Sports and Travel

When the wind blows and the rain feels cold
With a head full of snow...

In a sense, Los Angeles can be said to be a surprisingly quiet city. This is because it is so suburban – a patchwork of quiet neighborhoods with a shopping mall or a collection of restaurants and shops splashed every now and there.

The City of Angles sleeps a lot. It goes to sleep early and gets up late. Bars and restaurants will empty around nine or ten and so will the streets. The hum of an 18-million-person city will turn into mysterious peace just occasionally disturbed by a stranded helicopter. Nights are quiet and long – the hum will reappear long after the birds are awake, around eight.

But the reality is, Los Angeles is louder than life.

Maybe it was not the brightest idea to choose the month of August for traveling. But I always feel a strong need to go on an adventure in the summertime. Dreams of swimming, walking and discovery filling my head, I find myself turning the pages of my old school atlas and imagining travel routes through Europe. I like the special atmosphere of August, when everybody is on holidays and a lot of the shops are closed – it’s like the silence of Sundays.

It was 15:40 at the Heiligenstadt Station on a Thursday afternoon in early summer. On the platform of Track 4, a scattering of well-dressed people mingled in threes and fours; one checked a watch; a cell phone rang. A young Austrian man in a well cut black suit came striding up the steps to be hailed by three others, in a hubbub of laughter, two-cheek greetings and hearty slaps on the back. Then three Japanese, two men and a woman, also in dark suits, stepped off the escalator, looking around inquiringly and consulting with each other in low tones.

The working day doesn’t start too early at La Casa delle Acque, a small organic orange farm at the foot of Mount Etna in Sicily.

Of all the things that start a fire in my heart, running for a cause lies somewhere at the bottom of the list, just before ketchup and people who tell you things just so they know that you know they know…Why, then, did I do it? Why did I sign up for the Vienna City Marathon and, more importantly, did I ever really believe I would go through with it?

Looking straight ahead, the bridge that had only moments ago been gray pavement, was now a sea of brightly clothed bodies, bobbing up and down in one teeming mass of humanity.People around us inched ahead, first with a slow walk, and then moving into a slow canter.But just as soon as we started, we stopped sudde

Minutes away from landing, my girlfriend and I glanced out of the oval window of the airplane and caught sight of the beach promenade at Nice, glowing yellow in the lamp light. Say what you will, this is Romance.

If you can’t win the game, why not make up a new game and play by your own rules.

It is 6 a.m. at the Vienna International Airport, and I can barely keep my eyes open. You would imagine that everything and everyone would still be fast asleep. The Air Berlin gate, however, is crowded with people caffeine-ed up and ready for action, talking so loudly, that I can't help but notice the Berlin dialect I enjoy so much – edgy and energetic.