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To Calais with a sword – a travel diary part 4

Rest day

This is the fourth part of my travel diary to the Ken Jutsu and budo seminar in Calais. Today: Rest day. You can find the other parts here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 5, part 6, part 7.

Culture

Today is rest day and instead of training we have cultural and leisure activities scheduled. In the morning we visited the old fortifications in Calais. Before that we had an introductory lecture of a local history professor. Pretty dry for my liking but okay. Of the fortificationsonly the walls and some underground parts remain. Somewhat irritatingly, the city decided to build some sports facilities inside of the fortification compound – to a german this is an unusual way of preservation strategy.

Excursion on rest day. The old fortification in Calais.
Excursion on rest day. The old fortification in Calais.

Group activities

In the afternoon we do speed sailing on the beach. Simply put it is a trike with a sail. Big fun but not really easy for bloody noob sailor as me. The wind was pretty strong and we picked up speed really fast. As I said: big fun. And of course I flipped over the trike in the first turn – not bad, but now the helemt makes more sense to me. After many rounds I slowly get the hang of it – in a very beginners way.

In the evening we have the annual members assembly. Somewhat boring but necessary. A few new members are voted in and the usual administrative stuff. After the long and exhausting day everybody is really tired but the evening is getting longer and longer. At 23:00 the assembly finally concludes. After a brief detour to the bar I fall into bed.

Tomorrow we continue with the 4. training day.

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