2016-12-22 47 9

Location

Today's location is in a field near Weinfelden. Apparently there were small plants that I didn't see in the dark, oops.

Country: Switzerland; canton: Thurgau (EU-CH-TG)

Expedition

Danatar

For Christmas, as so often, I went to meet my extended family in Konstanz (Constance). My shift went until 4 p.m., then there were some delays including visits to the departments of cardiology and neurosurgery for patients that I had to see urgently. I finally left work at 7 p.m. That it itself is not unusual but this time I had to go to the airport in time for boarding at 19:35, so I was in a bit of a hurry. I ran to my car (450 m) which I had brought precautionarily, then drove the 9 km to the airport as fast as the speed limit allowed, luckily most of the traffic lights were green. Since parking at the airport is prohibitively expensive I left my car in the residential area nearby and started running again, my backpack full to bursting. As I found out the route I ran to the airport building was needlessly long (1100 m instead of 750 m on the shortest route) and I arrived at the security checkpoint panting heavily. I wasn't allowed to bring my full water bottle, so I emptied it in one huge gulp before proceeding. The officer wanted to take a look into my backpack, x-rayed the camera bag a second time and took a swab (for drugs and explosives, presumably) of my GPS unit, then I was cleared to pass at 19:33, just in time. On the plane I had the aisle seat at the emergency exit with lots of room to extend my legs on the flight to Zürich, Switzerland.

In Zürich I boarded the train to Konstanz. There were trains every 30 minutes, alternating between a direct connection with a stop at Weinfelden and one with a change of trains in Weinfelden. I had one of the former but I got off at Weinfelden to visit the hashpoint. I had 33 minutes until the next train so I hurried towards the hashpoint (about 1500 m each way), jogging for a while every now and then. Finding the way was easy, just along the street that went past the train station until it left the town, then still straight ahead one the path at the side of the road. It was already 22:30 and thus very dark, only the passing cars bringing any light. I passed a fenced-in pasture advertising beef and after that one another fenced-in pasture followed. My hopes sank and I shortly thought about turning around to have more time to walk back to the train station. But then the pasture ended and the next lot was a muddy field without a fence, hooray (for not having a fence, not for being muddy)! I walked through the mud to the hashpoint, took some pictures of the darkness and turned back. It took a bit to get the thickest mud off my shoes but soon I was able to start jogging again. I reached the train station with two minutes to spare, the ride to Konstanz went fine.

On the return trip on the 25th I went via Weinfelden again but stayed on the train. This time I had the window seat directly at the emergency exit, just one seat over from the there trip.

In total I ran/jogged/walked 4550 m, went 9 km by car, ~556 km by plane, ~75 km by train.