Anyone of you who has ever lived in a shared apartment knows that: full fridge, empty fridge, who cleans what? Nightly kitchen talks, mini trips, evening cooking sessions. We were able to experience all of this in our Santiago WG 2.0 with Marvin and Domenico, and later even with Daniel and Andre. Between chilling and excursions we enjoyed our shared life and gave our bodies some time to rest - with the result that at the end of the week we were in bed with our first cold. But here, too, we are glad that we got caught at the right time! All chill details coming now:

Saturday (Nov 12)

Saturday is chill day. And so we enjoyed the weather in the small village a bit. In addition, in the evening Cyril arrived with a friend. Domenico had met Kyrill on the Camino and invited him to Portugal.

Sunday (Nov 13)

Since the weather today made a reasonable impression and from the kitchen window the Castelo dos Mouros sank in a light fog, we (Domenico, Marvin and I) decided for a little bike tour. In the meantime, Tilman was so engrossed in programming and improving our website that he just managed to say goodbye to us. First of all, of course, it went uphill. When you're almost at sea level, there aren't that many options. The incline itself was again very pleasant and so we moved our pedals in steady circles. Of course, the stress factor was again the cars - how else should it be in Portugal and so Domenico suggested taking a fairly untraveled road up into the mountains - and we didn't regret it! As we dived into the fog and left the roar of the cars behind us, we were swallowed up by a mystical forest. The trees were gigantic and partially shed their bark, resulting in snare-like stuff hanging from the trees everywhere. Simply magical! And it was going to be even more magical, because as we approached a special place, Domenico got a little nervous. Later he told us that besides all the hippies in the area, there must also be people doing "Black Magic" ceremonies here. So black magic rituals. Although at least Marvin and I don't believe in something like that, we still wanted to continue quickly, because the well-deserved descent was waiting for us. And it was so much fun, I can tell you. Mainly because I had a slightly different perspective on my mountain bike. We then made a short coffee break at Faro Cabo da Roca (the westernmost lighthouse in continental Europe) and then drove back to the shared apartment in bright sunshine.

We were a bit hungry after our little jaunt. Luckily Domenico (apparently in Italian tradition) had ordered Sunday chicken and fries for us. The best thing that could have happened to us at that moment! This was followed by a long, hearty nap and we all woke up when it was already dark.

Monday (Nov 14)

We started the week with a little trip. Just sitting around and chilling is a bit boring in the long run. So we took the opportunity and drove Kyrill with Domenico's car to the train station in Sintra and visited the city on foot. We were all less enthusiastic than more and felt that the city is a bit overrated. Certainly one or the other beautiful house was there, but nobody felt like living there. Just restaurants and tourist shops as far as the eye can see. At least we got some small electrical parts that we needed. After we had gotten an impression of Sintra, we went straight on to one of my favorite things to do abroad: shopping at Lidl. Since we were there by car, we bought more right away. Also essential things like gingerbread and tartar sauce.

Tuesday (Nov 15)

Although the weather didn't look too promising today, we still decided to get back on the saddle. Marvin on his bike and Tilman and I on Domenico's mountain bikes, we set off over the Sierra (see Sunday) in the direction of Cascais. Luckily we had Tilman and his camera with us this time and can give you an impression of the atmosphere.

Shortly before Cascais we stopped again at the sea to take nice photos.

Arriving in Cascais, we first sat comfortably in a super nice park and had a bit of lunch. The park was pretty nice since - Tilman's photographer's heart beat faster - there were some exotic plants, you could watch the free-ranging chickens and admire baby turtles! Of course, there was also a bit of art.

Unfortunately the highlight should remain in Casca dieiscadba. From the park I saw a building with a dome and of course immediately thought of a planetarium. So we went and asked if there might be a planetarium hiding here, which has not yet been found in our reliable database. The dome was on the roof of a museum, but unfortunately none of the employees could help me. So no new planetarium after all :( Otherwise we only found a lot of cars and many high-rise buildings in Cascais. But above all random bike paths that started in nothing and ended in nothing, with no clever way to get up or down. For me that was the crowning glory of the day then a small incident with a (I think: too old to drive) man who passed us at what felt like walking pace and then smashed my handlebars away with his side mirror. Even though the oncoming lane was clear. The police were driving behind us, but of course they took care of it for nothing... It's like living dangerously on the streets of Portugal.This then confirmed my decision to take the shortest route from Portugal to Spain. To make matters worse, we would be subjected to an involuntary shower on the way back.

Wednesday (Nov 16)

Apparently we have the sunny days of Portugal behind us, because Wednesday started very rainy and foggy, so there wasn't that much to do. While Tilman stayed in bed, slightly ill, I took a short walk with Marvin to the cliffs just north of here. Apart from that, we all waited anxiously the whole day for Daniel's arrival (remember? We've already met Daniel in Bordeaux, in Burgos and of course in the Santiago WG). We then drove the last 4km towards Daniel and his friend Andre - so that they also had safe conduct to Domenico.

Thursday (Nov 17)

Unfortunately, Tuesday morning I woke up with a sore throat and a runny nose. And so the day actually consisted only of drinking and sleeping.

Friday (Nov 18)

Friday was similar to Thursday. sleeping and drinking. Also, Marvin, Daniel and Andre left us for a city trip to Lisbon. How gladly would we have accompanied them! That was a good fit, by the way, because Domenico is considering exchanging an apartment with someone from Lisbon and the person is supposed to come here this evening and try to live here for the weekend. Luckily we were allowed to stay in our room when we were ailing! We are really very grateful for that! Otherwise, there was still the highlight today that our two packages (the new luggage rack and the bob) arrived again as expected. Now we just have to get healthy and then we can continue! :-)

At the end there are two special things today: Tilman explains what he has reprogrammed and I'll tell you a bit about the (this time successfully) started Artemis mission.

Tilman's world of ones and zeros

I know most of you are not interested in the whole thing... but maybe one or the other is interested!

I've been thinking the whole trip about 2 things I took care of this week. You will probably see both over the next few days. Of course, before I could take care of it, I had to build my working environment, and so I struggled for almost a whole day to install a Linux operating system on a stick. For all those who want to do this: if you have a UEFI bootloader, you must use the partition that is normally responsible for booting the computer (e.g. if you cannot simply remove the hard drive, as with a third-party laptop, because you have to unstick the keyboard would...) remove the boot and esp flags so that the EFI file is written to the USB stick and not to the ESP partition. Don't forget to put them back on afterwards!

So with the first hurdle out of the way, I did a new interpolation. You've probably already wondered how the distance display works on our landing page. We also use the data that we constantly send and that are also displayed on the map to estimate the distance. Of course, since we only record a GPS point every 5 minutes, we may have made some corners in between and our distance will be underestimated. So we did a regression with days where we have both the GPS points and the speedometer data. From previous tours we have learned that we have to calculate about +10%. But since we now have new data from this tour (and a computer for the first time), I immediately made a new straight line, and lo and behold, on this tour we have to calculate with +14%! So we have already managed our 7000 km! The change on the display will only come in the next few days.

The second thing I noticed is that we load the entire data of the current tour each time the map is called up and do not cache the call (caching means the browser is smart and remembers some requests that it expects not to change , so he saves bandwidth because he doesn't have to download the font every time, for example). It also makes sense, because otherwise you wouldn't see the new points (since he remembered the last call)! But since this could become a big data slingshot in the long run, I made an update button on the map at the time, so you don't reload all points, but only query those since the last call. Practical, but I suspect that very few of you look at the map all the time. And when the tab is closed, of course, everything is gone.

Now that's not an absurdly big problem, because the request is still ~6kB for most users (for our parents it's already over 60), but if we drive a bit now, it's stupid if the same data is sent over and over again will. Therefore, more out of elegance than necessity, I've split up the query of the current tour, and so the data is "archived" each month and is only updated once a month (since the last month is now included).

Well, that's a great way to pass the time when you're stranded!

Ida's World of Stars

So today, due to current events, a brief presentation of the Artemis Mission: On November 16, the Artemis 1 Mission took off from the Kennedy Space Center after several aborted attempts (partly due to technical problems and partly due to bad weather). But what exactly is the Artemis Mission? The Artemis Mission is an international collaboration under US leadership with the aim of sending humans back to the moon, setting up intermediate stations both on the surface and in lunar orbit and then starting from there to Mars in the somewhat more distant future. The first steps are, of course, obvious: with the Artemis 1 Mission, the new equipment will be tested and the moon will be flown to for the first time in decades. Then follow the steps that people land on the moon again and a modular space station is built in orbit. From here the intensive exploration of the moon is to take place. This can be realized, for example, by sending robots to the moon and then running all communication via the space station. So a super exciting overall project, which heralds a new era of space research. I'm definitely excited to see what the future will bring!

See you next week and stay healthy!

Tilman and Ida