Horn-blaster

Saturday morning means parkrun. This week, it means extreme parkrun tourism. It starts at eight here, whereas at home it starts at nine. We had to get two metros to the nearest one, whereas it’s within walking distance at home. It was a much earlier start than normal; we arrived very early, but better early than late.

The volunteers couldn’t have been more friendly and welcoming and helpful. They went through the route with us – two laps of a pretty park – before the main briefing, which was bilingual.

The horde, including Mr Pandammonium, set off at a fair rate of knots, leaving me behind. After a couple of minutes, I noticed a straggler. I thought if I could catch up with her and she spoke English, she could maybe be my run buddy.

She was Australian and had realised that she’d set off too fast, and she made an excellent run buddy. One of the parkwalkers strode along with us as we plodded. The Australian translated between me and the parkwalker as necessary.

After we got cleaned up at the hotel, we went back out, this time to the castle. It’s not like any castle I’ve ever seen, but it was very fancy. It keeps burning down and getting rebuilt.

We think we’re getting the hang of the public transport system with the help of Google Maps’ directions and the signs in the stations, but some of the directions to places on foot can be meaningless: two dimensions are not enough to build this city in; a third is necessary, with buildings, roads and train tracks at ground level, above ground and below ground.