Smooth conditions in Valle de Bravo, Timezone GMT -5

How does a perfect day look like? I brought my harness to Mexico, because Fabian offered me to fly his brand new Moyes RX3. At 8 in the morning, Ramon and his family picked me up at the hotel. On the way out, we stopped at a little restaurant and had breakfast. My favourite - quesadilla with Nopal, cheese and huitlacoche!
We continued to Valle de Bravo where I met Miguel Gutierrez, organizer of the upcoming pre worlds and hang gliding worlds. He and his wife Claudia are superbusy with the preparations, as they want to start official registration for the pre-event on July 1st already.
It is rainy season, everything is very green, no more dust. The morning rain soon cleared up and we headed for El Peñon launch. Conditions were light and smooth and it was just a mere pleasure to launch Fabian´s toy glider. I love the RX3! In the air, I had a lot of fun playing with the vultures, the "zopilotes" - there were many around, climbing with me in the soft air.
Around 2pm, I decided to land after a 90 minute flight, as the overdevelopment slowly moved in. It didn´t start raining until 3.15pm, but I wanted to be on the safe side.
I was quite pleased about my first landing at the piano bomb out, where everybody else was watching me. Luckily the RX3 is so easy to land that one guy was superimpressed, walked up and said to me, "Vuelas como un angel - You fly like an angel!"
After such a beautiful, relaxing flight with friends, I had a big smile in my face when Gabriel invited us for lunch. Zucchini flower soup, Chiles relleños with cheese, rice and salad - all vegetarian, just for me... I felt like in paradise!
Even though it was Sunday, the traffic in the evening going back into the city wasn´t too bad. I will leave again tonight, but I want to go to the market and buy some fresh Nopal, tortillas azules, avocados and other specialities so I can prepare an authentic Mexican dinner for my friends in Germany tomorrow.

President Barack Obama in Berlin

This is the link to Barack Obamas speach in front of Brandenburger Tor in Berlin today. It was about 35 C, so he started informal by taking off his jacket. A grand speach by the charismatic President of the United States. He stands up for quite unpopular topics - I adore him!

Stuck in my harness...

 On Friday I went to Nuremberg for an interview with BR, a TV station that is airing nationwide. They asked me to set up my glider in the garden so the presenter can welcome the audience lying in my glider.
All looked good until we tried to get her out of my harness after the first three minutes of the show... her silk blouse got stuck in the zipper, and we couldnt move it a single inch! The show was live, so she decided to just to the whole talk in my harness on that day, walking around like a penguin, talking to a gardener about how to grow the perfect Basil, baking a cherry cheese cake and also asking me about the flying in Australia. After the first shock, everybody really enjoyed that something out of the ordinary was happening, and the presenter Uschi was very professional about it - a full hour in my harness!
Afterwards, many of the crew asked about tandem hang gliding flights...
Im not sure if they will put that show online, because it ended up very different than planned ;) but if I find a link, I will let you know. It was really funny!

on air: Friday at 15.30 on BR

I am invited to the TV show "Wir in Bayern" on Friday, June 14th, at 15.30 on Bayerischer Rundfunk. They asked me to set up my glider and present the sport of hang gliding. The show is live, but they also prepared some shots from the Worlds in Forbes.

Summer finally!

Last Saturday we finally had flying weather in the northern Alps for the first time this year. Low cloud base in the beginning and difficult conditions - I landed after only about 55km at 2pm, while many paragliders did much better than me. But who cares if you are welcomed by these two cute little girls? They came running to help me and were very excited to see a hang gliding girl in their garden.
My friend Tina flew her first XC in a paraglider on that day and came to pick me up. She asked the girls if they wanted to learn flying as well, and after two seconds they yelled, "YES!" And she was quite surprised to hear that they definitely wanted to learn hang gliding, not paragliding ;)

Greifenburg Webcam

I just saw the nice rainbow on the Greifenburg webcam! Nice moment.

Team USA wins 4:3

Yesterday we arrived just in time in Washington DC for the soccer match USA against Germany. More than half of my crew went to see it, and even though "our" team did not win, we had a lot of fun. It was hot an muggy while the teams were on the lawn, but later in the  afternoon a cold front rolled in and we saw some spectacular storms. Still raining outside now!