Getting ready for the summer!

My return to to work after admits weekend has been surreal. First, I come in on Monday just to find out that my two team mates have fallen ill with scarlet fever. In fact, it turns out I had infected them the week before, since I went back to work after a few days of illness, thinking I had tonsilitis! Apart from that, the leadership seems to be a bit nervous and I had my partner shouting at me for some alleged wrongdoings. Do they think they can motivate me to work by shouting at me if I'm leaving in five weeks? I don't think so!

Luckily, today is a bank holiday and I get to plan my life after management consulting. I'll have about 6 weeks off before I move to London in mid-August, so here are my plans. For the first one or two weeks of July I don't have any plans, I'll just sleep and hang out, enjoying the summer in Hamburg, maybe going to the Hamburg beach at the harbour. Coincidentally, I finish work on June 30th and it's my sister's wedding on July 1st so I'll definitely have a great motivation to celebrate!

From July 10th to July 26th, I'm planning to take an intensive Russian course. I was happy to find out at the admits weekend they have extended their portfolio of languages offered and are offering Russian, Mandarin and Arabic next year in addition to the usual suspects. It seems the first two terms we'll have 4h per week so I'm very enthusiastic about that, it sounds like I will have a good chance of finally reaching some level of competency in Russian. I don't think I'll ever get such a great opportunity to learn a language again.

From July 26th to about August 10th, I want to go hiking somewhere sunny. I have had such an unhealthy lifestyle over the last two years that I really just want to be outdoors on the move all day for a long time, getting exhausted and breathing fresh air. Some days all I breathe is hotel air, taxi air, office air, airport air, airplane air... no wonder I'm constantly falling ill! So the two favourite options I'm considering are:

Hiking in Switzerland

I was going to go to Zurich anyway where two good friends from my old student days are doing their PhDs, so today I realised it wouldn't make much sense to go all the way to Greece, if I'm going to Zurich anyway I might as well stay there and go to the mountains from there. The good thing is my friend there goes hiking every weekend so she should be able to tell me all the best routes and nicest spots to enjoy lakes and mountains. I'm especially curious about the Italian part of Switzerland (see picture), since I only know the German part so far. This is my preferred option.


Surfing in Portugal
Somewhat less relaxing than hiking, the very exhausting option is to fly to Portugal and take a surf course. I learnt surfing in the Sopelana surf school near Bilbao and extremely enjoyed it (at least once I managed to stay on the board after catching the wave!) but haven't had the opportunity to surf since then. Surfing was much more exhausting than I had ever imagined, so that's exactly what I'm looking for. They even seem to offer surf courses where you do yoga on the beach every morning, a weird combination but also pretty cool!


What should I do? Maybe both?