aurzeq 3Speak Podcast

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Hello Hivers,

Today I want to tell you about a vacation I took a few weekends ago in San Martino di Castrozza, a well-known Italian ski resort. 2021 wasn't exactly the best year for skiing, since, due to the pandemic, all the facilities were closed. For this reason, this year I decided to take advantage of every possible moment to go on the snow.

My experience with skiing is relatively recent since I started skiing about 4-5 years ago, and in between, there was a not-so-pleasant experience for me. In fact, as I also described in a previous post, of which I leave a link below:

First skiing ⛷️ of 2021 skiing on a slope where it had just snowed and not being used to the consistency of fresh snow, during a fall I almost broke my knee. Fortunately, after taking the x-rays, I discovered that I had simply frayed my ligaments and although I had to stay still for about 4-5 months at least I didn't have to have surgery.

But let's forget the negative thoughts and go back to my vacation in the mountains. My friends and I got organized in time and booked two rooms in a residence, named Lastei, which besides being very nice and comfortable was also in a very convenient location since it was possible to reach the slopes with no more than 5 minutes of walking. In addition, the residence also had a spa inside, with a sauna and aromatic baths 😍.

But let's go by order.

We left on Friday evening by car from Bologna and after about four hours of travel, we finally arrived in San Martino, here we headed straight to the restaurant and enjoyed the local specialties including of course the pork shank that I took, tagliatelle with wild boar ragout that I shared with a friend of mine (yes I admit I was very hungry), spatzle etc. ...

After dinner, we arrived at our residence and ended the evening with a very good herbal liqueur. We then went to sleep very excitedly for the next day.

When we woke up, we went out onto the large balcony of our room and found a truly wonderful view.

So, we finally went to rent boots and skis and we headed to the facilities.

The weekend we went skiing, was the one wherein in Italy we celebrate the Befana, that is the 6th of January, and usually, this day marks the end of the summer vacations so usually people go back to work the next day. So, lucky for us, many of the people who had been skiing in the mountains the day before were slowly going back home, so that on Saturday we found a few people on the slopes, but not that many, while on Sunday the slopes were completely free and skiing was really a spectacle.

The area of San Martino di Castrozza 60 km of skiable kilometers, with altitudes ranging from 1400 to 2400 m, offers a truly priceless view at the top (unfortunately combined with freezing temperatures).

Our typical ski day is composed by the following way:

from 9 to 11 am we ski;
we stop to have a bombardino in a mountain hut and take a short break;

you want to know what a bombardino is? If you take a look at the beginning of the post, there is a link to one of my previous posts, where there is an explanation.

we go back to ski until 1 pm;
we have lunch until 2 pm;
and then ski again until 4 pm.

The only disadvantage, if we really want to call it a disadvantage, of having half-empty facilities is the fact that you can ski the slopes so many times and therefore you arrive at the end of the day very tired...... And so what better way to recover than to take a sauna as soon as you get back to the residence?

We spent about an hour inside the spa going from the sauna to the various aromatic baths trying to relax as much as possible.

Afterward, we had a final shower and went out, first exploring a little bit of the city by night, and then we headed for dinner.

By 21:30-22.00 we collapsed in bed because we were really tired.

The next day we woke up early and immediately went to the track and as I said before since most of the people had decided to leave on Saturday, we found ourselves on the track with very few people. In many of the descents that we did, we were practically alone and I must admit that this was really priceless.

Two of our friends took advantage of the afternoon of that day to go for a ride in the most panoramic part of the slope, as you can see in the final part of the video at the beginning of this post.

The hardest part of this white weekend, besides of course having to go home, was at least for me, the use of the chairlifts. In particular, on the first one I took, not being prepared for the speed of the seat arrival, I still had my poles in my hand, and being hit by the seat my poles got stuck and I accidentally unhooked one of my skis and lost my poles as well, which then fell off at the start of the lift. So I did the whole chairlift with only one ski and no poles, and of course, when it was time to get off it wasn't easy at all since I don't have that much experience anyway. Luckily, someone saw that I had lost my skis and poles and was kind enough to pick them up and bring them to the top, saving me from having to go down myself.

Conclusion This was a really great weekend and I had a lot of fun, mostly because, as I said before, there weren't too many people in the facilities. The only negative aspect was actually the cost of this vacation, mostly because due to the pandemic all of the ski facilities were closed last year, and so this year they increase the prices in order to retrieve some of the gains. Of course, I don't blame them, but my wallet was much lighter when I came back home😅.

If you enjoyed the post, please leave an upvote and/or a comment and feel free to follow me (at the link below) if you want to see my next post. ➡️ hive.blog/@aurzeq ⬅️

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Today I want to talk about a vacation I took last summer in Puglia, in the Gargano region. This is the first part of that vacation and the subject is the Gole of San Martino in Abruzzo. Before starting to talk about this, I would like to make a small preamble. When I was working at the university as a researcher, being able to manage my schedule as I liked, every now and then I would take a few days off and go on vacation. In particular, I had a very good relationship with two of my colleagues, a Moldavian guy, who is also the one who introduced me to Downhill, and a guy from Abruzzo. Obviously, after finishing my job at the university, our paths split a bit, in particular, my friend from Abruzzo found a job in Holland and now lives there and for this reason, we do not see each other very often. So last summer we decided to take a vacation together and in particular to meet in Puglia. My Moldavian friend and I left with my car and drove all along the Adriatic Coast of Italy, and after a brief stop in Gradara, a beautiful city near Rimini,

we headed towards Chieti, where we spent the night.

The next morning, after a nice breakfast

Since we had to wait for our friend who was arriving at Bari airport in the afternoon, as I said before, we decided to explore the famous Gole di Fara San Martino, a very suggestive place. As some of you know, especially those who have read my other posts, I have a particular passion for caves, since I practice speleology. In this case, however, the situation is slightly different because they are not caves that develop deep in the earth but are caves that have been carved by time inside the mountain itself where you can walk practically through the mountain.

The entrance to the caves is very impressive because the passage is very narrow and looking up you can hardly see the sky.

According to popular tradition, these picturesque gorges, just 2 m wide and about 30 m long, were opened by San Martino with the strength of his arms to allow the local population to access more quickly the high pastures of Majella. After a few meters of walking, you can see the monastery of San Martino in Valle that an archaeological excavation has recently brought to light. Actually, this remarkable scenery has been produced by the erosive and incessant action of the torrential waters coming from the melting of the surrounding snowfields during the Quaternary period, especially during the glaciations.

In addition, once out, the view that awaits us in front is truly remarkable.

Unfortunately, we happened to be in the area at a time when access was prohibited because there had been a landslide a few weeks earlier and therefore was no longer allowed to pass through the gorges, but obviously, this did not stop us and with a little "unconsciousness" we sneaked in anyway and we made a quick but very interesting visit. Personally, I love these kinds of places, especially when there are no tourists, in fact being able to enjoy a view and a place like this with a dead silence is an experience that does not happen every day. We are accustomed during our daily lives to an increasingly hectic pace, our work takes up most of our time and it has become increasingly difficult to be able to carve out some time for ourselves, also because in the evening we usually try to relax and rest because the next day we expect the work again. In addition, one thing that many people don't pay attention to, because it has become a normality, is the background noise that is in our lives, especially in big cities, that constant coming and going of cars, people, and animals that we now notice only when it is not present. I am a nature lover, and I think that nature it's one of the few places where we can truly rest our body and mind.

Near the very beginning of the path, there is a very old monastery (the San Martino in Valle that I mentioned before), which adds even more magic to the place.

The Monastery has been brought back to light by removing the debris that hid it, leaving to appear a spectacle of history, art, and faith. The environment is harsh and rocky and the bottleneck that characterizes the gorge of San Martino is very suggestive and exciting. At the exit, the walls suddenly open on the wide valley, which is however closed by imposing rock walls on both sides. The remains of the abbey show a gate to an inner courtyard bordered by a portico with three arches, on the north side of which is a bell gable. The interior of the church must have had three naves with a stone slab floor. A wall with three arches separates the nave from the northern one, from where you access to what must have been the initial core of the church, carved into the rock, which suggests the birth of the place of worship as a hermitage.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, the area was off-limits and so to avoid the risk of being arrested we didn't stay too long inside. We walked around for a few hours (which you can see summarized in the video at the beginning of the post) and then we decided to get out and go back to the car.

Places like this are truly amazing, and if it weren't for my friend, I honestly would have never even known it existed. Italy in my opinion is a truly magical country because in any place, even the most remote, you can find natural gems like this.

Before arriving to Bari's airport we also took a quick stop also in Termoli to see the beautiful sea.

The beginning of the vacation was very promising and waiting for us was the best part, the beaches, and caves of the Gargano. So don't miss the next post.

If you enjoyed the post, please leave an upvote and/or a comment and feel free to follow me (at the link below) if you want to see my next post. ➡️ hive.blog/@aurzeq ⬅️

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My experiences with mountain biking have always been very "intense". Since the first time I was convinced by a friend of mine to try downhill biking, I realized that it was a sport that I would love, but that would also make me risk my life very frequently.

A few weeks ago with two of my friends, we decided to go to Lake Gardato try out some of the downhill trails found in the surrounding mountains.

To get to the lake it takes about 3 hours from my house so also to not come back too late in the evening we decided to leave the night before.

We stayed in a residence very close to the lake, which was in a raised position with respect to the lake itself and then when we woke up the next morning, I went immediately to check how was the view from our balcony and ...

The day after, after a consistent breakfast, absolutely necessary in view of the physical exertion to which we would have been subjected, we prepared our bikes and headed towards the beginning of the trail which was not very far from our hotel. Obviously, in order to get down, you have to go up first and the more you want to go down, the more you have to go up. Whenever I do major elevation changes, I'm always there thinking "but who made me do that? ", giiven all the effort I have to put and especially the physical pain that inevitably comes after a while. I'm always thinking that probably it would have been much better to buy an electric bike, since it allows you to enjoy the descent in the same way as a normal bike and also, to not to get too tired in the initial part. In the end, however, I still make it to the top and I must admit that the feeling I get is very satisfying and so all the fatigue accumulated disappears. And so I find myself in the same situation every time 😅.

This time, however, mindful of old experiences, and above all, not in great shape after the holidays, I decided to borrow an electric bike from a friend and to climb up with it. It was definitely a great experience, now I understand when I hear people say that once you've tried an electric bike, it's hard to go back to a normal one.

But of course, since the ascent had been so much easier than usual, by the law of counterparts, the descent was going to be pure hell.

But let's go in order, as I said before my ascent was the most beautiful part of the day as I had an electric bike at my disposal and so perhaps for the first time since I have been doing downhill I was able to enjoy the view without having to think about fatigue.

This is something that I really appreciated and it made me think (and still makes me think) that maybe buying an electric bike was not such a bad idea.

Being in the middle of winter, of course, we also found some snowy parts along the way, in particular, there was a very suggestive moment when we found ourselves inside a tunnel, completely in the dark, inside which it was not possible to see the way out.

We, therefore, continued to go at a walking pace with the bike in hand and using the flashlight of the cell phone as a source of illumination until we saw the so-called light at the end of the tunnel. As we got closer to the light we also began to notice the massive presence of snow. The exit of the tunnel was almost completely covered, and in order to get out, we had to lift our bikes and climb.

Once out in the open, however, we found ourselves in front of a wonderful view. We stopped there to have lunch and to enjoy the view and once refreshed we left ready to face the descent.

My experience with mountain bikes is quite recent, in fact, I started a few years ago, being convinced by my friend, much more experienced than me, to try this sport. The main problem with going with people who have much more experience than you in a certain sport is that you are presented with two possible situations:

1 - in the lucky case, the trail you face is at your level and therefore you don't risk your life, but you probably risk making others bored;

2- in the less lucky case, the others have fun, because the path is technical and requires certain skills, but you have less fun because you are in constant breathlessness and you spend most of the time walking and carrying the bike by hand because otherwise you would risk to die.

Unfortunately for me, this day at Lake Garda falls into the second situation. In fact, this was probably the most dangerous situation I have had to face since I began to ride a bike. Together with me, as I said before, there were two people with much more experience than me in cycling, one of them was a mountain bike instructor. Even for them the path was quite challenging, so much that in some parts, they had to get off the bike because it was impossible to descend (as you can see in the video), so I let you imagine my situation and my state of mind in those moments.

Unfortunately, the videos made with the cell phone do not give much idea of the slope of the path, since they tend to squash real image and lose a little 'sense of depth, so even though it may seem that the pieces I filmed are not so terrible, I assure you that even going on foot I was really struggling not to fall. About half of the route I had to do it holding the bike by the hand, given the presence of very large rocks, steps, and really tight turns.

This was one of the few times that even after descending to the valley and having finished the route, I was not relaxed and happy, since I had not enjoyed the descent at all. I understood thanks to this experience that I am stil not ready for this kind of trials and I need to train myself a little more if I want to reach the next level 💪.

If you enjoyed the post, please leave an upvote and/or a comment and feel free to follow me (at the link below) if you want to see my next post about downhill. ➡️ hive.blog/@aurzeq ⬅️

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The season ended some days ago, and for the first time, I was able to reach the Gold League (Gold III to be more precise).

The most difficult part of reaching gold is not actually winning the battles necessary to reach a rating of 1900, but to reach the power of 100000. Maybe I should explain myself a little better, it was not easy to win all of the matches to reach the rating, but it was far more difficult to rent the necessary card to arrive gold without spending a fortune. This is the case since during the last days of the season, the prices of the card on rent (especially the legendary gold ones, which give 12500 points of power each) tend to increase dramatically, reaching even an x10 factor in some cases.

So I had to spend something like 3000 credits, and seeing the cards I found it was not such a good investment... but still, opening the loot chests is so funny that I don't regret a single credit 😁.

Probably next time I will try to rent the necessary cards a few days earlier and keep them till necessary, in this way I will spend less...

If you enjoyed the post, please leave an upvote and/or a comment and feel free to follow me (at the link below) if you want to see my next post about Splinterlands. ➡️ hive.blog/@aurzeq ⬅️

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Today I finished my daily quest in Splinterlands, which was the life quest. It was not so easy, to complete it since the life deck is one of those that I don't usually use, and so also the level of my cards is not so high. For this reason, I decided to rent some cards from the market.

The summoner Chanseus the Great, in particular, is a really useful one (and as a matter of fact is one of the most expensive in the market), since it allows:

to restore part of the armor that has taken the more damage in that round;
to heal the friendly back-line monster that has taken the most damage during each round;
to resurrect one friendly monster after its death.

This last battle, as you can see from the video was a really close one, and I was able to win at the end only because my Soul Fiend had a little more speed than the opposing monster and was able to attack first, otherwise, it would have been a loss for sure.

So, after having won the last battle, it was time to claim the rewards, and since I was in Silver III, there were actually two chests to open.

And when I opened the first one, I saw that it was a card and not a potion/credit/DEC and I was already happy (since the probability is not so high), then I saw that it was an epic card and I was even happier... but then I saw it becoming a gold foil one 😍.

The card I found was Venari Bonesmith, which has an interesting ability since it increases its health each time it deals damage to an enemy monster (proportional to the damage). This was for sure one of the luckiest quest openings that I had on Splinterlands.

Right now my goal for this season is to arrive at least to Silver I, and if possible also to gold III but this will be really difficult.

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I finished my daily quest and now it's time to see what the god of Splinterlands has in store for me.

The daily quest was the Stealth Mission, where you should win 5 battles using a Sneak monster.

I have posted in the video, my last two battles, in which I used my fire deck, with:

Level 2 Tarsa as the Summoner

Level 1 Scorch Fiend, really useful as a decoy

A level 2 Radieted Brute, attacking from the secondary positions, with his reach ability

A level 2 Gold Tusk the Wild, as a soon-to-become a powerful tank in the second match (here I made a mistake since I wanted him in the first position, but I was lucky 😅)

The Radiated Scorcher, in the first position to sacrifice itself and if possible deal some damages

And last, but not least, the Tenyii Striker, that granted me the quest, with it's sneak ability

So after having finished the battles, I opened the chest and ...

... I found a card, which is somewhat lucky since most of the time what you find in this kind of chests is mostly potions or credits ...

Of course, it wasn't a great card, but still, I was quite happy

If you enjoyed the post, please leave an upvote and/or a comment and feel free to follow me (at the link below) if you want to see my next post. ➡️ hive.blog/@aurzeq ⬅️

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This is my first time reaching silver III and since I had 12 chests to open, I was so excited 💥💣.

I had to rent some cards in order to reach the required 15000 power, but I was happy to do it.

It wasn't easy to win all of the required games, since the kore higher you go on the various leagues, the higher also the level of the opponents becomes, but is part of the game of course.

These are what I found in the chests... not too bad, but neither too lucky... I don't want to complain these are still pretty decent cards and are useful to increase slowly my collection and power.

I hope you liked the post, and if so please drop an upvote and also follow my profile if you want to see more pack opening videos like this one. Thanks to everyone. Have a wonderful day 😊. ➡️ hive.blog/@aurzeq ⬅️

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Hello Hivers,

Lately, I decided to be a little more active in my Splinterlands account, mostly because this is a perfect period for doing so since the price of the cards has dropped significantly after the beginning of the Chaos Legion Pack.

My objective for this season was to arrive at Siver III, where you need a rating higher than 1000 and a power of at least 15000.

Since my deck was not so competitive, I decided to purchase some packs from the market and try opening them in search of some luck.

I wasn't so lucky this time, since I only found a single gold foil card and some rare ones... no epic or legendary at all... I know that the chances are really small, but still, it hurts... expectations are always high 😅

Although I wasn't discouraged, I rented out some useful cards and started playing some games... it wasn't easy but I finally managed to surpass the rating of 1000 🎉🎉🎉.

Now, the only thing that I have to do is to rent a gold-rare card, which gives 1000 DEC worth of power and I will unlock silver III. This will grant me 12 chests... let's hope at least one of them is a good card 🤞.

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https://3speak.tv/watch?v=aurzeq/nsyecsnj
Hello Hivers,

Last weekend, I decided with a friend that it was time to inaugurate the new year with a ride with our mountain bikes.

Since we were not in a perfect shape (due to the recent holidays and all the food associated with them 😅), we decided to go in a locality not so far with an easy-medium track. We went in Sarsina, which is almost 40 min from my house.

The height difference was 600 m, which is neither low neither too high, so it is a sort of middle ground that does not require too much effort (although I have to admit that near the end I was quite tired).

It took us almost 2 hours to arrive to the starting of the truck. Of course we had no rush, so we stopped some times to take a few shots of the environment.

Of course, if there isn't at least on problem, what kind of adventure it is?

First of all we took out our insta360 to film the descent, but of course the battery was down and it didn't work 😅 (next time we will charge it the day before). So, we were forced to take some videos with the smartphone (the one you see in the 3speak video).

And, since this was not enough, my friend also got a flat tire and we were forced to stop and repair it.

We took a look at the inner tube, and it actually was punctured in two opposite sides, so the repair was not so easy and probably neither too efficient. Luckily my friend had an old inner tube, which was itself punctured but with a very small single hole.

So we started repairing that one.

The first thing to do is to clean with a rough surface the area where the hole is present, so that it becomes as smooth as possible.

Next we applied the glue.

Finally we apply the patch over the glue and keep and apply a pression on it for a minute so that it adheres to the surface.

So the inner tube was ready to be sed.

But in order for things to not be too easy, we forgot in the car the tool that is required to remove the rear wheel. So instead of changing the inner tube with a the one that we repaired, we were forced to repair the punctured one 😅.

So we started again from the beginning and repaired also this one. Luckily we were able to inflate the inner tube and to start again our tour and enjoy finally a little of downhill.

In less than 20 min we were at the bottom of the hill (funny things last always less 😐).

We arrived at my car approximately at 15.00.

Since we were hungry and there was still the sun, we decided to stop in Sarsina, eat something and visit briefly the city.

Sarsina is famous since it was the city where the famous playwright Tito Maccio Plauto was born.

Plautus, is the author of the greatest theatrical production handed down in the Latin language. He was born in Sarsina, in the heart of Italy, where four regions, Umbria, Tuscany, Marche and Emilia Romagna, meet; his brilliant creative talents were positively affected by these rich and diverse cultural origins. According to Aulus Gellius, he first worked as an actor-translator, then as an author, and wrote about 130 comedies, managing to save up a fair amount of money: it was thus that he tried the path of business and was soon reduced to poverty, so much so that he was forced to subject himself to the hard work of turning the millstone of one of his creditors.

Salaciousness, comic vivacity and the ability to create characters are undisputed merits of Sarsinate. The very vitality of Plautin's theatre is the obvious subject of his immortal poetic power. And certainly the most important dramatic poet of Latin literature is the one who has most influenced the history of western theatre.

Gellio dedicated this few words to the poet:

Postquam est mortem aptus Plutus, Comoedia luget scaena est deserta, dein Risus, Ludus, locusque et numeri simul omnes conlacrimarunt For the death of Plautus, comedy mourns, the scene is deserted, the laughter, the play, the joke, the countless metrical rhythms, shed tears.

The sculptures are the work of Sarsino artist Domenico Neri.

Although it was a really nice and funny day, I am a little disappointed that we couldn't use the insta360 to film everything, the video would have been much better. But still, I am quite happy of the truck we did, since it was really funny.

Next time of course, we will check the charging level of the insta360 the day before.

If you enjoyed the post, please leave an upvote and/or a comment and feel free to follow me (at the link below) if you want to see my next post. ➡️ hive.blog/@aurzeq ⬅️

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