanks to Les the Mess for her mad beta.  We are renting from Adonis and Papi Galouzi… who don’t speak a lick of english, but are two of the most amazing people i have ever met.  I saw Adonis out on the porch with some binoculars spying on people, and it reminded me of you, Dad.  Maybe its just a euro thing, and you cant help it, im not sure.

For the past 3 days we have been working our way through moderates and also sampling some harder rigs.  I feel like the token girlfriend, because eddie has been super awesome and hanging all the draws.  Its pretty sweet.  I found a route im psyched to do… it gets me up off the ground a ways, and is completely relentless.  None of the holds, it seems are downpulls. The route just keeps fighting and i have to keep bringing it… it gets me nauseatingly pumped.   I fear the number of times I will take the big ride before clipping the last bolt, but every time i climb myself up there into the oblivion of lactic acid knowing the inevitable result… but the climbing is just soooooooo good i cant stop until i get ejected.  ITs  SWEET.  Hopefully in a few more tries I will find the anks.   I also tried the mega classic “Daniboy”, but I got completely sportified.  Im gonna use tactics and send Goebelface up there to figure it out for me.  Eddie has been also sampling around for a rig that he is psyched to try more than once.   So far, he has sandbagged himself on a super crimpy-technical, void of holds (williams style) 14 birdface,  and nearly hiked  the mega-classico 8a+ Sardonique  (in its face) while hanging the draws.  It was pretty amazing to watch.  We are waiting for the good temps because ed says that Sardonique”forces him to use the little girl holds”.  I dont have any climbing pics on my computer just now… but our friend Elodie is here and has been taking some amazing climbing pics… Ill see if we can post some up soon.

Yesterday Eddie and Pat went greek-alpine style and climbed”big-rig” multi-pitch (150m) feature on the island of Telendos which has been the sleek backdrop of most of our snapshots  during the trip.  I was told that they handjammed their way to victory on some stellar “tufa-cracks”… they were psyched!! hopefully PG has some sick footage on his trusty “Gopro” camera that he takes everywhere.

During my day without the boys, I climbed a bunch of moderates, and then I got to two 45 meter (do the math!!)  pitches… back to back.  One was “Lulu in the Sky” (7b+/12c) and the other was “Aeiola (sp?) Extension” (7a+/12a).  These big pitches were quintessentially what we came here for.  I didn’t think the features could get any cooler, or the moves any more phenomenal… and then, more than 110′ off the deck, the baseball bat tufa i was pinching my way up formed a giant handlebar… it was like grabbing behind the spine of a human being… the tufa had detached from the wall, but remained in tact, like a stalagtite and stalagmite that have grown together into a column that was fixed to the wall on either side.  Its skeletal texture was crazy.  The instant i touched the hold, the pump clock zeroed.  It was game over for Lulu.

Oh!! I almost forgot to share one of the most exciting things that happens each and every day.  Because we miss all of our buddies back home, and wish you guys were here, we have been trying to find euro substitutes for some of our friends.  So far, two euro versions of our friends have visited us.

Meet, “Euro- Matt Stark”.

Now, Euro- Matt Stark may not be as ripped up as his American counterpart (sorry Matt, at least you’re the hot one)… but he still cranks 5.13!

Now, meet “Euro- Porter Jarrard”:

There are so many more ridiculous things I could write about…. but I really just wanted to get the bloggy caught up, since we have been bad about posting.  Hopefully, we can live up to the standard Mikey has set for all of us. 🙂

Contemplating potential future posts… “Kneebars: a gift from God, or the work of Lucifer?”  and “Diablo- the lunch stealing goat”  are probably two topics worth talking about in future posts.  Im looking forward to meeting the euro version of all of you.  Especially, i have been keeping my eye out for euro David Nimmer, and euro Mikey Williams.  I know you guys are out there….