Today Guido visited me and brought more of his video footage from swooping a lake. Before, he had already left some of the most amazing shots Ive seen of the Dolomites - Alex and Guido took off at Lagazuoi and were filmed by a helicopter, so the camera was "flying" around them but did not shake at all, keeping them perfectly in focus! I hope Steffen will edit some of that material soon.
Guido won the last Forbes World Championships, and it would be great if he could join in the next ones at Forbes in 2013! At least I have to find out some of his secrets about flying at Forbes...

Bangalore

After a brief work trip to Orlando, Im already in Bangalore. Great weather, 30 Celsius, no rain, a few nice clouds yesterday. I could stay another week, I love the great vegetarian spicy food here! What is new? I haven´t been here for about a year, and now there is a modern tube train in front of our hotel, set up above the way too busy roads. 6 stations are working already, and for just 10-20 rupees (16 cent) it is a great alternative to the taxis and tuktuks.
The water in the pool here is quite cold, so I was the only one ploughing through it these two days. A great oasis behind the hotel, with large old trees and palms and flowers. I hope I come back before I run out of samosas...

Hang Gliding on WDR/SWR

On Thursday 3pm you can watch "Planet Wissen" about hang gliding on German television channels WDR and SWR. You already find quite a lot of material of the 1 hour show about hang gliding here. They did not put huge amounts of make up into my face, I was still tanned because I had just arrived from Australia the day before I went up to Dortmund to the WDR studios ;) it was well worth coming back from Australia earlier than I had planned, because "Planet Wissen" touches many aspects of our sport and goes way more into detail than any other TV interview Ive done so far. The journalists did a good job researching the background of our flying. Once aired, this show will be repeatedly on around the clock on many different third channels in Germany - hopefully we can fascinate many new people into our beautiful sport of flying!

World ranking: 1.

After a tough season of a long break from flying, I want to thank my parents and my close friends for having helped me through the months of training to get back into the air. The pre world championships in Forbes were the first competition after 7 months, and I really enjoyed the flying. And even better: With the good result, I am back in 1st position in this month´s Women´s World Ranking.
A big thanks to all my sponsors for their trust in me, and a special thanks to Vicki, Kim and Steve Moyes for having helped me to get that perfect RX 3 as a safe little glider to get back up to the top of the ladder!
It is snowing and freezing cold in Munich right now, but I am already dreaming of flying in Valle de Bravo in March...

Ispo Munich

After I came back from work, I had one day left to visit the biggest sports trade fair in Europe, the Ispo in Munich. I met my friend Regina from DHV and together we looked at the latest collection of adidas eyewear, new Icebreaker designs, Garmin Gps, Lizard shoes, ... there are about 8 large exhibition halls filled with different products and all sports brands you can think of, not just winter sports. It is way too big for one day.
Still very cold over here, down to minus 20 Celsius at night, Im glad if I get over to Orlando for a day next week.