SADellite

Summer Footage

2011-08-28T13:36:00.001+02:00

Do your feet enjoy the summer breeze as much as this one does?

Braindump Books

2011-02-28T22:34:00.001+01:00

I love to poke around in book stores and today I stumbled into something special.

The book is called "Wie man sich die Welt erlebt" [Amazon.de] (the English version is called "How to be an Explorer of the World" [Amazon.com]) by Keri Smith.

So what is so special about this book? Well, it simply felt like a braindump of my very own head.
Do you know the feeling when you are listening to a person who is on the same wavelength? Do you know the urge to say "I also thought about the same thing recently" or "hey, I did this the other day"?

Browsing through this book was very close to that feeling.

It was almost ridiculous how close the chapters or tasks were to some of my photo walks (I call them "Digipirsches" - digital stalkings) or meandering thoughts.

Over the last years a lot of more or less weird ideas crossed my mind. Some of them turned into something practical (like the 24 hour photo experiment) and a lot of them left my head a few minutes later and I forgot about them.

The book flashed a huge pile of those thoughts and ideas back into my mind within seconds and I was super excited to remember all those things.

Of course I bought the book and of course it will help me to wake up again the perception for the small things in life - a point of view that had suffered in the last months.

On my way to the checkout the salesperson run (and I really mean "run") after me. I guess I was grinning a bit too broadly while browsing the book and she spotted that.

She said "It is a brilliant book, isn't it? We got it just a few days ago".
I replied "Oh yes, it is more than brilliant" and thought "You have no idea how brilliant, little lady".

Well, I actually haven't told you what's actually IN the book. That's for YOU to find out during your next visit to your favorite book store.
Keep me posted about whether the book inspired/reminded you at least a little bit as me.

Stuffed Animals for Vienna

2010-12-30T14:22:00.001+01:00

A Blue Bag, a Photo Rucksack and a Green Croc

Vienna for just one day? Why not.
My friend DD and I drove to Austria just for the sake of it. There was absolutely no plan what to do there and we enjoyed that fact very much.
Well, DD hat some kind of rough idea because he brought a huge blue bag full of stuffed animals. He got the stuff for free from a Second Hand Store in Germany. He didn't know what to exactly do with them but throwing the bag into the trunk of my car was at least a start.

He didn't tell me until arrival what's in the bag and when he showed the content to me in the morning in Vienna I was really excited. We decided to take the bag with us for our stroll through the city and see what happens.

We didn't have to wait long for the first encounter because we were struggling with a ticket vending machine for the subway because it wasn't accepting our bill. A girl stepped by to help us (BTW: not so likely back home in grumpy Franconia). She bought the tickets for us using her own coins after telling us some strange plan that included the exchange of tickets, coins, change and some sort of magic. Neither DD nor I are very good at math and we forced them to explain her strategy again and again. I am really bad in things like that and I always envy people at the supermarket checkout that hand over a random amount of coins the get just one bill back. In the end we gave up trying to understand and just trusted her. It was kind of a defeat for us boys but the was really way more clever than we.
Afterwards she just waved us good bye and walked away. DD and I just looked down at our blue bag, nodded and run after her.
She chose a piglet, smiled broadly and disappeared. Good start.

A Piglet in Exchange for some Ticket Vending Machine Help

One Trunk and a Lot of Bird Houses

The Stephansdom cathedral is the center of Vienna and we thought about just giving the stuffed animals away to kids. After some discussion we came up with the idea to not give animals for free but to ask for a poem in exchange. DD said that no one will recite a poem in public to get a useless stuffed animal. In the end we decided to invest exactly 15 minutes to find out.
My old chalk board was perfect for advertising saying "1 stuffed animal for 1 poem".

DD in Front of the Stephansdom

The pedestrian area in Vienna was full with street vendors so we didn't look like complete morons at the first glance - well, actually we did.

After a few minutes a group of tourists walked by and we just stopped a family from Croatia and told them about our "mission". The liked our idea but only their youngest daughter was brave enough to recite a poem in Croatian. I think she was really proud and I am sure that she will handle her new stuffed horse well.

A Poem in Croatian for a Stuffed Horse

Waiting for Poem People.

An old man walked by, read our chalk board and smiled.

We: Excuse me, would you like to have a stuffed animal in exchange for a poem?
Man: I don't know poems at all but I like your idea.
We: Hey, you just looked like you already searched your mind for one. Right? Be honest.
Man: Well, you are right. But I really don't know a single poem.
We: What about if you go back to your childhood days?
Man: Wait, I know a blessing for house owners. It rhymes. Does that count as a poem?
We: Of course. Perfect.
Man: Gott beschütze dies Haus vor Sturm und Feuer, denn es war sehr teuer. *big grin*
(god save this house from storm and fire, because it was expensive)
We: Hey, cool. We knew you know one. Thank you. What animal do you want?
Man: I did it completely for free. Thank you for reminding me of the poem.

In the end it was 3 poems in 15 minutes and some more interesting talks with strangers.

A Poem about Storm and Fire - for Free

2008 I have been to Vienna for a business trip and we visited a nice little cafe. The waitress had every right to opt for an elephant for her good service.

DD Gives an Animal to the Waitress of the "Cafe der Provinz"

While DD was dealing with the waitress I was talking to a group of people. A girl gave me a very nice poem for two stuffed mice (I promised not to publish the photo) and a blond grown up girl impressed her boyfriend by standing up and reciting some chapters of the classic "Der Erlkönig" from Goethe in front of all guests in the cafe. Really cool.

A Rabbit for a Goethe-Poem

The rest of the day was filled with a lot of kilometres walking around and in the afternoon I was really exhausted.

A Stopover in the famous "Cafe Museum"

In the end we still had approximately 20 animals left. Damn. After visiting the Secession building we sat them down for a public shooting and left a green worm.

DD Prepares Our Public Shooting Near Secession

The highlight of the whole day was at the very end of it. On our way back we saw a mother with her two sons in a subway station. One of the boys was crying very loud. DD and I followed them, stopped them and opened the blue bag in front of the crying boy.
We told the mother that we just want to help healing the crying with a stuffed animal.
Well, the open bag stopped the crying immediately. The little boy checked all the animals very carefully and took the biggest one. He didn't look exactly happy afterwards but at least he had some trust again in general justice in the world.

A Big Brown One Helps Healing

Summary? Hmm, a lot of talks to strangers, some happy faces, much more openess than I expected, tired feet and a cool tour with a friend in a cool city. Vienna rocks.

Don't ask me what happened to the rest of the stuffed animals. I guess they are living now in DD's apartment.

No Unlockable Doors

2010-12-22T06:05:00.002+01:00

There are no unlockable doors
There are no unwinnable wars
There are no unrightable wrongs
Or unsingable songs

There are no unbeatable odds
There are no believable gods
There are no unnameable names
Shall I say it again, yeah
(Ozzy Osbourne - I Just Want You)

It is a good day for stating slogans like the above.

Although I am a fan of the old songs of Ozzy I prefer the version of Hellsongs a lot more.

The line "There are no unrightable wrongs" is a tough one, isn't it?

Today - 3 Years Ago

2010-12-21T17:33:00.001+01:00

Time flies.
Exactly 3 years ago - on Dec. 21st 2007 my pal Daniel and I did our first 24 hour photo experiment.
We strolled through the city of Nuremberg for 24 hours - from midnight to midnight.
Our mission was to take random photos and see what happens and how many moments can fit into 24 hours if you try to live them intensely.
We created a little Web site with some of our photos and our thoughts from that day.

Actually I don't want to bother you with old stuff but because I used the "anniversary" to browse through the page I thought I just re-share it with you.

Here you go: http://www.twentyone24.de/index2007.htm
Yes, I know, all the texts are in German but I was too lazy translating all the stuff.

Integration Issues

2010-12-11T14:37:00.001+01:00

Do we do a good job when it comes to integration of fellow citizens with roots stretching out beyond the borders of Germany?
I don't really think so.
There's a lot of discussion around how to integrate migrants in Germany these days and I do have to admit that there are indeed some problems.

My city Nuremberg is also the city of a lot of people from Turkey, Russia, Kosovo, Iraq, Greek and from a lot more places around the world. A good share of them isn't really able to integrate because they can't use the most useful tool to do so: The matching language.

From my travels I know that language makes hell of a difference: It was so easy to connect to people in all the English speaking countries and a lot more challenging (up to almost impossible) in countries like Brazil or Jordan because I had no clue about Portuguese or Arabic at all.
I know that I am living a very privileged life with access to education and a good income (don't mention the latter to my boss). Knowing that, I can imagine that it is almost impossible to learn German if you are e.g. a woman from Iraq who the father has taken out of school in fifth grade and who now lives in Nuremberg as an immigrant in a traditional Arabic family.
My sister used to work as an elementary school teacher in Nuremberg and she told me that often the first-graders have to act as translators for their mums during parent-teacher conferences.
Really sad, isn't it?

The German government recently made some effort to improve that situation by forcing immigrants into so called 'Integration Classes'. Such a class last more than 400 hours and the main part of it to learn German. Other subjects of the class include to learn about the rights (and duties) of being a citizen in Germany and how to deal with civil service in a bureaucratic country like Germany.
All the learning lead to a feared 'Naturalisation Test' which caused a lot of discussion recently because the questions were considered either too lame or incredibly hard.

A few days ago I did the test online just for the sake of it and found the multiple choice questions quite reasonable.

Sample questions:
What happened in Germany on November 9th, 1938?
a) Germany attacked Poland starting WW2
b) The National Socialists lost an election and suspended the government
c) Jewish shops and synagogues were destroyed by National Socialists and their followers
d) Hitler becomes President of the German Reich

What is allowed during elections in Germany?
a) The husband can also vote on behalf of his wife
b) One can do postal voting
c) One can vote via telephone
d) Voting is possible starting with the age of 14

The Job Information Center can help on
a) Calculation your pension
b) Finding an apprenticeship position
c) Tax return
d) Health insurance

I don't know whether immigrants would be kicked out of Germany after failing the exam but I don't wanna know how many non-immigrant 'old school' Germans would fail the test miserably.

You can try the test for free [here...].

Oh, I almost forgot about the inspiration for this posting: I saw a flyer for a German class preparing for the Naturalisation Test. I really don't think it is a clever way to advertise a class for learing German in German language, is it?

PS: Just for the record: I passed the test with 33 correct answers out of 33. Therefore I won't be kicked out.

PPS: It would be great to hear how YOUR country helps immigrants.

Dummy Kid Games

2010-11-14T18:51:00.000+01:00

There are games where a grown up needs a kid as dummy. Dummy Kiding Games so to say.
You don't know what I mean?
Well, imagine a father giving a model railway to his kid for Christmas. It is not unlikely that the father buyed it because he secretly wants to play with it and if the kid likes it too it's just a bonus.

Today I played one of my favorite Dummy Kid Games - again. It is one of the games that are very universal and probably being played all around the world. Just grab a kid by its hands and spin it around as fast as you can.

I really love the perfect mixture of cheerful joy and a glimpse of fear screamed out load by the Dummy kid and I also love the dizzyness in my head after spinning twenty times at full speed.

In this case I guess my Dummy enjoyed it as much as I did - or maybe even a wee bit more.

Ads?

2010-11-04T17:17:00.000+01:00

I finally did it and joined the dark side. Am I a bad guy now?

The thing is that I switched on Google Ads on my blog. I am just curious what will happen and what kind of ads Google connects to the texts on my blog.
Actually I don't expect to earn any money but who knows. In the end there were more than 70.000 visitors to my blog since 2006.

At the moment it is one single ad just below the title row of the blog.

If it totally annoys you just drop me a note and I consider switching it off again.

Homage Dinner

2010-11-02T22:45:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was All Saints' Day.
Here in Bavaria this day goes hand in hand with a visit to the graves of loved ones. In some places it ends up in big crowds rushing around the cemeteries carefully paying attention in being noticed by the neighbors.
If those crowds master to remember the dead relatives simultaneously to fulfilling social conventions, it's fine for them. I don't like it for myself, though.
I would probably feel different if the gatherings would be more like the celebrations of Day of the Dead in Mexico.

Yesterday, more or less by coincidence I had the chance to remember my dead Granny in a slightly differeny way: With my nose and with my stomach.

For the first time ever my girlfriend and I prepared a dinner that is very closely related to my Grandmother. The dish is called "Linsen und Spatzen" and consists of lentils with spaetzle noodles. In the days of my Granny it was a poor mans dish because of the cheap ingredients.

I can exactly remember the smell of the lentils when I entered our house after school as a kid. It is one of the smells I really connect to a certain human being - my Grandmother preparing lunch.

Yesterday my kitchen smelled like my childhood days and the memory of my Granny and of some of her funny awkward mannerisms flashed my mind.
After a while I realized that it was All Saints' Day and that my lentil menu was nothing less than my very own homage dinner.

Although my Granny wasn't the best chef in the world (actually quite the contrary) my connection of lentils to her will probably last as long as I live.

Unexpected Tenderness

2010-10-27T19:44:00.000+02:00

Why is it, that one doesn't really expect to spot signs of tenderness from some people?
I wouldn't be surprising to see a young couple holding hands but for some reason it seems kind of uncommon to see some older folks show their affection in public.

The couple on the photo did show that they belong together in a way that really touched me. They were sharing a stunning view down to the Danube river at the Walhalla temple near Regensburg.

In one moment they were just standing close together and in the next one there was this gesture for "hey this looks stunning and I am glad that I can share this moment with you".

The guys made me smile in a good way.

Nudging Forward

2010-10-25T17:13:00.000+02:00

Finally I feel like start blogging again. It's remarkable how much energy can be stolen by some things without noticing it. Energy that would have been really helpful to keep my eyes open for all the small things that enriched my life and to blog about it.

Like the little guy in the video it might be helpful to get little nudges from time to time to keep crawling (walking, jumping, flying etc.) forward.

Maybe I'll tell you a bit more about my trip around the world because I stopped right in the middle of New Zealand. There is a lot more to come from Australia, Vietnam, India and Jordan.
Maybe I'll show you some photos or video footage from stuff that fed my soul in the summer.
Maybe I'll just share some weird unfinished thoughts with you.

I really look forward to it - and to your comments.

If you wonder who I am talking to in this blog - don't ask me, I dunno.

Stirring Sounds

2010-10-24T17:52:00.000+02:00

There was a thing that kept myself busy since I was a child. Really.

I have no idea how many cups of beverages I stirred until now but almost every single time I listened to the sound my spoon made in the cup when stirring.
There was always the suspicion that the stirring noise differs dependent on the the liquid and on the temperature.
Cold milk seemed to sound different to hot milk and a coffee different to ice tea.

Well, finally I extended my breakfast with a scientific experiment to give my poor mind some rest.

What can I say - my theory proved to be right! The stirring sounds ARE different.

You might say "so what?" but for me it was a big deal. A very big deal.

Try to listen to the stirring sound the next time you enjoy a hot beverage. Listening will even extend the joy of it. I promise.

Yellow Rustling

2010-10-10T17:50:00.001+02:00

To a tree in the parking lot of a nearby school:

Bursting in colors
Before a big sleep
A scream in bright yellow
And then resting deep
I though got the message
Of leaves lying curled
That it could make big sense
To color my world
The voice of your foliage
Make my mind jump and sing
You fade for a few months
See you next spring

clickme

2010-09-27T20:51:00.001+02:00

Some presents require a special response. Thanks to a friend for a lovely Africa-Survival package!

Glow Worms! / Waitomo, New Zealand, November 2008

2010-05-15T18:00:00.000+02:00

After the abseil / the boots are already filled with water *)

Now I know why I have holes in my rubber boots. It is to get rid of the water that floods in from the upper rim. Actually my boots are completely filled with water - and it is damn cold.
I am standing in the middle of an underground river in a cave wondering what the hack I am doing here.

A little while ago I drove together with two French girls and two English guys with a van through the green hills of the Waitomo area. We were equipped with wet suits, helmets, head lamps, harnesses - and rubber boots with holes in it.
Our mission was to explore a cave by doing "Black Water Rafting".
Crouching through caves and all kinds of abseiling would have been enough to get me but in addition a fellow traveller mentioned that there are glow worms in some Waitomo caves.
Glowing worms? No idea what to expect.

Our guide Bettina briefed us about our equipment and pointed out that this wouldn't be a good idea for any person struggling with vertigo or claustrophobia.

*)

While I slowly descended down into the cave my environment changed completely and all senses noted a shift of gears.
The green hills changed into a indication of greenish light from above, the bird voices changed into the swoosh of water and the smell of fresh grass turned into that very unique cave-mixture of moisture, wet stones and soil.

All of a sudden I touched ground respectively water by landing in the middle of the stream that runs through the cave. I really had to inhale hard because the water up to my knees was very cold - and I mean 'very'. Was I really supposed to wade through that dark liquid antarctic for several hours? I guess so.

So here I am, in a cave rive'r. Let's enjoy it.

Freezing cold darkness *)

While waiting for the rest of my group to abseil I started to enjoy the scenery. Light fingers pointed down from above and when looking up there was no blue sky but a very intense green.
If you ever want to amplify a color just put complete darkness around it.

Everyone of us fetched an inflated rubber tube and we made our way up the river.
Bettina led us through a lot of small and smallest crevices and every time the water reached the next area of my body my lungs seemed to collapse.

Sometimes we had to crouch on our back with the cold water up to our ears - literally *)

After a while we reached a kind of underworld sandy beach in a bigger hall. We sat down on our tubes and Bettina shared some of her knowledge with us.
The said that the ceiling of the hall is covered with glow worms and that they illuminate to attract insects as prey. I looked up and saw not a single glowing thing. Did they cheat on me?
Bettina asked us to switch off our head lamps. Have you ever had the feeling of being swallowed by darkness? If there is a climax of 'pitch black' this would have been the moment to use it.

The underground sandy beach*)

I looked up into the darkness and was disappointed: No glowing worms above me. Did they really rip me off?

After some seconds of silence Bettina said 'Shall I switch the worms on? They are sensitive to noise and I am going to make some. Be prepared."

Without further warning she slammed her rubber tube on the surface of the water creating a really loud bang.

Sometimes you can densify a whole day into just one second. On this particular day it was the second after the bang.
It was like someone had switched on a steroid version of a starry sky. The whole ceiling was covered with thousands and thousands of little green-yellow glowing spots. The fact that it was completely dark around us amplified the effect, too. It seemed that the starry night was all around me because the worms reflected even on the surface of the water.
I never saw something similar before and I don't expect to see anything like it in the future.
Only the fact that I already had goose bumps from the cold water before prevented my skin from doing it again because of the sheer beauty of the moment.

A 30sec long exposure / Look at the glow worms behind us / Click on photo to enlarge *)

I cannot remember how long we sat in the darkness staring up to the worms but it was long - very long.

On our way back down the stream we 'embarked' our tubes and rafted down the river which was big fun and really kind of an adventure.
On some calmer parts we switched our lamps off again and drifted slowly through the starry darkness and from time to time we clapped onto the water to illuminate the worms again. Now we noticed that the whole cave was full of glow worms.

Rafting in our rubber tubes *)

Mastering some parts of the river was really like rafting. The water was quite wild as it made its way around the rocks. Everyone of us fell off the tube more than one time but for some reason the cold water wasn't a problem at all any longer.

English-French-German exploration squad

I didn't waste a thought about the climb up into the light until we came back into the entrance hall. The walls of the cave were almost vertical and climbing with rubber boots isn't very comfy.
In the end it was fun, too, because Bettina secured us with a rope.

The whole tour was one of my absolute favorites in New Zealand and the perfect combination of adventure, sight seeing, physical exercise and team thing.

Oh, I should mention that I can absolutely recommend the company I did the tour with: "Rap, Raft 'n' Rock". The groups are very small, the guide was superb and even their small hostel was cute and relaxing.

*) Photos taken by Bettina of 'Rap Raft'n'Rock' with a water proof camera. I didn't bring my own camera into the cave for obvious reasons.

Mirroring the Future

2010-05-14T17:10:00.004+02:00

Sometimes you walk on grounds that are connected to your future without knowing it.
In 2007 I shot this photo in Chicago. This artwork is called "Cloud Gate" and the reflection of the surrounding skyline fascinated me a lot.

In a few weeks I will be on a 7-day business trip to Chicago. While looking up the location of my meeting in Google Maps I was like "Wait a minute, this is right next to this mirror artwort thing".
I browsed through my photos of 2007 and found out that the skycraper of the Aon Center is mirrored on the surface of Cloud Gate on one of my shots.

I never thought that I would have the chance to actually work inside this tall building three years after 2007.

Looking at my old photo today is like catching a glimpse into my future.

Life is full of surprises, isn't it?

Pearls

2010-05-04T22:48:00.003+02:00

Fragile pearls
You must not touch their green beds
The sleeping beauty is vulnerable

Contributions to the Big Play

2010-04-13T00:02:00.003+02:00

"...
That you are here - That life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

What will your verse be?
..."

The lines are out of "The Dead Poem Society" and are really stuck in my head since I started watching the movie again during the last weekend.

If life is like a big play and you can contribute only one verse - what would your verse be?
A great question, isn't it? I really love this movie.

If I can contribute a verse I should try hard not to ruin it - starting NOW.

Sunday Morning

2010-03-14T12:46:00.001+01:00

No words.

Smiling Feta

2010-03-13T13:25:00.000+01:00

I am really not able to open the pack of Feta cheese. I haven't for more than a week. Do you know why? It is because of the smiling sheep in the logo.
The sheep looks way to friendly, doesn't it?
Oh boy, I am getting old.

Katzenjammer / Nuremberg, March 2010

2010-03-06T17:12:00.003+01:00

I can't believe that I haven't been to a concert for more than two months now.
Yesterday I ended this period: I had a date with four wonderful ladies from Norway.

The Band is called 'Katzenjammer' and the name is actually a German word.
Literally translated it means 'cats howling' but actually it is a slang expression for the feeling when you are hangover.

The girls made a really funny mixture of Folk, Balkan and Pop. Sometimes it sounds like a Waltz, sometimes like Soul and sometimes like the soundtrack for a circus show.

They had lots of instruments on stage and every girl played every instrument. They changed roles and lead vocals after almost every song but played with great virtuosity, though. It seemed that playing a dedicated instruments just bores them.

When you see a blond girl with flowers in her hair and a pink polka dot dress out of a 60s second hand shop play the drums while blowing trumpet at the same time you instantly think that Metallica's Lars Ulrich is nothing than a rather mediocre drummer.

Small, funny, (relatively) unknown bands with catching music - that's why I love live concerts so much.

I enjoyed the gig a lot and you really should give their music a try - for example by watching the following video.

12 out of 10 Happiness / Waianakarua, New Zealand, December 2008

2010-02-28T19:09:00.004+01:00

Lynn and Kim

This time I want to share one of the most impressive encounters of my whole trip with you.
This posting will be a hard one because I will try to explain something that wasn't seizable - it was only a click in my head - well, actually a constant clicking. Even if I'll fail to explain, you may at least get an idea about how much meeting some people touched me.

I was heading north on the south coast of the South Island. It was late afternoon and I was looking for a place to stay for the night. The hostel I had in mind was fully booked and I literally stumbled upon a sign saying 'Olive Grove Lodge' instead.

The Olive Grove Lodge was a tiny hostel in an absolutely magnificent garden. Looking back it was the most comfy hostel of my whole trip.

I was the only guest that time and the owner Kim greeted me very warmly. We had a short conversation and my first impression was that he really knows how to do tourist smalltalk. But there was something more. Something was strange about that guy. Something I could not grasp yet.

After a while I was checking out the common kitchen. It was actually the kitchen of the owner's family. They shared it with their guests. I made myself a cup of herbal tea from the huge collection of organic teas out of the hostel garden as Kim explained.

He told me that his wife Lynn and he started the hostel a few years ago. They grow organic food and teach their sons at home because Lynn is a teacher. This may sound like the prototype of some kind of weird eco-family - it was not, quite the opposite.

Some of my impressions from Olive Grove Lodge

Kim told me that some European girl was leaving the hostel today without paying and that such behavior is not super rare. Apart from the fact that he of course didn't like cheating guests he didn't seem to be upset.
I asked whether he had a good day anyway. His way of saying something like
Udo, it was an absolutely fantastic day' sounded absolutely authentic to me.

He told me about his day and that he likes what he does very much.

Without noticing, both of us had already left the solid path of polite smalltalk for a small hiking path leading into some thicker bushes of conversation.

I said 'Wow, this sounds very convinced. I am glad that you had a good day'. After a short pause I dared to add something like 'You seem to be sort of happy. Are you?'.

He looked at me not a bit astonished about such a question but just said 'Oh yes, I am very happy'.

You might know that I have the habit of trying to rate happiness from time to time. Yes, I know it's probably quite stupid but that's how I am wired.

My next question to Kim was 'If you should rate your current happiness with then points, how much would you give? 10 points mean "super happy" and 0 points indicate absolute sadness'.

The answer of Kim was simply '10' - uttered with the same convincing tone.

'10 points? 10 is maximum. You are as happy as you can be? Really?'

Kim smiled and said 'Yes I am as happy as I can imagine.'

I was impressed because it didn't feel like an airy statement.

Kim left and I prepared my dinner using lots of the complimentary herbs. Afterwards I mounted my slackline in the garden and did some balancing with Kim's son Joseph - a funny and curious guy.

Slacklining with Joseph

After a while Kim came back to me and said 'Udo I told my wife Kim about your happiness rating question. Do you know what she said? She said whether she could give 12 points as well because she feels 12 out of 10 happy. Udo you have to meet Lynn'.

And so I did.

It might sound kitschy but to me Kim and Lynn seemed to be a perfect couple. I sensed a mixture of deep respect, harmony of two strong characters and knowing that being with the other one makes oneself better.

On arriving I noticed 'something strange' about Kim and by now I knew what it was: He was happy.
He and Lynn were happy and even better, they were very aware of it and thankful to whoever.
I was really amazed. Really really.

Lynn, Kim and I had a very long talk that evening about life in general, about the obstacles along the way and about doing the right thing.

Before leaving the Olive Grove Lodge the next day I asked them to write down their word of the day for me. Because we talked about organic food as well they wrote 'You are what you eat'. But if you look closely you can see a small 12/10 in the corner. At the first glance it might seem to be just the rest of some former chalkboard scribbling but is is not and now you know the story about it.

I thought a lot about Kim and Lynn the next days, throughout the rest of my trip and even until today.
Both of them don't know how much they inspired me. Hm, maybe I send a link to this posting to them.

I hope that all of you are at least a little bit as happy as Kim and Lynn that December day in 2008. What place would the world be with more Kims and Lynns? Maybe the world IS full of them and I was simply too blind to see - yet.

Yes, I know this posting is already way to long. But you seem to be still reading, ain't you?

In my job I share an office with a guy named Tom. He and his girlfriend Dési went to New Zealand for vacation end of 2009. I gave them some recommendations for hostels and the Olive Grove Lodge was one of them. Tom got a printout of the chalkboard photo of Kim and Lynn and the assignment to give it to them in case they stay at their place.
Tom and Dési accomplished the mission and here is their report of it - uncut and in their own words. Thanks folks - you rock!

Dési and Tom (on the right) one year later at the Olive Grove Lodge

After dinner at the Speights brewery in Dunedin we headed towards Oamaru. We arrived at Olive Grove Lodge shortly after 8 pm and found our host Kim in the kitchen. After some funny complaints about us being late we promised him some surprise. He immediately asked “Who sent you here?” Obviously he often welcomes guests sent by previous guests.
I showed him a photo printout asking him whether he remembers the ‘Guy with the chalkboard’ that took the photo of his wife with the writing on the chalkboard ‘you are what you eat’.

He was totally puzzled!
Then he smiled and told us that he and his wife Lynn just talked about this guy from Germany one week ago with some guests. They were asked about the funniest guests they had. After a short discussion they remembered Udo and he was awarded to be “one of the strangest guests ever” J
He looked at the three photos I gave him, took them and went out of the house with the words “I have to show them to my wife … she won´t believe it”.

We had a nice and peaceful stay for two nights at Olive Grove Lodge – with Lynn, Kim and their two sons. Be sure to ask them for the route to the penguins and sea lions and “Fleurs Place” – the famous restaurant.

Dési & Tom

If you have the chance to stay at Olive Grove Lodge - do it!
Here is their website: http://www.olivebranch.co.nz

Rock Concert Branches

2010-02-28T15:09:00.009+01:00

A storm is coming.
Its name is 'Xyntia' and it already howled over France the other day.

I stare out of my big living room window and watch the gray-blue colored cloud-dough racing around my house.

The wind is speeding up and the branches of the cherry tree in the garden are waving at me like the arms of an ecstatic audience at a rock concert.
The remains of last autumns dead leaves spiral up in the air in front of my window in a direction that calls the law of gravity a myth.

From time to time the sun manages to pour a few buckets of yellow light over the scenery for some extra Tim-Burton-ness.

It feels really surreal to stand in a warm room seeing nature rave outside - a bit like the ending scene from the movie 'Fight Club'. In that scene Jack and Carla are looking out the window watching skyscrapers collapse.
The soundtrack for that scene was 'Where is my Mind' from the Pixies.

I am listening to that song right now - it works! Sometimes life can be like the ending scene of a movie if you add the right song.

Here is the scene from Fight Club I am talking about:

Board'n'Post / Grosser Arber, Germany

2010-02-27T14:49:00.001+01:00

What kind of tech-world is this if one can publish Blog postings while sitting in the snow with a Snowboard attached?

I decided on very short notice that this Saturday is perfect for a single day of snowboarding.

The mountain Grosser Arber is not the Alps but it is only a 2.25 hour drive from Nuremberg.

Sunshine, cold clear air and that incredible noise the carving of the Snowboard does while flirting with the snow - wow!

I am very proud of myself because it is only my second time boarding and today I dared to do a red (medium) track for the first time. Don't ask how many times I crashed but it was worth it.

Excuse me now I have things to do now.

Lonely Planet Destroyed My Life

2010-02-27T06:33:00.000+01:00

A friend I traveled with for just one day on Hawaii gave me a link to very interesting article.
It is about the backpacking virus that might hit you again and again as soon as you started traveling.

Although I am NOT close to leave my job for good I can find some similarities to my own experiences.

It is only a 3 minute read (in German language) and you can find it [here].

Sheep / New Zealand, December 2008

2010-02-26T19:30:00.004+01:00

Double White Tuft

One of the commentators of the previous (test) posting requested something about vegetarian sheep. Actually I think the request has something to do with an upcoming afternoon playing "The Settlers of Catan". To make it crystal clear to that commentator: I will not trade sheep for wood just to be nice. You will not gonna like me!

Apart from that Catan-comment my last postings have been about the motherland of all sheep anyway: New Zealand.

It was really kind of ridiculous to have sheep everywhere - literally. During my days on the road it was not uncommon to stop for a herd of sheep that decided to cross the road just in front of me.

Although I shot thousands of photos in New Zealand there is only a single one dedicated to the woolen animal.
I was driving to a small waterfall on a late afternoon. Actually the waterfall was big enough to act as a major tourist site in Europe. In New Zealand it was nothing special, it didn't even have a name and I was the only visitor.

During my short walk to the fall I saw the sheep standing on the top of of a hill.
My perpective was perfect: The green hill and the sheep against the blue sky - with a tuft of white whool in form of a cloud nearby.

Oh, by the way - here is the nameless waterfall. Nothing special compared with the sheep, is it?

Test

2010-02-23T17:30:00.000+01:00

Trsfjhgg

Car Soundtrack / North Island, New Zealand, November 2008

2010-01-25T21:22:00.008+01:00

One of one million beautiful spots just beside the road in the Waikato area. Click on photo to view on Flickr.

During some long car drives on the North Island I shot short movies out of the car window.
Actually I did it because the green hills reminded me of the Shire out of Lord of the Rings so much. The whole landscape looked like the desktop background image with the green hills you might still know from Windows XP.

While browsing through the movies a few days ago I realized that the music I was listening to is hearable in the footage.
I was using a little FM transmitter to listen to my iPod music via the car radio.

I was smiling when I heard the songs again because I really connect them to my New Zealand trip.

Usually my music is a bit more Indy-like with some loud noise involved. Here it was completely different.

I prepared a little compilation of some car-video-snippets to give you an idea of the landscape on the North Island and of my music as well. If you listen closely you can even hear me whistling in one scene.

Trips without music wouldn't last that long, would they?

Here is my video

PS: Driving on the left side of the road is scary, isn't it? Luckily the roads in New Zealand are almost empty.

Tongariro Alpine Crossing / New Zealand

2010-01-22T18:30:00.001+01:00

The volcano is 'Mount Doom' of Lord of the Rings (Mount Ngauruhoe)

If you are in New Zealand and not a complete ignorant of nature and outdoor activities you can't miss one specific hike: The 'challenge' is to cross a mountain range in a full-day tour and it is called 'Tongariro Alpine Crossing' in Togariro National Park near Turangi on the North Island.

The trek is 19 kilometres (12 miles) long, one has master more than 800 metres (2600 feet) of altitude difference and it takes 8 hours to get to the end of the path.

The interesting thing is that you cross different kinds of vegetation from small waterfalls and Scotland-like green hills over volcanic areas up to rocky grounds and snow on the highest point. The downward slope passes very blue lakes and ends in a lush rain forest.

The fact that you get all of the above in one single day makes this crossing one of the most popular hikes in New Zealand and you can imagine what that means regarding the number of hikers. This is especially true if you do the crossing on the first sunny day after a 4 day period of rain.

One can find a waterfall for every natural break ;-)

I managed to avoid the crowds and to hike on my own most of the day. The nature just blew me away.

I met a group of girls from my hostel and we walked some parts together. It was a good combination of talking and silence and it was perfectly ok to separate again after a while.

Emerald Lakes

After the highest point, the Red Crater, the Emerald Lakes came into view. Although the photo above is a HDR image the colors of the water are untouched - that's why the lakes are called Emerald Lakes. My lunch spot was in the shadow of a rock overlooking one of the lakes - in solitude.

Crossing several creeks and the clouds.

Rain forest at the end of the hike

When you look back to a vacation you might find some days you consider as very intense, positive or amazing. The memory of such a day is usually long lasting - no doubt.
But wouldn't it be even more intense to realize the extraordinary attitude of the day while you are living it instead of recalling a memory afterwards? For some reason it is sometimes hard for me to do so.
The day on Tongariro was one of the rare situations when I realized already in the morning that it was a special day. I enjoyed every single breath, almost every step, all the different shades of green, the ugly smell of the volcanic fumes and my sore muscles. It felt like a constant pressing of the 'Record' button inside my memory.
Right now in this second it is not 'Record' but 'Replay'. I am a super lucky guy, ain't I?

iArt / Nuremberg, January 2010

2010-01-18T22:50:00.001+01:00

Click on photo to view it in different sizes on my Flickr account

What the heck is Art? Do you know? I don't.

I used to think that art can't be explained or defined or described.

Last Sunday I visited a exhibition of the photographer Jürgen Teller in Nuremberg. He seems to be kind of famous because of his photos of celebrities like Kate Moss without Make Up. Big deal.

One room in the museum was just filled with photos from his vacation in Japan. Actually it was just a bunch of third class blurry photos of enfants with flash-red eyes and people from familiy gatherings in front of tilted horizons.

I was about to think that it might just be an provocation of Teller to confront the visitors with prints that are absolutely non-artsy on the first glance. But then I read the booklet that described the room.
The curator wrote about Teller playing with intimacy and nearness with great expertise.
Oh boy, it sounded like a huge pile of Art-bullshit-bingo.

Immediately afterwards I looked up 'Art' in Wikipedia on my cell phone because I was wondering what categories art in museums has to follow.
Apart from the fact that I didn't understand the sophisticated words I realized again that art is nothing to be described by words - neither in Wikipedia nor in exhibition booklets.

In a nutshell something is art for me if it touches and inspires me and the photos of Teller definitely didn't. Not at all. I have no idea why this guy is considered a great photographer.

Wow, it feels good to be ignorant.

Oh I just noted that this posting is doing just the one thing I just questioned: Categorizing or explaining art.

Lead Role in a Cage / Germany, January 2010

2010-01-13T18:13:00.004+01:00

A small detail from my current life

Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
And cool comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in the war,
For a lead role in a cage?

It has been a while since my last posting, hasn't it?
Well, I just didn't feel like posting recently.
Let's see whether this will change a bit in the future - ready to go for my fourth year of blogging.

If I roll back one year from today, January 13th 2010, I found myself in India close to the border to Pakistan in a small city called Jaisalmer. Wow, my current life is lightyears away from those Jaisalmer days.

A scene from my life exactly one year ago in Jaisalmer

Annual Soul Armor Rings

2009-11-24T19:02:00.003+01:00

I am wondering whether the armor around ones soul is getting thicker and thicker with every year like the annual rings of a tree.

Maybe it is just the other way round and the soul-bark is being worn down by many touches and as an elderly you have a soul that is shiny, pure and accessible for all your loved ones.

Actually I think the first option is more likely.

What do YOU think?

The Hitchhiking Lady / Turangi, New Zealand

2009-10-27T00:05:00.001+01:00

This time I want to tell you about a fascinating lady. I got to know her because I asked her to write down her favorite word of the day on my chalk board.

I met her in the small town Turangi on the North Island of New Zealand. She was staying in the same hostel and after having the dinner we prepared in the small kitchen we started talking.

The lady was born in New Zealand and lived there her whole life but she never stopped exploring her country. Her way of discovering the essence of her country was to hitchhike and to soak up the stories of the people that give her a lift.

She showed me a big book with hundreds of hand written pages. Notes she wrote while hitchhiking.

The lady had the gift of making her conversational partner open up within just a few minutes. According to her she asks the drivers whether she might write down some notes.
Surprisingly enough the drives agree almost every time and during long drives the strangers tell her their whole life - and she just listens and write it down.
Amazing, isn't it?

I didn't dare to ask whether I can read some chapters. In the end it wasn't necessary because she told me a few anonymized ones.

Her plan was to publish all the things she learned about her fellow Kiwis in a book and what she showed me was nothing less than the original script.

Imagine a book with the stories of strangers. A book full of ups and downs, full of cheerful moments and grief, stories about husbands and nephews and girlfriends and about the chances and obstacles that life dropped in their way.

I can't tell how inspiring this old lady was to me. Encounters like this one made my trip around the world so very very valuable for me. Actually the people I met were much more impressive that the wonderful landscapes I was lucky to see.

Unfortunately I didn't note her name and I don't know whether she managed to publish her book.

Oh, by the way: The word "Partnership" on the chalk board was the topic of our initial conversation. It was about people acting together instead of competing.

Scaled Up Chalk Boards / Auckland, New Zealand

2009-10-26T00:14:00.003+01:00

Click on photo to enlarge

The Youth Hostel in Auckland was a very big one and it wasn't one of my favorites, to be honest. Too big, too much hectic, too much unfriendly Germans.

But there was one thing I liked about the place: In every floor there was a big chalk board mounted to the wall beside the public pay phone.
The purpose of the board wasn't obvious and therefore it was full with scribbled John-loves-Mary kind of statements enriched with different shapes of the male genital. No idea why pubertal boys love to sketch their part-time-brain so much.
Anyway - I like people writing on chalk board - even penis-artists.

That night I was sitting in the public area till late at night checking out my next destinations in New Zealand on my notebook.

On the way back to my room the corridors were abandoned and that gave me the chance to clean the chalk board completely and to replace the scribblings with the sentence "Why was your day worth living it today?". Then I sneaked away.

The next morning the chalk board was still untouched (well at least no more penises) and I doubted that my experiment would work.

But it took only a few more hours to get the people ignited. When I came back to the hostel after a day of sight seeing I saw four entries on the chalk board. Four!

Gosh - I guess my big grin scared the other guests a bit because they had no idea about the reason.

I immediately signed a mental contract in my head to ask strangers this question more often. In the end it is only for egoistic reasons because it makes me a bit more happy.

Size does matter - that might not only be true for parts of the male body but also for the size of chalk boards.

Mood Detector

2009-10-25T14:41:00.003+01:00

Can you tell the mood of a human being just by looking at him/her?

Sometimes it seems quite obvious how a person feels inside and sometimes your counterpart looks like a complete enigma.
Mastering this discipline would be very helpful for using it on your own character also.

If you are confused by your own thoughts and not able to sort them out you could just look in the mirror. You would simply observe the guy at the other side of the mirror and get a clue what is going on in your own head or soul.

I saw this monkey yesterday in the Nuremberg zoo and kept looking at it for quite a while.
First of all I was impressed about how similar the mimic was compared to us Homo Sapiens.

The animal seemed to be very tired. Maybe tired by life. It reminded me at the kind of tiredness you sometimes feel when you are very sad.
On the other side, the way the monkey held its arms looked kind of peaceful.

The longer I looked the stronger grew the suspect that the monkey isn't sad but just deep in monkey-thoughts. I liked the idea that the animal's mind was strolling back to some bright moments.

Look close - don't you think it is possible that the facial expression is the one of the moment when a loved one strokes over your head.

As always I just don't know and I am damn sure that I am kind of a rooky when it comes to deep down into the mind of friends.

For now a leftover from that monkey observation scene is the question whether the folks around me are able to "read" me. If yes, what would they see?

Leaf Collecting / Nuremberg 2009 and Salvador, Brazil 2008

2009-10-20T20:01:00.005+02:00

This photo was shot on October 07th 2009 near the village where I grew up

This posting is a merger of two different leaf-related thoughts.

Last week while doing a wonderful hike in a forest in the region where I grew up I was stunned by the color explosion caused by the autumn around me. I saw a tree with lush green leaves partnering with bright yellow ones. I really had to shoot a photo of it.
Afterwards I was like "Hey, this is a déjà vu. Didn't you shoot the same photo last autumn?"

Indeed, I did.

Almost exactly one year ago on my trip around the world I visited the city of Salvador in Brazil. During my exploration of the city I came up with a photo assignment for me and some fellow travelers. Topic was to create a photo with the Brazilian colors yellow and green without having the Brazilian flag in the photo. Kind of hard, believe me.
Finally I went with some colored leaves and the rotten buildings of the city in the background.

Isn't it strange that I shoot almost the same thing again one year later?
It made me think about how different my life is to the time of autumn 2008 when I was traveling and that some things are still the same.

I shot this photo in Salvador, Brazil on September 30th, 2008

The actual trigger for this posting was an old woman I saw today on the sidewalk while waiting on a red traffic light. The lady was suddenly stop walking and picking up a colored leaf.
She was carefully rubbing off the dust with her fingers. She treated the leaf like a precious thing and not like a piece of rubbish that nature pours over the city in huge numbers.
I guess the leaf was nothing less that the perfect one with exactly the right shape and the ultimate color. After a while she put it in her pocket and walked on.

For some moments she was not an old limping grandmother but a proud queen with a very satisfied look on her face. Great!
First of all I thought whether she was a bit nuts but after a second I was angry with myself for that thought.

I am quite sure that this planet would be a tiny little bit of a better place if all of us would look for perfect leaves from time to time.

Dough Scraping

2009-10-19T18:49:00.006+02:00

Before

Sometimes it is not about 'how much' but simply about 'how'.
Imagine that you bake a cake and you decide not to put it in the oven but to eat all the raw dough out the bowl. You simply could do that because you are a grown up and nobody would care. It is not likely that you do it, isn't it?

For some magical reason it is far more adventurous and non compliant to bake the cake and to lick the dough scraper after filling the cake pan.
You could also simply put the scraper into the dishwasher after using it - but this would be a complete waste of inobedience, wouldn't it?

Be honest: You already did it and you will do it again and again. Am I right?

Help me understanding why be behave the way we do - or just identify me as the only person who does so.

After

Life in Technicolor

2009-09-28T19:59:00.003+02:00

Click on photo to view it in different sizes on my Flickr account

Why am I so damn blind for the beauty at my fingertips? You can find extraordinary things right next to your door if you look closely.

If some entity decided to equip even such little creatures like this bug with Technicolor I should start to look for the beauty within higher creatures as well. According to my current theory Homo Sapiens Sapiens is supposed to be full of it.
My own personality should be a good starting point.
Any hints where to start the search?

By the way: The species of the little guy is Chrysomela varians - the German name is "Veränderlicher Blattkäfer". I like that name - it means 'changeable leaf bug'.

'Changeable', hmm?

The title of this posting is inspired from a song from Coldplay. Listen to it [here...].

Dazlioism

2009-09-02T21:36:00.001+02:00

Usually I try to avoid posting Youtube links but this time I want to share one with you.
If you don't know the movie "Snow Cake" with Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver you should go out and fetch it on DVD.

I saw the film some years ago and just stumbled into my favorite scene. It is about a made-up word called 'Dazlious'.

What would the world be like if every single person has at least one dazlious-moment a day?
I know several people that are able to sense those dazlious moments in their lifes and that they don't take them for granted.
On the other hand I know way more folks that completely ignore all the "dazlioism" that surrounds them because the stressful problems of all-day life seem to be overwhelming.

One dazlious moments on my last weekend was just a dry leaf. It was captured by two almost invisible strings of a spider's web and seemed to hover in mid air. I could make it gently swing by just exhaling. For a second it was pure poetry and absolutely dazlious.
The world can't be much of a bad place if it creates details like that, can it?

If your life lacks dazlious moments these days you can simply slow down for a minute and think about a tiny little moment that made you smile today. I am pretty sure there is at least one.

Day Jumping / Auckland, New Zealand

2009-08-22T18:55:00.003+02:00

This posting is about November, 15th, 2008 - day 69 of my Round-the-World trip.
The special thing about this day is that it didn't exist for me at all.

It cost me some brain work to figure out the consequences of crossing the international date line backwards. Hawaii is in the time zone GMT -11, New Zealand is GMT +12 - meaning maximal time difference.
When checking my flight details I realized that I board on Friday and deboard the plane on Sunday after a 9 hour flight. I was never good at math but it was obvious that something was missing - in this case the complete Saturday. The plane skipped my complete Saturday. This day never happened in my life. Unbelievable.
I even almost booked a hostel for Saturday in advance - for a day that didnt exist. Funny, isn't it?

During the flight I had a lot of weird thoughts about this day-jumping-thing because it seemed so unreal to skip a complete day in my life.
What would have been happened on that November 15th?
I veered between two oppositional ideas for that day:
What if I missed wonderful moments? What if that day would have been filled up with inspiring people, the most colorful flowers on earth and the scent of fresh chocolate muffins?
Would have been a pity, wouldn't it?

On the other hand it could be that I omitted a dark day with tooth ache, a missed flight and screwed up conversations with important people. In this case it would have been perfectly OK because the crap simply never happened.

In the end I decided to go with the idea that the day is simply postponed. I now have a day in reserve and I can do with it whatever I want.

Oh boy, I can imagine the Grim Reaper looking like a complete idiot when coming for me. I will simply hand over the boarding pass of the long gone November day in 2008 with a big grin and saying 'could you please visit again tomorrow same time? I still have one day left'.

I have no idea what to do with that very last day. In ideal case I will be very satisfied with my life having no need to rush around doing all the things I never did and saying all the sentences I never said. I like the idea of being invisible on that last day and visiting the human beings that gave me intense moments, hours or even years. I could whisper 'thank you' in their ear, reassure them a bit and then slowly stroll away towards my favorite place - no matter if this will be a meadow on a river or a rocky valley in a country far away.

Oh yes, this is what I will do with that November day from 2008.

---

The photos are from my first walk through Auckland. I found a bunch of young guys practicing Parcour. They jumped between stairs and walls and looked quite cool. Funny coincidence that even the day after my big day jump was about jumping, isn't it?

Bard Gathering - Bardentreffen / Nuremberg

2009-08-03T23:30:00.005+02:00

LaBrassBanda
(Click on photo to enlarge)

My annual music highlight in Nuremberg: The Bardentreffen (Gathering of the Bards). It is a free 3-day event with open air music all over the city.

This year there was a concert of my current favorite band from Bavaria. They are called LaBrassBanda and the music is a very strange mixture of traditional Bavarian brass folk music combined with gipsy beats, jazz, rock and Mariachi trumpets. Veeeeeery much to my satisfaction.
A funny detail about LaBrassBanda is that they drove from Bavaria to Vienna in Austria in 2008 with some old tractor and mopeds and made a amateur road movie out of it. Their goal was to visit the European Soccer Championship in Vienna. Check out the 5 parts of the video on YouTube.
I love these guys.

LaBrassBanda
(Click on photo to enlarge)

LaBrassBanda
(Click on photo to enlarge)

L'Alba from France
(Click on photo to enlarge)

The girlfriend of a co-worker plays in a guitar duo called 'The Kinky Strings". They used the opportunity of the Bardentreffen to play on the streets in front of a friendly big crowd. Unfortunately I met the guys not until their last song. The great thing was that both of them were still in mood to make music. So we sat at the the riverside in the heart of Nuremberg with some friends and the Kinky Strings played a private concert for us until 2 AM in the morning. Very very relaxed.

The female part of the duo 'Kinky Strings'
(Click on photo to enlarge)

Private Concert after midnight on the Pegnitz river
(Click on photo to enlarge)

Money-fetch-girl
(Click on photo to enlarge)

The male part of the 'Kinky Strings'
(Click on photo to enlarge)

The next day I met the Kinky Strings again for some more street music. This time I used my chalk board to help them to make more money. Well, at least I tried.
My strategy wasn't perfect in the beginning. I placed the chalk board in front of the guitar case they used for collecting money.
I started with the message 'Clapping is free' - no earnings.
My next try was 'Sing along for 1 Euro' - no earnings - damn.
My last try was 'Happy hour - listen to 2 songs, pay only 1' - aaaand: two ladies donated some coins. I was delighted while realizing that marketing actually works. Well, the ladies would have probably donated anyway but I had a good feeling, though.

Thanks to the Kinky Strings for two great days of guitar music but next time I want 'Wish You Were Here' from Pink Floyd as well.

Grandmother and Journeys to Far Far Away / Auckland, New Zealand

2009-08-01T02:36:00.003+02:00

Oh boy, am I far away from home.
Actually it is as far as I can go from Germany.
As a child someone told me that if I would dig a deep deep hole I end up in New Zealand.
Voila, here I am: Auckland on the North Island of New Zealand

There's a conversation I had with my grandmother before almost every vacation in the last decades.
My granny never left the small village she was born in and foreign countries are only a flickering TV image for her. The conversation was always a variation of the following:

Granny: Why do you have to go away again?
Me: I just want to see how it is in XY.
Granny: But they have war and bombs in XY, don't they?
Me: No granny, it is peaceful there and the people are friendly.
Granny: Is XY far away?
Me: No granny, it is not really far away. Just a few hours.
Granny: But you promise to take care?
Me: Of course granny, I am always careful.

This time it is different - for two reasons. First of all I would have to tell my granny that I want to travel to a far far away country.
Second of all my granny wouldn't ask at all because she has no idea that I am traveling. She is 95 years old and forgot almost everything she knew. I decided to tell her nothing about my long trip because she would have been very confused to hear that the journey lasts half a year and I am traveling on my own.

I am sad that my grandmother already started her last journey. It is a journey into forgetting. Although she is in a good physical shape (a very tough old lady) I will never be able to tell her about elephants, waterfalls, smiling kids with dark or yellow skin or mountains that spit fire. It would have been great to share a glimpse of the wonders of the world with her I was lucky to see. Things she was never able to explore but only through my stories.

Tomorrow I will see her because my nephew Noah will have his baptism.
You know what? Probably I will tell her about the elephants and the children with dark skin anyway. She might not get the story but at least she will realize that I am sitting beside her. And maybe she will even hear some hidden words beneath my stories. Words that might sound like 'hey granny, I am back and I am so glad to see you alive'.

Damn, actually the intention for this posting was a cheerful nonsense talk about New Zealand but the posting steered into a completely different direction.

PS: I just re-named this posting. The initial title was 'Day Jumping'. I will tell you about it soon.

Farewell and Aloha to Hawaii

2009-07-30T22:47:00.004+02:00

Yes, I have to admit I watched a (free) performance of Hula girls with flower neclaces, leaf skirt and florals in the hair. Cute, isn't she?

Actually I posted far more stuff about Hawaii than I indented to and I could post much more - for example about Joe's Love Chili, about the missed Big Wave Surfing Contest, about the homeless guy, about the ride in the stretch limo I almost got for 5 dollars or about the guys on the photo below.

The first days I almost hated Hawaii because of all the very touristy crap but in the end I loved it because it was easy to escape the hype. I hung out with so many lovely people and I saw so much natural beauty on these islands - enough to preserve a special place in my mind for Hawaii.

To prevent you from getting even more bored from Hawaiian stories I will travel on to New Zealand with the next posting.

I spent my last evening in Honolulu with three funny guys. There's a special story related to the young couple on the photo and my chalk board. I am quite sure I will tell it in a future posting when it comes to chalk board tales in general.

Pimp my Sunset / Big Island, Hawaii

2009-07-30T06:02:00.002+02:00

(Click on photo to enlarge)

Probably a good vacation isn't perfect with at least one perfect sunset. I am right, ain't I?
This time I was able to "pimp" an already impressive sunset with a glowing cloud of steam.

There is a big 'river' of glowing lava flowing down the slopes of one of the volcanoes into the sea. It's forbidden to get close to the flow because of the toxic fume and road barriers block you several miles in front of the lava flow.
Some guys in my hostel told me that it is possible to get at least a bit closer by driving on a closed road and walk some distance. It is not as illegal as it might sound but you need the right directions because for obvious reasons there are no signs saying 'Toxic Lava Flow 2 Miles'.

Well, I got my directions, fetched my torch and drove towards the south end of Big Island.
I don't know why but for some situations you just remember the music you listened to. This was one of them and my iPod stumbled into some stuff from the German Punk band 'Vivos o Muertos'.

All of a sudden the road ended because it was covered by lava and a whole army of signs warned me with a lot of variations of 'enter at you own risk'. It was possible to drive on the lava for one more mile - it felt more or less like a bumpy normal road. I ended up in a kind of parking lot and walked the last mile to the shore.

Although I was on my own I was not alone. Some dozens of people also knew the spot for watching the lava flow sunset. I didn't care much for them.

I was sitting on a lava stone right above the shore and the lava flow was approx. one mile away.
The actual lava wasn't visible but the cloud was. Every time a big chunk of glowing stone dropped into the water the cloud glowed red like the gigantic version of these stupid IKEA lamps. Seeing this red cloud in front of the red sky was enough to capture my senses for 2 hours until it was completely dark and almost all the people were gone.
One more time nature managed to impress me with full force.

I hopped back through the darkness using my torch and during my drive back to Hilo I thought about perfect moments and that in some of them it is not necessary to have company - even if it is a kitschy sunset on a tropical island.

PS:
The photo is a HDR image and calculated out of 3 single long exposure shots. You might say the colors look a bit over the top but reality was much more colorful - far beyond the capabilities of any computer graphics card.

Bubble Walk / Mauna Loa Volcano, Hawaii

2009-07-27T23:19:00.003+02:00

The red thing is no cloud but the Mauna Kea volcano illuminated by the very early morning sun. It looked so out-of-this-world so we had to stop and marvel the colors.
(Click on photo to enlarge)

A German girl named Heike from my hostel in Hilo was desperately looking for a companion for an advanced hike up the Mauna Loa volcano. All guide books stated that one shouldn't do that hike alone under any circumstances. Actually I felt it a bit above my personal limits but I agreed to join her because it was one of the reasons for my visit on Big Island.

We got up at 05:00 AM and drove up the Saddle Road to an Observatory where the track started. It was hard to find the spot because there was not a single sign. One more praise for the Lonely Planet and its descriptions. Without the guide book we would have been lost.

Heike walking very high above the clouds at roughly 4000m (13100 feet)
(Click on photo to enlarge)

Walking in thin air at 4000m on steep lava slopes isn't a common thing for me. It felt very adventurous and great - although very exhausting. The wind blew very hard up there and it was cold cold cold. Fortunately I wore literally all clothes I had with me - including my scarf from South Africa and my hat from Canada (I am a location-dropping brat, ain't I? ;-)).

Lava Colors. The mountain in the back is the Mauna Kea volcano with the best observatories in the world.
(Click on photo to enlarge)

The landscape was more than unreal. The clouds were deep below us, the sky was very very blue and the ground consisted of many shades of red and grey.

Bubble walk inside the crater on cold lava bubbles that erupted in the 1980s
(Click on photo to enlarge)

Finally we made it to the rim of the crater and climbed down for having lunch sheltered from the wind. The crater erupted in the 1980s and it felt a bit scary to walk on lava bubbles that very liquid stones just some decades ago.

No human beings at all but us and the howling wind as soundtrack
(Click on photo to enlarge)

We saw only one single human being in the distance during the whole day. Complete loneliness at its best.

Heike having lunch inside the crater
(Click on photo to enlarge)

Volcano lunch with Vitamin Water, Toast, Avocado, cheese, tomatoes, onions and cookies. I was very proud about my talents as a chef.
(Click on photo to enlarge)

One of many lava bubbles. Sometimes one could even hear a hollow sound when walking on the lava indicating a lava tunnel below ones feet.
(Click on photo to enlarge)

Heike sending digital chalk board postcards
(Click on photo to enlarge)

Back down into the clouds
(Click on photo to enlarge)

Part Time ~~Lover~~ Lava
(Click on photo to enlarge)

We arrived back down at our car late at afternoon and I was really done. The perfect final chord of that brilliant day were the very strange glimpse of the hostel guests back in Hilo. First I didn't realize why they stare at us but then I got aware that we still wore scarf, hat and thick jackets. Stuff like that isn't that common in a beach city on Hawaii where the official attire consists of bikinis and Flip Flops.

Hey Heike, if you read this: Thank you for a great day!

German Samba

2009-07-11T14:40:00.001+02:00

Click on photo to view it in different sizes on my Flickr account

In 15 minutes I go to Brazil again. It's time for the annual Samba Festival in the little German city Coburg and I already looked forward to it for several weeks.
It is one of the weekends to realize that even Germans can bubble over with lust for live.

Hey Germany, I really like you!

More Samba impressions to come...

PS: Last time I listened to Samba it was late at night in Sao Paulo in the bunk bed of a small hostel. A Samba school was practising nearby and sleeping wasn't really possible with a battalion of drums as neighbours. I am so damn lucky for getting the chance to hear such noises. Life is good.

Feet

2009-07-09T21:27:00.002+02:00

Click on photo to view it in different sizes on my Flickr account

This pile of feet started their journey through life only a few years ago. Isn't it exiting to imagine what paths they will be walking on many decades from now?

As a child I had no idea about the direction my feet are heading to. Actually I still don't know. No idea whether this is good or bad.

How about you? Did your feet already tell you about their way?

Just Because You Close Your Eyes...

2009-06-25T20:48:00.003+02:00

Seen on a handrail in San Francisco

Just because you close your eyes
doesn't mean the world disappears.

Is this good or bad?
Do you want the world to disappear or ar you scared that it might go away when you close your eyes?

For me it is both. Sometimes I just want to exist without any trace of world around me. Fortunately this is rare and in general I would really miss the world - my world - if it disappeared.
Hey world - don't dare to disappear!

A song from one of my favorite German bands "Wir sind Helden" explains that you are surrounded by the world - if you like it or not.

Es ist vorbei du bist umstellt
Um dich herum überall Welt
die dich nicht fragt was dir gefällt
die nur sagt: So ist es

Seen on a handrail in San Francisco.

"Uuh Uuh" as an Order

2009-06-21T12:07:00.003+02:00

Order for now: Listen to the old Blur track called "Song 2" and scream "uuh uuh".
I'm serious - do it -now!
Do it and write in a comment to this posting how it felt.

I just did it and the relieving effect surprises me every time.

PS: "Screaming" means you have to be loud.

Honey Melon Adolf

2009-06-19T17:15:00.003+02:00

Every week there are free fruits in the company I work for. Fruits for the employees of a software company? Software developers are supposed to consume only Coke and chips you might plead.
Well, this is only partly true. Usually the free fruits are gone within 1-2 days.

Usually.

This time it was a bit different because I started an experiment. Clandestinely I painted some strokes on a honey melon - just to see what would happen. My office was perfect for observing the situation because it is directly beside the kitchen.

From time to time I heard a voice saying "Oh, we have Hitler in our kitchen" or "I don't want to eat Adolf" or "this is disgusting" or simply "ha ha ha".

Guess what - the melon was still there after more than one week.

Dunno whether none of the guys dared to destroy the work of the unknown artist or whether the appetite for all things connected to the ugly mustache man is quite low in my company.

Finally one of my co-workers said "I am going to kill Hitler now" cut the honey melon into little cubes, put it on a plate and the colleagues made it vanish within one hour.

I hope the Germans can do a similar thing with all the dirty rotten remains of the ideas of this mustache monster that are still wafting around in some simple brains.

PS: Honey melons make my think of faces or heads quite often. Look [here...] for one of my old postings from June 2006.

Community Spirits / Hilo, Hawaii

2009-06-18T21:03:00.003+02:00

I grew up in a very small village in Germany. One could think that community spirit was an essential part of the daily life.
Well, it took me some decades more and a city on Hawaii to get a clue about what I never understood as a teenager living on the countryside.

I spent some days in the relatively small town Hilo on Big Island. Hilo was very sleepy compared to the much bigger city Kona on the other side of the island. It was one of the best decisions I made on Hawaii to prefer the sleepy Hilo to the shiny Kona.

Terry, the guy at the reception desk of my hostel reminded me of the monthly street party this night because its stage was directly below the window of my dormitory.
He told me that some time ago some locals organized a party called "The Black & White Night" to raise money for a welfare project.
The guests were requested to appear in a black & white outfit and the party took place in the streets of the small city center.
The inhabitants liked the event so much that they decided to have a Black & White party every month.

Together with a fellow traveller I strolled the streets at night and was stunned. All the shops were open til late and decorated in B&W. Most of the folks were dressed or costumed in B&W too and dozens of local clubs organized some activity.

The atmosphere was very friendly and all the people were constantly greeting each other with hugs and laughter - everyone seemed to know everyone.

This group was on a kind of challenge trying to accomplish fun-tasks from a piece of paper like finding strangers singing a song or 10 people with a name starting with a certain character. We talked and it turned out that their church had a "Bring your neighbor" weekend. They invited me with a lot of very funny statements and laughter to their service on Sunday.
I never saw believers in Germany living their believes in such a positive and open way.

In one of the shops I saw some globes. While I was rotating one of them I realized how far away from home I was.

The kids danced on every junction and there wasn't a real distinction between audience and members of the band regarding enthusiasm.

The big Irish community knew best how to party and Heike and I watched some Irish girls dancing to the sound of a huge band consisting only of a single family. Really a kind of Hawaiian Irish Kelly Family. I loved it.

My evening ended in a fabulous candy shop. It was funny to watch the customers making a big fuzz about their personal selection of sweets.

I visited a street party in the small German town Herzogenaurach last weekend. It was the kind of event I saw a lot of times before in the last decades. Nothing spectacular but cosy and neat. Without the Black & White Night it probably would have been just one more boring countryside celebration. This certain night in Hilo, Hawaii, helped me to re-gain my sense for community spirit and enthusiasm a little bit. I enjoyed all the small activities like fishing for wooden fishes by the local Photo Club, the choir singing traditional German folk songs or even the very horrible band.
Thank you Hilo.

Four impressions from the town party in Herzogenaurach, Germany

A Lot About Falling

2009-06-14T23:24:00.001+02:00

Slacklining is a bit about balancing - and a lot about falling.
It is still interesting for me to realize that the falling part is really essential to overcome the fear.

Could it be that it is transferable for challenges in normal life, too? No learning without falling and stuff?

Unüberspürbar

2009-06-07T23:41:00.002+02:00

"Nur wenige Menschen sind richtig lebendig
und die, die es es sind,
die sterben nie.
Nur wenige Menschen lieben wirklich,
und die, die es tun, vergisst man nicht."

Beim Abschied ist das Wort "Unüberspürbar" gefallen und ich konnte nur nicken, weil es so gut gepasst hat.

Mach's gut, Du verrücktes Huhn. Deine Energie ist nicht verpufft - ganz im Gegenteil.
Ich glaube zwar nicht, dass Du meinen Blog liest, aber lass Dir trotzdem gesagt sein, dass es sehr inspirierend war, Dich kennen zu dürfen.

The Big Blue / Nuremberg

2009-05-24T12:22:00.004+02:00

The Emperial Castle was illuminated with invented star constellations.
Click on photo to enlarge

Once again it was "Blaue Nacht" (Blue Night) in Nuremberg - an art event in the whole city. More than 130.000 crowded the streets. I read a cite from an artist asking "Is it still art if that many people are coming?". Holy shit, what an idiot.

The topic of this year was "Firmament" - a perfect theme for playing with light and darkness and the barrier in between.

I loved to stroll through the blue streets of the old city center.

I listened to Ulla Konold. The is a wonderful story teller and I met her by chance a few weeks ago while slacklining. She stopped and asked whether she could give it a try. The first person on my slackline wearing a white suit and a very fascinating human being.
Click on photo to enlarge

Candles in the Sebaldus Church. I liked the restricted illumination.
Click on photo to enlarge

The girl was watching turtles in a shop front window. The white things in her hair were for creating curls the next day because she was about to have a dance performance with some other girls. Her mother refused to go the the Blue Night with her wearing the weird stuff. The little girl's solution was to paint the white things blue. All of a sudden her mother was satisfied and even charmed by the cleverness of her daughter.

The yellow light created an ever changing sea of waves on the walls of the big hall in the Emperial Castle.

The shadow of an outside god.
Sebaldus Church

And What About The Beaches? / Big Island, Hawaii

2009-05-22T12:12:00.005+02:00

Click on photo to enlarge

You might wonder why I am writing about Hawaii and not mentioning the beaches or the sea all the time. Well, it turned out that the volcanic stuff fascinated me way more than the water.

Of course, the black beaches were impressive but I have to admit that I hung out at the beach only 2-3 times during my time on Hawaii because I spent so much time walking across fields of lave.

I stopped at a small beach one day to doze in the sun a bit and found a very special friend with the same plan right beside me.

Hang-Loose-Turtle
Click on photo to enlarge

Isn't it unreal to sit under a palm tree watching the waves in front of you and a gigantic turtle "walks' by? After a few minutes I realized that the beach was full of them and that some kids were snorkeling with the wild turtles.

Click on photo to enlarge

The Hawaiian folks have a special relationship to water. It seems to be part of their daily life big deal. This relationship in combination with the relaxed attitude on Hawaii created a very laid back atmosphere.

Click on photo to enlarge

I watched this little boy fishing in a small lake. He barely moved for a long time. Very very different to the kids in Germany. I wondered whether his mind was full of thoughts or whether he managed to make his head empty for a few minutes.

Click on photo to enlarge

Instead of playing Basketball or skating kids mastered all the wave-taming disciplines.
You could spot some boys bodyboarding on rocky beaches everywhere.
I tried to swim at one of the places and the result was that the big waves smashed me against the sharp stones immediately. I left the water with some nice cuts on my feet. Damn, the next day I wanted to do a long hike to the top of the Mauna Loa volcano.
Will the cuts prevent me from doing it? Stay tuned.

Click on photo to enlarge

Places of Creation / Big Island, Hawaii

2009-05-16T17:51:00.005+02:00

Click on photo to enlarge

Hawaii is a growing place. Literally. Especially one of the islands, called 'Big Island' is getting bigger and bigger because it has the world's most active volcanoes on it and their constant lava flows add new territory every day.

Click on photo to enlarge

Huge areas of Big Island look like what I imagine from the moon - plus some blue sky.
I decided to do a bit more hiking than the usual crater rim drive. I read that it is possible to hike the wilderness beyond the beaten track. Perfect!

If you want to do so you have to inform one of the Park Rangers about your plan and your route. He gives you a very detailed briefing about all kinds of possible (and impossible) dangers. Most topics are about the daily directions of the toxic fumes.

After all the information and signing a wilderness permit paper I was a bit hesitant because it sounded like a guarantee for a painful death out in the loneliness. As always in the end it was easy.

Click on photo to enlarge

The recommendation of the Ranger was a hike to one of the remote craters. He warned me that I wouldn't see a lot of people out there. He was right. I drove out to a distant parking lot and it took me only a few minutes of hiking to end up in complete silence.
Very very impressive.

At the first glance the landscape was a completely dead area. After looking closer I realized that life is stronger. Small patches of green made their way through the lava. In a few hundred years probably a forest will cover this place.
"Life is stronger" was kind of my topic of the day.

Click on photo to enlarge

I had a fantastic day on my own in one of the most bizarre sceneries I've ever seen.

Click on photo to enlarge

After finishing my hike in the late afternoon I wanted to drive down to the coastline where the lava flows into the sea. Well, it was only an intention. Life might be stronger than lava but lava is definitely much more powerful than human engineering.

The road simply ended a few kilometers before the coast because of a river of lava that crouched over it a few years ago.

Click on photo to enlarge

In the distance I could see the big cloud from the spot where the glowing earth fought with the sea.

This cloud should bestow one of the most beautiful sunsets on me a few days later but this is another story.

Dark Hours

2009-05-16T17:36:00.005+02:00

Some hobbies might seem unusual, some might be childish, superfluous, funny, exhausting, adventurous or even stupid.
For me, 'Geocaching' is a perfect combination of the above.

Just for the record:
Geocaching is the hunt for small boxes called caches. Someone hides a box somewhere, publishes the GPS coordinates of the spot on www.geocaching.com and everyone can try to find the cache using a GPS device. After you have found it, you just enter your name into a small log book inside the box and then you hide the cache in the same place for the next finder. There are thousands and thousands of geocaches around the world.
You could define it as a kind of high-tech-adventure-hiking. Actual it is not about the box itself but about exploring places you never noticed before in a playful fun way.

Most hiding places are easy to reach, some are a bit more difficult and some require big effort.

Last week I was on the hunt for a cache of the latter category together with three friends. The geocache was called 'The Call of the Devil'.

The interesting thing about it was that it was hidden deep down a cave. We had to use a huge pile of climbing gear, helmets, head lamps and rubber boots to do it.

Abseiling a total of 40m (120 ft) into complete darkness was a breathtaking experience for me.
Climbing up the rope afterwards was also very breathtaking - for different reasons.

We spent 6 dark hours down there, discovered every small hole, acted as magnets for mud and dirt and finally found the geocache.

This time I concentrated not on taking photos but on shooting video snippets with my small still camera.

If you want you can get an impression of our tour in my YouTube-video above.
Be warned - it is 10 minutes long.

I really love having friends who enjoy doing stuff like this as much as I do.

Muff Potter, Take Four

2009-05-15T21:14:00.004+02:00

Click on photo to enlarge

One of the best things after I came back from my world tour is that my friend and I have been able to re-establish our old rule of visiting at least one live concert a month.

The one of April was special because it was the band of our very first concert in this series back in January of 2006 [Look here...].
It was a nice little concert but in the end I realized that four gigs of Muff Potter in three years are enough for now.
Muff Potter will stay one of my favorite bands and songs like 'Alles was ich brauch' [listen...] ' or 100 Kilo' [listen...] are part of my constant quote repository.

Und all der Überfluss
es ist mir zum Verdruss
verstopft mir die Seele und die Poren
Augen und die Ohren.
Und es ist gar nicht schwer
ich brauch' heut gar nichts mehr
ich hab' hier alles was ich brauch
- und du auch.

Click on photo to enlarge

My concert pal always blames me for not knowing all the lyrics of a certain old Muff Potter album called 'Bordsteinkantengeschichten'. I guess I will never master this one.

God, Mother Earth and All the Others / Hawaii

2009-05-07T20:38:00.005+02:00

It surprised me that Hawaii was such a spiritual place.
Every other day a new spiritual moment flashed my brain.
I never found out why the Hawaiian islands are such a melting pot for men searching invisible things. Maybe it has something to do with all the volcanic activities and the fact that the earth is much more active than the rest of the world.

Google shows an amazing 2.5 million hits as search result for "hawaii spiritual". Wow!

In Lahaina I saw this guy walking around on a public square reading out loud passages from the bible. He concentrated on the chapters about the end of the world, judgement day and Armageddon. The funny part was that his outfit wasn't the one of a decent preacher but colorful stuff. Impressive.

Only one hour later I saw the car below not far away. The message was completely different.
What was going on here?
Was it a kind of competition between the the-end-is-near-guys and the the-earth-will-exist-even-next-week-organisation?

Too bad that I hadn't had the chance to see both parties doing a vocal battle on the public square - like Hip Hop dudes dissing each other. Moses MC vs. Preach Diddy.

One hour later (literally) I walked by this little Buddhist temple. A completely different approach to eternity. Later I learned that Buddhism has a 9% share of Hawaiian religions. I liked the fact that all kinds of different believed seem to co-exist here.

The Shingon Buddhist Mission in Lahaina

The strangest encounter for me happened in one of the hostels. A fellow traveler looked very much like a new age disciple - batik pants, pony tail and Jesus-sandals. I tried to avoid him because he tended to spread his wisdom in a kind of exhausting way.

Every morning I used to buy some pastry and a big cup of coffee in a very small French bakery and had breakfast on the lawn in front of the hostel.
It happened that the new age guy joined me followed by a blond party girl with hell of a hangover.
Immediately he told me that mother earth will rise in exactly 4 years from now. The mind of all human beings will be lifted to the next level - if one likes it or not.
He visited Hawaii for some spiritual event and his plan was to start an organisation that will take care of the earth as soon as the rumble starts in 4 years.
The next minutes seemed to be as long as the next 4 years for me because the guy switched to a kind of verbal rapid-fire mode. I was close to Nirvana.

Luckily for me the party girl relieved me because the preacher-guy noticed that she might be more than a disciple - maybe a disciple with benefits. Her hangover made her react very slowly (or it made her def).
By all means I made use of it, grumbled a 'have a nice day' and fled.

For the rest of my days on Hawaii I forwent every single batik shirt.

I should start thinking what to do with the remaining 4 years before the higher state of mind hits me. Any hints are appreciated.

Aloha, peace and happy Armageddon.

The Cookie Conspiracy

2009-05-05T15:49:00.003+02:00

During a business meeting today we ate some cookies. My colleague grabbed blindly into the paper bag and fetched the three pieces above.

I heard about buns with the shape of Mother Theresa and slices of toast with the image of Elvis Presley on it - but cookies that form my name are scary. Actually I am not a saint and my Rock'n'Roll is very poor.

What kind of conspiracy is going on here? I am a bit worried.

Silence

2009-04-27T22:54:00.005+02:00

silence
noun
• complete absence of sound
• the fact or state of abstaining from speech
• the avoidance of mentioning or discussing something
• the state of standing still and not speaking as a sign of respect for someone deceased or in an opportunity for prayer
• substitute for an inability to express emotions

Eintagslebenbegegnungen

2009-04-25T21:37:00.003+02:00

Click on photo to view it in different sizes on my Flickr account

Halt ein, was willst du tun, sie morden?
Grausame, weißt du, was du tust?
Ein Tag ist ihr zuteil geworden
Ein Tag des Leids, ein Tag der Lust
Oh lass’ sie leben, lass’ sie schweben
bis ihre Feierstunde schlug -
Ihr Himmel ist ein Eintagsleben
Ihr Paradies ein Abendflug.

I met this fly today and the poem last year in the wonderful German movie "Hanami - Kirschblueten". I am not going to translate it because I would kill the essence and this poem is about the opposite of killing.
I hope you live your life every day like a mayfly would do - like an unique experience.

Small Guys and Big Obstacles

2009-04-20T21:26:00.004+02:00

Click on photo for an enlarged version.

If you are little and young in experience you are confronted with a lot of new situations, hurdles, obstacles and gaps to jump over.
Almost every minute you are challenged by life.
The astonishing thing is that you take it easy and just dare. Fear doesn't seem to exist.
The root of a big tree suddenly turns from an obstacle into a funny jumping game accessory.

When you grow older some of the obstacles seem to be bigger than you - even if they look small for all other people around you.

Why is that? Any hints appreciated.

---

I saw the baby wild boars in a big enclosure in a forest near my city today and the gang of little striped guys made me grin. My gigantic zoom lens helped to get close.

The Road to Hana / Maui, Hawaii

2009-04-17T18:17:00.005+02:00

Click on photo for an enlarged version.

There is this one road on Maui connecting the main city Kahului with the sleepy village of Hana. I would call it THE road on Hawaii and I had a brilliant day driving it.
Imagine a 60 km road with 54 bridges and more than 600 curves, partly only one lane.
Put very thick rain forest, loads of small waterfalls, exotic flowers and a stunning coast line with lava rocks and palm trees beside the road and you have 'the road to Hana'.

Click on photo for an enlarged version.

I had the huge advantage of having a rental car giving me the chance to be as slow as I wanted to be - and I WAS slow. I met a fellow traveler in my hostel with the same plan and we decided to spend the day together. She was from Germany and beside a whole bunch of deep (and funny) topics it was relaxing to talk German again for a whole day.

One of the many waterfalls beside the road
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

We passed bridges over small waterfalls every few kilometers and stopped frequently. One time I wanted to check a waterfall by getting closer and climbed above the railing of the bridge and down the pillar. After a short hike through thick banana plants on steep slippery ground I found a hidden natural pool at the base of the waterfall. A hidden secret place completely out of sight from the road. Wow! Well, to be honest I disturbed a couple doing some special relaxation stuff - hey, they were still dressed but I think it was close.

Johanna, my adventure partner on the road to Hana
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

Don't even think about it!
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

It is always funny for me to see what kind of dangers exist in other countries. Sometimes it is about wild animals, sometimes about strong current and sometimes just about human skin.

Maui - The place to be if you are a Flip Flop
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

Have you ever been washed away by the current? I haven't until that day. We stopped on a very small beach with black lava sand for a swim. The waves overthrew me as soon as I waded into the water to my knees. It literally took my breath away and I was completely exhausted after 10 minutes of fighting against the waves. Great!

"If in doubt, don't go out"
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

During our day we listened to Coldplay and whenever I hear the song 'Lost' from their album 'Viva la Vida' now it beams me into the rain forest on the road to Hana.

One of the hundreds of empty black lava sand beaches
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

As expected the actual arrival in Hana was very unspectacular. It was only a very sleepy place with only one restaurant. The funny waiter insisted of seating us although we were the only customers and all tables were empty. Funny friendly folks these Hawaiians.

Some of the 'dunnothename' wild flowers
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

Of course I bothered Johanna with tightening my slack line between two palm trees near a beach. It was so unreal to balance in these paradise-like environment with the sound of the shore and all the birds' voices in my ear and a wonderful sunset just behind me.

One more of the many many highlight of my trip.

Hawaii Slacklining
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

On our way back Johanna wanted to try a coconut and we stopped at a very small vending stall. Actually it was only a pile of coconuts and three guys sitting on a cooling box. The guys were really drunk because the cooling box was full of beer. They were so drunk that two guys destroyed two coconuts by mistake while trying to cut them open with a machete. I was a bit worried about their fingers and arms but in the end it worked and we had a funny talk with them while Johanna sipped her coconut (and didn't like it).

We arrived back in Kahului late at night and our conclusion was that this day was the perfect example that sometimes it is not about the destination but about the journey.

Der alte Winter

2009-04-13T22:56:00.005+02:00

Der alte Winter in seiner Schwäche zog sich in raue Berge zurueck.
Von daher sendet er - fliehend nur
ohnmächtige Schauer körnigen Eises in Streifen über die grünende Flur.
Doch die Sonne duldet kein Weisses.
Ueberall regt sich Bildung und Streben,
alles will sie mit Farben beleben.
Doch an Blumen fehlt's im Revier,
sie nimmt geputzte Menschen dafür.

------

The Winter old and weak ascends back to the rugged mountain slope.
From there, as he flees, he downward sends an impotent shower of icy hail
Streaking over the verdant vale.
Ah! but the Sun will suffer no white,
Growth and formation stir everywhere,
Twould fain with colours make all things bright,
Though in the landscape are no blossoms fair.
Instead it takes gay-decked humanity.

------

This weekend I asked a friend via a text message what he is looking forward to during this Easter-weekend. He answered 'I am looking forward to my very own Easter walk'. He was one of the guys reciting Goethe's poem in the park in the summer of 2005 together with me and I know he can still remember it, too.
I hope he had a peaceful walk beyond 'der Strassen quetschender Enge'.

Postcard Time Journey Nuremberg

2009-04-10T20:30:00.011+02:00

Insel Schuett, looks completely different. The synagogue with its dome was destroyed by the Nazis even before the 'Reichskristallnacht'
Click on photo to enlarge

Last year I found a big box of old postcards on a flee market in Munich. I rummaged in it and found a bunch of postcards from my city Nuremberg. They were shot before WW2 in the 1920s or 1930s.
I had the idea of looking for the exact spots were the photos have been taken and take a photo from today's Nuremberg just to compare old and new Nuremberg.

Last weekend I did it and strolled two days through the city in the footsteps of an unknown photographer from the last century.

During a breakfast in a cafe with a friend before my walk I showed my postcards to an old lady sitting on a table nearby. We talked and she explained some details on the old photos. It felt very intense when she told me about her memories of a bombing night. I can't imagine sitting in a dark cellar, feeling the earth shake and when you go outside again after an eternal night you see nothing but smoking debris where your city has been.

Main Square with the famous fountain. Everything except the re-built Church of our Lady is gone. The fountain survived the bombings in a shell of bricks. But nowadays it is a replica because the original is in a museum.
Click on photo to enlarge

The whole walk was like constantly jumping back and forth in time. A glimpse at the postcard in my hand and I was in medieval Nuremberg and looking up again threw me back to a modern city with some ancient remains.

Henkersteg and Weinstadel (Hangman Bridge and Wine Barn). It looks almost the same. The trees on the island in the middle of the river are big and majestic now.
Click on photo to enlarge

From a photographer's point of view it was very hard to shoot the photos because I had to use a very high aperture value to get enough depth of field while focusing on the dark postcard in the foreground. I had to post-process them a lot to repair all the dark spots. This is why some of the photos look so artificial.

View to the Imperial Castle from the Spittler Gate.
Click on photo to enlarge

I figured that the view on the postcard above is from on of the old towers in the city wall. It is now a museum for experiencing the senses and called 'Tower of the Senses'. I talk to the guy at the entrance and told him about my little 'post postcard walk'. He smiled and let my up the tower for some photos without paying the entrance fee.

View towards the Haller Gate.
Click on photo to enlarge

The photo above was difficult to reproduce because it was taken above street level. Nowadays the area outside the Haller Gate is full of ugly 1950s multi-story apartment buildings.
A old man in a undershirt was leaning on the window sill in the 6th floor of one of the buildings.
I decided to dare it and screamed up to him. I told him my story about the old postcards and asked him whether he could let me in for a photo from the upper stairway window.
Guess what - he screamed down in a grumpy voice 'hm, I let you in'. Unbelievable.

Actually I think his sentence was his way to show extreme excitement about my postcard story. He was one of the prototypes of an old grumpy Franconian man.
Unfortunately he was gone afterwards to I couldn't thank him or even show him the photo.

West Facade of the Imperial Castle. The jutty is gone.
Click on photo to enlarge

The Imperial Castle suffered hard in the bombing nights but it was one of the few parts of the medieval city that was rebuilt after the war. This is why the reality in 2009 looks kind of similar to the old postcards. But if you look closely you can see a lot of little differences between the old and the new castle.

The back side of the castle with the Five-Cornered-Tower looks almost the same.
Click on photo to enlarge

I love the view of the back side of the castle. The tower to the right is called Fuenfeckturm (Five-Cornered-Tower) and the tower on the left has the funny German name 'Luginsland' ('Peek-into-the-land').

The courtyard of the Imperial Castle. The big trunk in the middle is now a young tree.
Click on photo to enlarge

I liked my little time journey a lot and I want to do it again with more old photos from not so touristy spots.

If you want you can see the photos in higher resolution on my Flickr account [here].

Grave Beer / Maui, Hawaii

2009-04-02T22:35:00.003+02:00

There was a small graveyard near a wild green coastline. I stumbled into it by chance.

Beside one of the graves stood two beers. I felt touched. It seemed as if the friends of this guy really missed him. They missed him in a positive way, I guess. The kind of missing that involves drinking some beers on a warm Hawaiian eve while sitting beside the grave of a dear old friend, laughing about his strange habits and staring at the waves.
Not a bad way to be missed like that, is it?

It is strange how different cemeteries are. One I visited a year ago in Vienna was the maximum depressing contrast to the small one on Maui. Click [here] to read more.

North Pole

2009-03-29T19:04:00.001+02:00

Click on photo to view it in different sizes on my Flickr account

What if the world is nothing more than an big orange?
I hope you dig deep enough to taste its sweetness then.
You couldn't be very sure about the geography of your world because it would be easy to roll the orange around making the north pole turning into south and vice versa. All the navigation rules you developed in your previous life would become worthless.
Probably it wouldn't be that bad to be forced to re-adjust your life-geography from time to time, would it?
Well I guess everything stays the same unless one of us starts rolling the orange.

Clouds Rest / Haleakala Crater, Maui, Hawaii

2009-03-28T13:32:00.012+01:00

Standing above the clouds watching the colors of a new day and the stars at the same time.
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

It was the night after Election Day. If you want you can read about some of my impressions from the Election Day in one of my former postings [here].

I was getting up at 3AM, sneaking out of the dorm room of my hostel and driving to the rim of the Haleakala Crater. Someone told me that the extinct volcano area is supposed to be perfect theatre for a sunrise show. The small road was winding up in endless switchbacks and I was listening to classical music and the latest election results on the radio.
It felt a bit sad to do such a thing without anyone to share it with but I wanted to do it anyway.

Looking down into the plain. You can see some bush fires in the centre of the image.
The exposure time of the photo was 30 seconds.
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

It was pitch black on top of the crater. My torch was somewhere in Brazil and I wasn't able to see where to walk to from the parking lot. I was thinking about the stupidity of walking in complete darkness towards the rim of a huge volcano crater.
Oddly enough I wasn't the only one up there waiting for the sun. I liked standing amongst freezing folks that got up in the middle of the night just to watch the sun.

Because of the high altitude (10.000 feet / 3055m) and the clean air some of the most famous observatories are up here. This one looked like a landed star ship. Exposure time 30 seconds.
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

Simply the stars were worth getting up early. I never saw so many stars. Star constellations like Orion suddenly didn't consist of only a dozen of stars but of 500 of them. It was far more impressive that I could imagine.

After half an hour one could spot a slight idea of light in the east.
Someone said 'The crater is full of clouds'. You couldn't see them yet because it was still dark but another long exposure shot with my camera unveiled the clouds. The crater was big big big and a big herd of gigantic sleeping white sheep where sleeping in it. Probably the clouds come here every night to sleep. The term 'Clouds Rest' crossed my mind. I was speechless.

The color and structure of the clouds and the sky changed every few minutes.
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

It was freezing cold on the top of the mountain. Luckily a fellow traveller from my hostel told me to wear every single piece of clothing I own - so I did. I even brought my towel as a blanket.

Two Korean girls standing the cold. They don't look unhappy though, do they?
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

The whole thing was like the LSD version of a sunrise you see in an airplane from time to time - a slow motion flight with the biggest panorama window you can imagine.

This was the reward. And this photo is just a weak version of the reality of that morning.
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

On of the best things was that it was one of the situations when you think you might feel lost and alone and it turns out that you are not.
I was sitting on a small wall beside a girl from France named Emilie. It wasn't necessary to talk much. We helped each other taking photos and just watched the day awake.

The Korean girls shot this one of Emilie and me.
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

All of a sudden I realized that the morning had finally came to life. It was only 8AM and perfect for starting a long hike down the crater. I asked a Park Ranger for some proposals and he recommended a hike called 'Sliding Sands' and the name was program. It was very exhausting to walk on the steep sandy slopes in this thin air.

The whole scene looked like Mars with small volcano cones everywhere. The clouds below me constantly sneaked back and forth into the crater.

Cold lava flows in the crater, the clouds still below me and the Pacific Ocean in the background.
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

Because it was early in the morning I saw almost no one at all. It felt like I am the only human being in the crater. It was very quiet and I could really feel my mind slowing down and rest.

During my lunch break it was so peaceful and quit that I even fell asleep for an hour just by watching the clouds.

Some smaller volcanic cones inside the big Haleakala Crater.
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

On my way up I saw Emilie again. She was also hiking down. We talked a few minutes more and then continued on our own. I didn't see her again and probably I never will but I know that she was as impressed by that sunrise as I was. We still have Skype contact from time to time.

While driving back down I had to cross the clouds. The blue sky turned into grey rain clouds down in the plain.

Crossing the clouds again while driving down into the plain.
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

One of the lessons I learned that day is that there's always more than you see.
You don't know what I mean?
Well, before that day I thought that Orion consists of a dozen stars. After climbing on that mountain I know that it consists of hundreds - at least.
One more example?
In the beginning the scene was a black hole for me. After a long exposure shot I realized that I was surrounded by a herd of sleeping clouds.
Whenever I think that I can't see the solution for a problem I should just think about this crater sunrise knowing that it is just about the right tools or about to climb higher to see more. I am not very good at it yet but I try to hang in there.

I catched them, stroked a few of them and let them go.
Click on photo for an enlarged version.

This morning was one of the most intense situations of my whole trip and it is still very vivid in my memory.
I told a friend about this sunrise and she asked me how any future sunrise is supposed to impress me after the one on top of the volcano crater. Well, I think that sunrises are not good for being pressed into Top-5 lists. Every single one is different and special. Not every one is as spectacular as the one on Maui but it is great to know that nature has no need to repeat itself - it invents new ones every single day. A lot of potential for special moments, isn't it?

You can watch the photos plus a few more of this morning at my Flickr page in higher resolution, too.

Oil Bubbles and Two Déjà-Vus / Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

2009-03-14T13:07:00.008+01:00

The memorial shrine directly above the wreck

OK, Oahu has nice beaches but my main goal on this island was to visit Pearl Harbor respectively the memorial of the sunken war ship USS Arizona.

I guess most of you know at least from the Hollywood movie "Pearl Harbor" about the Japanese attack in 1941. More than 2000 people died in this attack. More of 1700 of them were killed on a single ship - the USS Arizona.

Half-mast

The wreck of the USS Arizona still rests at the ground of the harbor and a memorial shrine is right above the corpse of the ship. The flag on top of the memorial always fly at half-mast and as a visitor you can really feel that this is a very special place for the USA.

The remains of one of the gun towers of the USS Arizona

Only a few parts of the wreck are above the surface and if you look down you can see the rotten rusted grave of the Arizona.

Oil Bubbles above the wreck

One of the most impressing moments for me was watching the oil film floating above the wreck. The USS Arizona is still leaking oil - almost 70 years after its 'death'. It really looked like a bleeding corpse and made it even more obvious for me that this is a place of death and grief.

List of Japanese ships involved in the attack

In the little museum beside the memorial I had a strange Déjà-Vu.
I saw a sign on the wall with a list of all the Japanese war ships that were involved in the attack of Pearl Harbor. One of them was 'Shinkoku Maru'. Damn, I knew this name. Even more I know the resting place of this ship because I dived it.

In 2007 I travelled to the very small island of Truk Lagoon (now called Chuuk). As a revenge for Pearl Harbor the US Air Force sank a big share of the Japanese war fleet during a big attack in 1942. This sad fact makes Truk Lagoon the No. 1 diving location world wide for wreck divers.

One of the wrecks I dived there was the Shinkoku Maru and now in this museum I was confronted with the other part of the story. It seemed like a circle that is completed now. Very strange.
It seemed so ridiculous in a sad way that attacker and attacked ended up as wrecks. Only death and pain on both sides and all that remain are tourist attractions. War is the most stupid thing I can imagine.
I wrote a posting about a dive on one of the wrecks in Truk Lagoon in 2007. It is written in German and you can have a look at some photos here.

The names of the soldiers that died on the USS Arizona

Before you board a small boat to go the memorial shrine you usually watch a movie explaining the background of the attack. Included in this movie is the speech of Franklin D. Roosevelt on the day after the attack. He is talking about a 'day of infamy'.

Two weeks ago back in Germany I had one more strange Déjà-Vu related to Pearl Harbor.

I was at the movies and watched 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'. The movie plays in the 1940s and in one scene you can hear this speech of Roosevelt in the background. I was thrilled and thought 'Gosh, you know this speech. This is about Pearl Harbor. You know what it is about'.
It was really weird to realize how much more sensitive your senses are as soon as you have a connection to a place by visiting it.
If you want you can listen to the historical speech here.

I spent a lot of time at Pearl Harbor and didn't feel like going to the beach afterwards. I was a quite day but a good one, though.

One of my thoughts of this day - and don't get me wrong - was that at least this time the Germans were not the bad guys. Probably a dumb thought but not as dumb as killing each other for stupid political reasons.

A Chorus (Air) Line / Hawaii

2009-03-09T21:51:00.006+01:00

During my trip around the world I had more than 30 flights and almost every single one was boring. Almost. The one from San Francisco to Honolulu/Hawaii was different.

I had a seat next to a lady (the one on the right on the photo). The airplane was still on the ground and we started talking. The conversation jumped from the usual smalltalk over to our plans for Hawaii and then on to little chapters of our lives ending with telling almost our complete histories. And we kept talking. And talking. And talking. The whole 5-hour flight was filled with laughter, questions and some deep thoughts. I was amazed.

It turned out that the lady was Canadian and a member of a women-chorus from Toronto on its way to a international chorus convention in Honolulu. By the way: I felt like a globetrotter when I told her that I spent a few days in Toronto just some weeks ago.

She told me that all the ladies from her chorus are really excited to fly that far just to sing. I asked her for her prognosis for the convention and she was like 'We are good. I think we could even win the gold medal'.
It happened that we were on the same shuttle bus from the airport to Waikiki beach and I got to know some of her chorus mates. Imagine a bus load full of chattering ladies on a big adventure - and me. I thought about visiting their convention but the girls refused to give me the address with the words 'No you will not attend our convention. The last thing you should do as a tourist in Hawaii is watching wrinkled old ladies sing. Go to the beach!'.
The ladies jumped off the bus at one of the very expensive looking hotels at Waikiki beach and I wished them good luck and waved them farewell. I chose the even more luxurious Youth Hostel in Waikiki as my residence.

Two weeks later when I was at the airport again waiting for my flight to New Zealand I saw some ladies wearing T-Shirts with notes on it. I asked them whether they attended at the chorus convention. They nodded and were surprised that a guy like me knew about it. I asked for this chorus from Toronto and for their rank. You know what - MY girls made it to the silver medal. How cool is that?

Too bad that I wasn't there - I guess it would have been even cooler than sitting at Waikiki beach at sunset and watch the surfers walk by.

So I made it to Hawaii. Unbelievable. Hawaii consists of several islands and the one with the big city Honolulu on it is called Oahu. Honolulu was a very strange place for me. Far from what I expected from Hawaii. It is a very big city with thousands and thousands of Japanese tourists.
The world famous Waikiki beach is quite nice as long as you look towards the shore. As soon as you turn around you are facing an army of ugly concrete hotels. Awful.

I never got really used to Honolulu but as soon as I left the city Hawaii was great.

San Francisco Photo Assignment / USA

2009-03-05T21:28:00.003+01:00

Exploring a city can be more intense if you manage to switch to 'advanced-observing-mode'. This is a state of mind in which you are able to spot a lot of small things plus the ability to put all the tiny puzzle pieces together to a bigger picture of the world around you.
The easiest method to switch to advanced-observing-mode for me is giving me one ore more topics for photos. Afterwards it is very easy to see all the small puzzle pieces connected to my photo-assignment.

This time I walked the streets of San Francisco with a friend. We gave us three assignments for the day:

1. Hurry Up
2. Worth looking at
3. Many

Here are my results.

How about yours Mr. SK?

"Hurry Up" (I was kneeing in the middle of the street in front of some waiting cars)

"Worth looking at" (SK staring at a gigantic poster at the facade of Macy's)

"Many" (Finger puppets from a street vendor)

Balance in Pink / San Francisco, USA

2009-03-03T21:35:00.004+01:00

You can use your rose-colored glasses to make the world look a little bit more lovely.
The more consequent solution is to simply change the world into a pink place.
At least you can begin to do so.
The owner of this little garden on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco obviously thought that a whole box of pink Flamingos would be a good start. I agree.

I know that some of you out there have a pretty hard time these days. Although I am sure none of you is reading this blog I want to wish you that your personal pink-balance will be ok again soon.
Hang in there. It's worth it! If in doubt, add pink Flamingos.

Most Valuable Places, Part 4 - San Francisco

2009-03-02T21:56:00.003+01:00

I already told you about some of my most valuable places (part 1, part 2, part 3). I call them MVPs.
It is great for me to have some very special places even if they might be nothing more than a garbage can on a windy street corner. It is all about the stories attached to them.

But there's one thing that's even better than to have own MVPs: Being introduced to the MVPs of a new friend.

I met a guy from Seattle in San Francisco in my hostel. We were sharing a dorm room and started talking for hours. He told me that he had lived in San Francisco for many years and that he's back in town to visit some of his favorite places and he invited me to join him.

We spent a whole day together strolling through San Francisco. He showed me some very nice spots and made them special by adding some little personal stories to every place. I was delighted.
In the afternoon we ended up at a grassy patch near the shore of the bay and I teached him how to walk on a slackline. He was a bit hesitant in the beginning but loved it as soon as he finished his first step.
Several people started to talk to us and asked what the heck we are doing and every single one of them was curious and friendly. Impressing.
The most remarkable encounter was with an old lady that told me that she was an opera singer and had to sing German stuff when she was young. I asked her for some German bits and all of a sudden she started to recite the German poem 'Der Erlkoenig'. I was speechless and she was very surprised that all the verses were still in her head after all the decades.

The day with the MVPs of my new friend was really really great and even the end was spectacular because we drove back to Downtown with the public bus over the Golden Gate Bridge during sunset. Wow.

The whole event was one more prove for me that sharing makes special places even more special - for both parties.

Hey Mr. XBox - you rock! Thank you for your trust.

Oh, I should mention that we practised slackline knots in our dorm room by thightening the line between two steel bunk beds across the room. One of the hostel workers walked in to do something in the room. She saw us doing strange things with ropes on our beds (it might have looked like a weird sexual ritual) and looked really puzzled. Before she could say something I just said "Don't even ask.". She left the room very quickly and I never saw her again. Poor girl.

The Blue Bible and Free Coffee / San Francisco, USA

2009-02-27T16:51:00.005+01:00

A backpacking trip without a guide book would be difficult for me. The blue Lonely Planet books gave me numerous very valuable hints about how a country works. They told me where and when buses leave, recommended some good hostels and gave advice how to avoid the main scams. Unfortunately almost every traveler relies on the Lonely Planet guide books and most of us end up in the same hostels. Sometimes it seemed that hotels or sights don't exist if they are not mentioned in the Lonely Planet.
That brought me to the thought whether a country would disappear completely when all tourists would throw away their Lonely Planets in the same second.
Anyway, this is not what I want to tell you in this posting.

Usually I refer to the blue Lonely Planet book as the 'Blue Bible' because it acts as a guidance for life and even the writing is as small as in a bible. In San Francisco I had a blue bible experience of a sad kind.

I sat in a Starbucks in San Francisco by the window and read in the Lonely Planet for Hawaii, my next stop.
All of a sudden an old homeless guy in rotten cloths entered the shop and sat down on my table. He started asking for some money but I hardly understood anything because he was talking in a very strong accent and he was lacking most of his teeth.
After some seconds two Starbucks employees appeared and asked the guy to leave in a very hard tone.
The homeless man said 'I just wanted to talk to this man. I thought he is a good man because he reads in the bible'.
The waiters almost grabbed the man in his armpits and forced him to leave the shop.
I didn't know what to say.
After two minutes one of the Starbucks guys brought me a free cup of coffee and said 'Sir sorry for this situation. Here is a free Latte for you'.

Damn, there was a homeless guy and a rich tourist and in the end the rich tourist gets free coffee while the poor guy is thrown out.

I looked at my blue bible, felt awful and stopped reading in my blue bible about places the vagabond probably never will see.

Life is very unfair in many ways and I have no idea how to deal with it.

This story is not invented. You can still the my two cups of coffee on the table.

Franconian Carnival - A Sad Story?

2009-02-25T16:58:00.005+01:00

This posting is not about my trip for a change. It is about German carnival. I really don't like it (I write 'don't like' because I want to avoid the ugly word 'hate'). I am glad that the show is over today because it is Ash Wednesday.
I am not even sure why I don't like it. Maybe because I don't want to be funny just because the calendar tells me to do so
Yes, I can tolerate guys that do like carnival - as long as they don't force me to wear funny hats.

I stumbled into the remains of a carnival parade in Nuremberg and wondered whether the folks are really funny. Is it possible to look sad in a costume? So I asked random people to pretend to look sad. The carnivalistas tried hard but in the end a hidden smile lurked behind the pretended sadness.
Conclusion for me: They really had a good time and one can't be sad wearing bunny ears.

Are you a carnival person? Tell me about it.

Back Home and Still Away

2009-02-25T16:07:00.003+01:00

After 152 days on the road I felt ready to go home. The photo was taken on the very last day of my trip in Amman, Jordan

Believe it or not, I am back home. With an incredible one-week encore in New York my trip around the world has come to an end.

The beauty of the earth surprised me almost every single day. I had the chance to see many stunning places all over the world but also get an idea about who fragile the our planet is and how stupid the human kind behaves and how unfair life sometimes acts in distributing wealth and poverty.
As far as I can tell now there was a thing that was even more impressive than beautiful landscapes: To meet people.
I met more inspiring people than I ever imagined. Human beings that made me laugh, challenged things I took for granted, folks joining me in watching sunsets without saying a single word and new friends sharing pieces of their universe with me.

To make a long story short:
It was the most amazing time in my life so far and my internal batteries are more than fully recharged.

I will continue to blog little episodes from my trip because my head is almost exploding with smells, colors, noises and impressions from my trip.

I brake for Bears / California, USA

2009-01-20T09:32:00.002+01:00

We don't have any dangerous animals in Germany. Not a single one.
Here in the US you can stumble upon a bear just beside the road.

I was visiting the Grand Sequoia National Park and saw a few cars standing in the middle of the road. I stopped and realized that there are two bears in the nearby trees - a big one and a cub. Real bears!

Amazing to see the big clumsy animals climbing on small branches and to hear their noises.

First I was a bit reluctant to leave my car because in the end they were bears and not little kittens. But then I saw a family of heavily overweight tourists jumping out of their car and running around.
Because a clever bear probably prefers a bunch of 'super-size tourist burgers' to a 'skinny-European-snack' I decided to step out as well to shoot some photos - and I survived.

One of the smaller Sequoia trees. Compare it with the size of the house.

After all the very impressing trees in the park the bears were the topping on a spectacular day. Guys, your country is really beautiful.

Little Differences, Part 4: Saber Rattles / San Francisco, USA

2009-01-20T09:19:00.003+01:00

I was sitting in the grass on Union Square. My head was almost empty and I felt wonderfully tired while watching the busy people around me.

I can imagine several ways of being wakened from this nice stand-by-mode.
There are nice ones, mediocre ones and nasty awakenings.

The nice interruptions include the scent of fresh coffee or a lovely voice whispering cute words into my ear.
Mediocre wake-up procedures include voices like 'Sorry Sir, you are standing on my foot for 5 minutes' or the sound of the leaving bus you just missed.
The awful ones definitely include the roaring thunder of fighter jets raging over your head in such a low altitude that you could think 'Maverick' out of the old movie 'Top Gun' finally decided to commit suicide because he killed his friend 'Goose' (or just because he didn't manage to drag the cute Kelly McGillis into his bed).

Guess what - lucky me got the nasty one.

The fighters circled directly above the heart of San Francisco and their engines screamed 'Good morning McFly, somebody home?' into my ears. Aaargh!
First I thought that another 9/11 situation was going on. I was really scared for some seconds. Then I watched around and saw some of the passers-by grin and even clap their hands.

I asked them what the fuzz is about and they told me that it is just a rehearsal for the annual flight day in the near future.

They practice 50 meters above a big city? They practice flying so close to each other that one pilot could count the hairs in the nose of his pal? Gosh. Yes, I know the noses of the pilots are covered with oxygen masks but I like idea, though.

In Germany there would never ever be such a pseudo-masculine demonstration of power right above the heart of a metropolis. Apart of it I still can remember the big air show accident some years ago in the US Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany.
We have a completely different relationship to our army 'Bundeswehr'.

Probably I am full of prejudices about military in the US. Maybe after 9/11 it is good for a wounded nation to see that the big boys are taking care of the citizens.

In the end it was just one of the little differences I noticed.
Keep it as a secret but I have to admit it looked damn cool.

I could imagine the pilots leaving their planes in this Hollywood-movie-slow-motion kind of walking. I hope the pilots didn't spoil their coolness with statements like 'Icemen you are not bad up in the air but you should shave your nose'.

Ice Cream Rules / Flagstaff, Arizona, USA

2009-01-06T18:28:00.004+01:00

My home base for visiting the Grand Canyon was a lovely, sleepy little town called Flagstaff. It was very relaxing and 'real' after the fake world of horrible Las Vegas.
The center of my Hostel was a room with a big wooden table and folks gathered around it every evening.
One day a traveler donated a big bucket of ice cream to the public. Whenever a new guest entered the room there was a question like 'Oh, is this ice cream for free?' and one of us would answer 'Yes, Paul, the Australian guy donated it. Help yourself."

It was fun to sit around the table munching ice cream but nevertheless I thought it could be even more interesting. So I changed the conversation a bit.

New traveler: 'Oh, is this ice cream for free?'
Rest of us: 'Kind of. It is free but you have to contribute a song. Sing us one of your favorite songs.'
New traveler: 'What do you mean? You want me to sing? Sing loud and stuff?'
Rest of us: 'You got it. By the way - the ice cream is delicious. Go ahead, the stage is yours.'

One can imagine a few possible answers of the new traveler. For example:
a) That is ridiculous. I will not sing for ice cream.
b) I don't know any songs by heart.
c) How old are you? Eight or nine?
d) Well, you will not like it but if you insist I can do it.

Guess what - d) was the only answer. I was amazed and we had a great time listening to weird sounding chants and I am sure that even the artists liked performing.

The bucket was already almost empty when a Japanese guy entered the room. I saw him before but he was very shy and didn't talk to anyone so far. Obviously he was embarrassed of his poor English. As soon as he saw that strange things were going on he was about to leave but we stopped him. He was even more shy than before.
It took us a while to explain him the ice cream rule and I thought that he would never ever sing in public.

Then the most unlikely thing happened. He started smiling and gave answer e).

e) I can't sing. Can I play a song instead?

Before we were able to nod he vanished and came back with a big suitcase. It was an traditional Japanese instrument looking like a simple guitar. He told us that he is going to play a traditional song and started browsing a text book with funny looking Japanese stuff in it.

During the next minutes the hostel was full of sounds I never heard before and we all applauded enthusiastically.

The Japanese guy stayed with us the rest of the evening. Although he didn't say much he had an expression in his face that looked like f).

f) I have an Japanese instrument with me but I am to shy to play in public. Isn't it quite obvious that I am a musician that wants to share his music? Come on, please ask me to play.

I would have never thought that there could be a f) answer but people tend to surprise me almost every time.

@Mehi and Jaydeep: I am still grinning every time I am confronted with the word 'meditation'.

Days in Blue and Red / Utah, USA

2008-12-31T05:26:00.007+01:00

Do you think it is possible to assign colors to days?

Sometimes it works. For example when you think about your day and only colors came to your mind instead of people, conversations or situations.

I had a few such days in Utah and it was possible to compress them into just two colors:

Blue and Red.

I visited a several National Parks in the western part of the USA and the Bryce Canon was one of them - a very impressive one.

There was no real idea in my head about what to expect- well, a canyon - maybe an impressive hole in the ground.

What I got was a forest of giant red stone pillars with little walkways beneath them. In some moments was like walking in a red gothic cathedral with a blue roof. It was impossible not to be impressed by the sheer simple beauty. All around me was only the red rocks and the blue sky.

Compare the size of the trees to the the height of the stone pillars to get an idea of how big the canyon was.

The sun was setting when I was driving back to my hotel in my rental car. It was a one hour drive and the street snaked through a region called Red Canyon. In the distance I could see a big cloud of smoke over the hills and a sign told me that is just a controlled fire started by Rangers.

All of a sudden I saw massive flames right beside the street - and I mean massive.

The setting sun was illuminating some of the red rocks in such an intense way that I really had to make a full break just to stand around with open jaw.

I wouldn't have thought that stones could glow that way - 'Fire Stones'.

One lesson I already learned on my trip was that the good old mother earth does a very good job in keeping busy being flabbergasted.

Street Fighting / San Francisco, USA

2008-12-26T11:56:00.003+01:00

I was invited for dinner at the place of an ex-colleage. He lives in San Francisco with his family and gave me a wonderful private tour through his city showing me some of his favorite places. That is sightseeing at its best. Thanks again for the tour and the special vegetarian dinner.
I got to know his son and was really impressed by this kid.His great passion is fencing and after only five minutes of talking we both vanished into the garage because we wanted to check out his fencing gear. He explained me his equipment and his sport with great passion and I was even a bit jealous because he obviously found an activity he can be really dedicated to.Sometimes dedication leads to big things and in his case the big thing is a fencing jacket with his surname and the name of his country on the back - he is member of the USA Junior National Fencing Team. Wow.

By the way: I learned that the best fencing gear by far comes from - guess what - Germany.
We ended up out in the dark street and he showed me the basic moves of fencing. For me it was a very special kind of street fighting.
Well, you could think that the guy is just one of these nerds that only live for their sport being drilled by their parents all day long.Far from that.This bloke had more interests than most adults, had a kind of talking and a vocabulary that outwits most of the conversations in business meetings and he gave me sightseeing tips to San Francisco that gave me the impression that he lives in his city with open eyes. Apart from that he was as funny and playful as a kid should be.

Of course I asked him for his word of the day using my little chalk board. He really thought a long time. It was not until I rephrased the question into ‘What was your day about’ that his eyes gleamed and he finally wrote his word.He told me that today he have had the chance to train with a guy that attended the last Olympic Games and guess what his big dream is...
If I should specify some requirements for an own son I would simply say ‘just take this guy as a template’.

Hey Mr. I-have-a-jacket-with-my-country-on-the-back, if you make it to the tournament in Germany in 2009, drop me a note and I will be there as your biggest fan.

Merry Christmas from Down Under

2008-12-23T11:51:00.004+01:00

My first christmas in Flip Flops is very close.
I still don't know how to handle Starbucks cups with snow flakes printed on it while realizing that I wear shorts and a sweaty T-Shirt.
The sight of a christmas tree in the dining room of a diving boat out on the Great Barrier Reef is similar crazy.
As far as I understood so far Christmas is more like a party in Australia. At least I already saw a lot of drunk girls with high heels and red Santa Claus hats in the streets.

This year will be completely without unwrapping real presents or watching loved one unwrapping theirs.

I am unwrapping virtual gifts almost every day since the start of my journey. I am pretty aware that it is very special what life pours over me with this trip and these days I just treat it like a big pile of Christmas presents.
The biggest gift although wasn't the visit of a tropical island or a rain forest or a stunning snowy mountain. The thing I feel grateful about most is that I realized over the last months how much my family and my friends care about me.
Hearing that someone misses me back home or reading that I should move my suntanned bum back home soon because some hard men want to spend time with me again was more than good.

Thank you friends for all that. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.

My Christmas days will happen up in the air to a certain extend. On Dec. 24th I will fly from Sydney to Brisbane and on Dec 25th I have flights to Singapore and then on to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. This may sound very uncosy but it is ok this time because I totally life out of my normal context during my trip.
Next year I am hungry for Kinderpunsch, my family and watching my four little princessess unwrapping their parcels what usually ends up in total chaos.

Christmas deco and palms, Brisbane

Scuba Dive Christmas, Cairns

'Weihnachtsstern' on a public square

Anti-Unplugged-Christmas, Sydney

Nautical Signs - Brisbane/Australia

2008-12-14T02:08:00.002+01:00

Yes, I know I am supposed to tell about the USA but I really have to jump to Australia for a second.
Yesterday I strolled through Brisbane and walked by the Nautical Museum. It had a big sign on the facade showing the nautical flags together with the flag alphabet. Each flag respectively character has a certain message.
For example the flag with the blue and yellow stripes means "D" or "Delta" and also "Keep clear of me".

The part that catched my attention was the letter "L" and the message attached to it. I really had to grin broadly.
I will not explain what the hidden meaning is because it is sort of delicate. Some of you will instantly understand and for all others it wouldn't be funny at all. What I can tell is that it is related to a company I worked for.

@ all the Visioneers and Ex-Visioneers: 'Funny to the core', isn't it?

Haircuts - Merced/California

2008-12-06T07:52:00.001+01:00

This posting is about the same place as the last one - the city of Merced in California. If I continue with this slow pace I will never finish posting about my trip.

Almost every day I have a new 'first-time' event during my trip. This time it was the first hair cut outside of Germany.
I was hesitating several days I went into the challenge. The thing that made me reluctant was the fact that I had no idea how to explain in English the way I wanted my hair to be cut. In German it is sounds like
'An den Seiten und hinten mit der Maschine auf 9 mm und oben gerade so lang dass ich es mit Gel noch etwas durcheinanderwuscheln kann'.

What the heck is the English word for 'durcheinanderwuscheln' (hints are appreciated)?

The sun was shining and I was realizing that I am a tall blond warrior and not a mouse and that it is completely stupid not to dare to go to the hairdresser just because I was missing the word for 'durcheinanderwuscheln'. It is even more ridiculous because there's not that much left of my head to be 'durcheinandergewuschelt'.

I saw a sign saying 'Hair Cuts 10$' and stepped into the shop. Ha!

It turned out that the woman in charge had no idea about the English Word for 'durcheinanderwuscheln', too, because she was from Mexico and her English was not much better than mine.
Well, in addition she had no understanding about how long '9mm' would be and I was still struggling with all inches, yards, ounces and all the other funny units.
Tough start, wasn't it?
After a while she just started cutting and ignored my instructions with a grin on her face.
This was the moment when I realized that probably even my hair dresser woman in Germany doesn't care about the technical sounding cutting instructions from me and all the other male customers but just cuts the way she thinks look best.
As a customer you probably have to use phrases like 'die Spitzen sind schon etwas angegriffen' or 'Volumen' or 'durchgestuft' to impress a hair dresser. How is it working on you, girls out there?
(Remark: Together with a friend we once almost convinced a slightly drunk girl that my friend was a professional hair styling artist just by dropping words like 'stufig' and 'conditioner'. This is a special greeting to the 'Friseurmeister aus Ibbenbueren').

My trip is full of important enlightenments as you see.

The name of the woman was Maria and we had a very nice conversation about Mexico, Germany and the global costs of hair cuts. We were both surprised about the huge differences in price. A haircut in Mexico is 2 USD, in USA 10 USD and in Germany I pay 20 USD for the exact same thing. Maria told me that this little fact helped a bit to smoothen her opinion that all Europeans are incredibly rich if they have to spend 20 USD for a hair cut.

Of course it was not possible to avoid the topic 'soccer' (although I am an absolute soccer idiot) and the subject turned to the World Cup 2006 in Germany. Maria could remember watching the first game of the Mexican team during the World Cup on TV and we both were excited when I told her that it was in my city of Nuremberg and that I was outside the stadium with all the crazy Mexican fans.
I told her that I even have one of the photos I took that day of two Mexican fans framed in my living room. If you look closely at the photo of my apartment [here...] you can see a piece of the photo of the Mexicans in the background just behind my head.

We both were impressed by the fact that we found a connection between us - a moment back in the summer of 2006 were we both enjoyed the same vibes created in my home town. I look forward to the next time I look at the framed photo back home - it will beam my back to a small beauty salon in California.

I liked the way I looked after Maria finished her work and she and her husband even acted as models for one of my chalkboard photos.

If you ever had the urge for a hair cut in Merced, just go to 'De Imagen Beauty Salon' and greet Maria from me.

Little Differences - Street Names / California

2008-12-06T07:48:00.002+01:00

I had to wait some hours for the Greyhound Bus back to San Francisco. The town I stayed in was called Merced and although it wasn't close to the Mexican border it was almost an Spanish town with all signs written in English and Spanish.
But instead of choosing important sounding street names like 'Avenida 5 de Mayo" the founders of the city haven't been very creative. The streets in one direction were called 1st Street, 2nd Street, 3 Street etc. and in the other direction A-Street, B-Street, C-Street etc.
Boooring!

It took my a while to understand that the phrase '16th and V' on my bus ticket was nothing less than a precise description of the corner of 16th Street and V-Street.
Really straight-forward.

Well, in Germany the city government tries to be innovative all the time when it comes to street names - unfortunately. In one area of the city all streets are named after flowers and in the next area it is fairy tale names (no kidding).
I remember having a hard time several years ago in my old town of Bayreuth. The address I was heading to was named after a fairy tale but that was all I remembered. All of a sudden I was surrounded by Schneewittchenweg, Ruebezahlstrasse or Sterntalerstrasse. I didn't dare to ask anyone because I thought it would be ridiculous to ask something like 'Could you please give me some names of fairy tales? I forgot the address of my physician.'.
On the other hand, as a man I am not allowed to admit that I am lost anyway.

As far as I remember I was late for my assignment and Snowy White was to blame.
Back in 1997 I would have been glad to have a sharp '16th and V' instead of 'make a left on Ebony and Ivory after you passed Cinderella'.

@Rainer: I am talking about the fairy tale address of the old weird physician that gave us the scuba diving consultation. Do you remember? I think he had his office in the Ruebezahlweg and that was for a reason.

To be complete I have to add that I don't like the fact that the US Americans use the house numbers sometimes twice - e.g. '25 S Main Street' and '25 N Main Street'. What does a poor little German tourist know about dividing a street into North and South? Nothing! If you want to keep me busy and walking for hours, that's the way to do it.

Tired?

2008-11-26T21:16:00.003+01:00

The photo is from a very busy dog lady securing an Indoor Climbing Hall attached to a Backpacker Hostel in a very small town also in New Zealand. For some reason the dog sensed that I took a photo of her and rolled on her back instantly rising all four legs into the air.
The owner of the climbing hall just said 'Oh, you have to scratch her belly now. That's the deal'.

So I did.

Recently a few friends back home asked me via email or Skype whether I'm already tired and exhausting from traveling.
It wouldn't be unlikely, would it? I am almost three months on the road right now and more or less in the middle of my trip.
Shouldn't I be tired from constantly changing places, from packing my backpack again and again, burnt out from the need to adopt to a new environment every day and from saying good bye to the cool guys I met one or two days before?

I don't know why but never felt that awake in my life.
The only thing I am tired of is living a tired life like being constantly on Valium pills.

The little one in the video is the son of the skipper of a small boat acting as a water taxi in New Zealand. Although the boy acted as the captain he obviously had a hard day and was barely able to stay awake. Almost every wave brought him in real trouble. I loved looking at him and you can even hear some of the passengers laughing because they observed him, too.

Seems as if being tired isn't bad all the time but I prefer to stay awake at the moment, though.

Ready for Boarding - A Chalkboard and the World / Part 1

2008-11-24T06:06:00.005+01:00

This is one of the most precious postings I ever published because it consists of many many valuable moments of my recent life on the road.

Visiting nice landscapes is only a part of the story when it comes to travelling. At least for me it is about meeting interesting people.
I met such an amazing variety of funny, interesting, smart and inspiring people in the last months and I never expected it to be that way.

There is a little chalk board in my backpack and sometimes I dare to ask my counterpart to write down a word or a phrase on it that reflects his or her day best - a word of the day.
Take it as an attempt to conserve a tiny tiny piece of that human being in my head.

Most of the times it happens after an interesting talk or after spending some time together.
It is very surprising to me that almost everyone I ask is willing to share a word and a photo with me.

There's a little story behind every single photo and the moments with these strangers enriched my life very much.
Of course you don't know the little stories and precious moments behind the photos but you can watch the small movie I created out of the first bunch of chalk board photos, though. Maybe it gives you a idea of what my journey is like. Be prepared - the video is more than six minutes long.

If you have a fast Internet connection you can watch the video in [higher quality], too.

If you recognize yourself in the movie it would be great if you could write a comment to this posting using the 'Comment' link below. If you are not in the video, feel free to comment, too.
Thank you for sharing a glimpse of your life with me - you rock!

More chalk board photos to come in the next months.

Addendum: The still photos contained in this video can be seen on my Flickr account [here...]

Explored Again

2008-11-24T06:04:00.001+01:00

Click on photo to view it in different sizes on my Flickr account

Heyyyy, one more of my photos was selected for 'Flickr Explore' on the photo site www.flickr.com. It is the fourth of my photos and similar to the last times I am very proud.

This time it is not from a far-away-place but of my hometown Bayreuth.

The building on the photo is called the sun temple and the facade is made of thousands of little colored stones - like a mosaic.
The sun temple is in a baroque park called Eremitage in Bayreuth, Bavaria, Germany.
I love to walk around in the park after the crowds are gone and I look forward to do it again when I am back home in a few months.

Well, it is a far-away-place right now, though. Actually as far away as possible because I am in New Zealand at the moment.

Drum Solo Laughter, San Francisco

2008-11-23T09:38:00.005+01:00

I am travelling alone this time and I was scared in the beginning about that.

Will I feel depressed all the time?
Will the 150 evenings summarize to a huge pile of loneliness?
Am I an awful pal to accompany myself?

I tell you what: The answer is 'No', 'No' and 'No' so far and I am a bit surprised about that.

The guy on the photo helped me a tiny little bit to realize the answers.

He called himself 'Bucket Man' and he was a street musician I met in San Francisco.

Bucket Man was a percussion genius and his drum kit consisted only of empty plastic buckets.
I strolled Market Street and all of a sudden I was surrounded by noise that shaked my butt - and my inside.
The noise his drum sticks created was mixed with an incredible laughter. Bucket Man laughed like a maniac while playing his 'instruments'.
No one was paying attention to him and he wasn't paying attention to anyone. He was just drumming and laughing. Bucket Man was all that Bucket Man needed to laugh.

During his next break I had a nice talk with him and he told me that his very first CD will be available next week and how proud he is about it.

I saw few people in my life that looked so happy while being on their own or showing so much passion for life.
This crazy bald guy gave me a little hint that as long as I can laugh about and with myself I don't have to fear any pile of loneliness.
Of course it doesn't work all the time and that's good.

I am not as good as Bucket Man yet when it comes to laughing while being alone but I'm already damn good in grinning.

MVP - Most Valuable Places, Part 3 - Yosemite, California

2008-11-18T10:56:00.005+01:00

Half Dome (click to enlarge)

Achieving lifetime goals is a delicate thing because it might turn out that the actual goal isn't that spectacular as you might have imagined.
A 'goal' is not necessarily a 'big' thing like founding a family or get the high paid job but sometimes only just visiting a special place.

I dreamed many years of being to Yosemite Valley in California. I wanted to see the famous rocks like El Capitan or Half Dome with my own eyes. I adore the photography pioneer Ansel Adams and his fantastic captures from Yosemite made me wanting to see the valley even more.

I was a bit scared that it would be like 'Been there, done that, what's next'. Well, it was quite the opposite.

As I write these lines I can still exactly remember how I felt when driving into the valley with the public bus in the early morning. With me was a guy from Italy that I met the day before. The bus driver was a woman with a sticker saying 'Fast Girl' beside her steering wheel. Luckily she was driving slow though so I had the chance to soak up every second.

We were driving through forest and suddenly I saw some rocks behind the trees. Actually it was a massive wall. I bent down while looking out the window to get a glimpse of the upper end of the wall but I couldn't. Stefano beside me said 'This must be El Capitan' and he was right. It was funny to realize that he lowered his voice. Obviously he was as stunned as I was.
Seeing this rock rising up just vertical for nearly 1 km (3000 ft) made me have goose flesh. The morning sun helped making it perfect by illuminating the rock turning it into the color of the wax of an lit candle. Life can be really kitschy and I loved it.

The whole valley seemed to air calmness and peace and it captured me immediately. The meadows on the valley ground, the trees just turning into a yellow color and the warm autumn sun made my internal battery recharge with full power.

Stefano: 'What Else?"

Yosemite is a very popular national park and full of tourists during spring and summer. Because it was already autumn the valley was almost empty and I was on my own most of the time. Just the valley, myself and my thoughts that I allowed to meander around in my head without barriers - great.

El Capitan on the right side (click to enlarge)

During the next three days I hiked in Yosemite exploring some of the peaks or having lunch on top of a dried waterfall accompanied only by some ravens. Being on my own made the experience even more valuable.

On my last day I had some cream on this big peace of 'life-cake'. After I crawled through the forest to touch the base of El Capitan I found a meadow just in front of the famous climbing route called 'The Nose' and tightened the slackline I bought in Toronto between two huge trees.
While trying to walk on the slackline facing this massive wall I was like 'Udo are you aware that you are just slacklining in front of El Capitan in Yosemite?'
Well, I was very aware of it and it dug deep into my mind.

Slacklining Tourist

In the end my time in Yosemite was not as good as I expected - it was better, much better.

To make an already perfect time even better I stayed in a very cosy hostel called 'The Yosemite Bug' at the rim of the valley. It consisted of a few wooden houses in the forest and the dining room with its fire place was one of the cosiest places I could imaging although it was freezing cold during the nights.

I liked Yosemite so much that I decided to spend two more days there a few weeks later. That's what I appreciate on travelling alone with a rental car - you can decide on very short notice and do whatever you want.

Yosemite is now one of my 'Most Valuable Places' and I am sure that I will come back some day. I wrote a posting about two other of my MVPs in Germany a few months ago [here...] and [here...]. Completely different places but very similar in a kind of way.

By the way: Two famous rock climbers from Germany made a cinema movie about their attempt to speed-climb 'The Nose'. The movie is called 'Am Limit' ('To the Limi'). The documentary is full of amazing footage about El Capitan and Yosemite. Grab the DVD if you have the chance. I loved it.
Here is the [trailer...]

Yes, You Can - Obama and Sticky Rice

2008-11-05T07:57:00.005+01:00

So this was election day. As I already wrote in a previous posting it is quite interesting for me to observe the whole thing in the middle of it.
It started for me today with a newspaper in the waiting hall of the airport in Oahu, Hawaii. The headline said in very big letters 'Vote!".
Actually I wasn't aware until today that I am in the middle of Obama-country because Obama was born and raised on Hawaii. The newspaper said that the people from Hawaii are for Obama 4:1.
During the day I saw some handwritten signs saying 'Vote" and the 'o' was written like the 'O' of the Obama-posters. Well, here on Hawaii it looked like an easy race for Obama.

While driving in my rented card I listened to the news in the radio all day long while the first results from the west coast states came in. Kind of funny to listen to voting results under palm trees.

OK, the US are a very big country with several time zones but it was strange for me to realize that the results for the first states where already published while the polling station were still open in the eastern states. I am sure the people in the east weren't influenced. Right?

One of the words used most by the radio speakers was 'historic' and it didn't sound overstated.

A women going to vote in a small village on Maui

I bought a sandwich in a small shop and the owner had a conversation with a customer about going to vote. They greeted each other with 'happy voting'.

Being back in my small hostel most of the folks sat in front of the TV watching the speeches of John McCain and Barack Obama live.

First of all I have to admit that the US is really good in doing stuff like these election things.
McCain did a great job in admitting his defeat in my humble opinion. Well, it was very clear that he lost so maybe it was a bit easier but I couldn't imagine such a respectful behavior in Germany. I still can remember Gerhard Schroeder after his lost the last elections in Germany - yes, I know it was much closer.

I was impressed by the way Obama addressed the crowd in Chicago after his victory. Even if it is his job to speak free and even if someone wrote the speech for him it impressed me.
In Germany such a speech would be far less pathetic but being here in the states it felt really ok - even the chapter about the 106 year old wasn't too much - but it was close.

The last part of the speech consisted of a lot sentences containing the main slogan from Obama's campaign 'yes, we can' and 'yes, I can'.
This wouldn't be that important without me picking up some food for take away from the Thai place across the street.
I asked the waitress 'can I have sticky rice with my tofu' and guess what she said.
'Yes, you can'.

No kidding. I am part of all this change thing even if it's just about sticky rice.

Wish you good luck Mr. Obama.

A Street for the Pirate Captain / San Francisco

2008-11-01T03:59:00.002+01:00

Do you remember Captain Horatio McAllister? The pirate captain from the Simpsons?
No?
Shame on you that you missed my former posting about this honorable guy.
While chatting with an ex-colleague back home via Skype he surfed Google Earth to look for the spot in San Francisco where I was staying. After a while he typed 'Hey there is a McAllister street in San Francisco. You really have to go there and take a photo of the street sign.'

Should there really a street dedicated to the mascot and hero of my former team? Unbelievable.

Of course I walked there - very far and through kind of shabby neighbourhoods for shooting a photo of the street sign together with the portrait of McAllister.

Because I wasn't able to hold the chalkboard and take the photo I asked a random guy for help.
I am pretty sure he thought that I am completely nuts but finally he holded the pirate captain above his head.

Master Brownwood, this posting is dedicated to you (and a little bit to Dr. DICOM, of course.).

@Dr. DICOM: Feel free to add more facts about captain McAllister as comments to this posting.

Perfect Timing / Niagara Falls, Canada

2008-11-01T01:34:00.002+01:00

On Top of Niagara Falls

Being in Toronto and not visiting the Niagara Waterfalls would be a sin, wouldn't it?
There's nothing wrong with a little sin from time to time but actually I love waterfalls - so I went to visit the falls.
At the first glance I was very annoyed - not by the falls, they were great and very impressing - but by the stupid Disneyland crap the Canadians built right beside the river.
Several casino towers, a Ferris wheel and stupid restaurants like 'Planet Hollywood' is not what I expect when I visit a wonder of nature. What a difference to the waterfalls in Brazil and Argentina (see also my posting about Foz de Iguacu).

Although the weather was bad, the big white cloud of mist above the falls impressed me so much that I decided to go closer using the famous boat 'Maid of the Mist'. I didn't expect much because it is a really touristy thing but finally I am nothing more than a tourist.
They gave me a big blue plastic coat and clever little Udo even had a plastic bag for his digital camera.
As soon as the boat started a taped voice started blubbering very loud telling facts about the waterfalls through water proof speakers. I didn't pay attention because I was staring at the falls.
The boat came very close to the falls - very close. The falls have the shape of a horse shoe and the 'Maid of the Mist' dared to advance right to the middle so that I had water on 3 sides.

The boat was shaking, it was very wet and I was surrounded by high walls of roaring water. I never experiences something like this. And just in the moment when I bended backwards to look up the white walls the tape voice shouted:
'Ladies and Gentlemen - this is Niagara Falls' with a little pause between every words of the second part of the second part of the sentence.

I wasn't really able to think but my head was like 'hell yeah, you guys are so right'.
In general melodramatic speeches like this don't work for me but the perfect timing of this single sentence blew me away.
You can say what you want about North American folks but they are the masters of good shows.
Kudos to you guys, but you should get of the casino crap!

Blue People Approach the Water Wall

Little 'Maid of the Mist' vs. Niagara Falls

Election Campaigns / USA

2008-10-30T23:25:00.006+01:00

Volunteer supporter of Obama

The elections for the new president of the United States are only a few days away and it is very interesting to me to observe the whole thing directly where it happens - in the US.

I was surprised that I didn't see a single portrait poster beside the street with Barack Obama or John McCain on it. In Germany there are big displays with grinning photoshopped maroons all over the place when it comes to election.
Here I only saw little signs with 'Obama / Biden' or 'McCain / Palin' in some courtyards of private homes. They have the same colors for both parties and there's not even the name of the party on it. Obviously the name of the party isn't needed because in the US it's only about Democrats and Republicans and I don't know whether there are parties like the 'Naturgesetzpartei' (Nature Law Party) or the 'Grauen Panther' (Grey Panthers, a senior party) in the states.
In Germany every party have stupid slogans on all posters like 'Deutschland zuerst' (Germany first), 'Sozial ist was Arbeit schafft' (social is what creates employment) or other wisdoms like that. Here it's just 'McCain' - bam - done. Only on some Obama signs it says 'Change'.
Actually it reminds me of some of the homeless people that asked me for 'some change'.

San Francisco seems to be occupied by the Democrats because there are little booths with Obama buttons and shirts on the streets but not a single one for McCain. An ex-colleague from San Francisco told me that the city is quite liberal.
The parties sell little merchandising things in the streets to raise money for the election campaigns. For me it would be unthinkable to buy a T-shirt with Guenther Beckstein on it (ok, that guy is history now) or a button saying 'I vote for Roland Koch'.
I talked to the guy on the photo above and he was very passionate and convinced by Obama.
He made me doing my first political statement in my life: I bought a button with 'Obama 2008' on it. It is now on my backpack.

McCain/Palin, 'United we Stand', 'Remember the Towers and Pentagon', 'God Bless America' / Sierra Nevada, California

The countryside seems to be not that clear. If one simply counts the signs in the gardens it is McCain country. Having a McCain right beside a sign with 'Remember the Towers and Pentagon' and 'God Bless America' looked so strange to me that I had to stop my car an take a photo. Again: Unthinkable in Germany.

'Merchandising'-booth for Obama, San Francisco

One week ago two girls addressed me in the streets showing me some forms. They worked for a school project and wanted me to register for the election. Of course they stopped their attempt after I told them that I am not an US citizen. We had an interesting conversation afterwards about the election processes in Germany and the US. They were very surprised to hear that in Germany it isn't required to register for an election because you get your registration card automatically via mail.
To me it sounded awkward that every US citizen has to register for the election just to be able to perform one of the most basic rights like voting. If one wants to prevent as many people as possible from going to the ballot booth that's the way to go.

Right now it seems as if Barack Obama leads the polls with double digits. I really hope he will make it. Eight years with an Republican president are more than enough although I have to admit that even John McCain seems to be a much better choice than the current president. But that's not that difficult, is it?

Toronto Pavement, Part 3 - The Old Lady and the Pavement Flower / Canada

2008-10-30T22:22:00.003+01:00

Imagine a few people standing in Toronto at the waterfront waiting for the ferry boat to a little island in Lake Ontario. One of them is an old lady. She is constantly moaning and seems to be very grumpy. A tourist stands nearby.

Old Lady: The ferry boat is late again.
Tourist: So we can at least enjoy the nice view to the island a little longer.
Old Lady: But look at all the ugly condos-buildings near the water. They destroyed the whole waterfront.
Tourist: I think it is still nice.
Old Lady: They also removed the benches here at the ferry terminal. Seniors like me have to sit.
Tourist: Do you see the boat over there? I guess it is our ferry. Only a few more minutes.
Old Lady: Some time ago the whole place was full of flowers. Now it is only concrete and asphalt.
Tourist: So you would like to have flowers here?
Old Lady: Of course. Look how ugly it is without flowers.
Tourist: Ok, give me a minute.
[Tourist knees down and draws something on the floor with a piece of chalk]
Old Lady: What are you doing?
Tourist: Be patient.
[Tourist stands up]
Old Lady: Oh, you painted me a flower. That's nice. A chalk flower.
[Old Lady forgets to be grumpy and starts smiling]
Tourist: Do you think the place is less ugly, now?
Old Lady: Yes, I do think it is a little nicer now. By the way, I am Gina. I go to the island several times a week to feed two horses and a donkey in a little park. Do you want to join me?
Tourist: Of course, I want to. My name is [...]. Nice to meet you.
[The old Lady and the tourist enter the ferry boat and the pavement flower hopefully stays there until the next rain].

Toronto Pavement, Part 2 - Sidewalk Breaks / Canada

2008-10-30T06:33:00.002+01:00

Who says that the sidewalk is only for walking? If it is a sunny day it can be perfect for just sitting down and having your lunch break.
After the big big city Sao Paulo it felt completely different to be in Toronto. Everything was much more slow and relaxed. The sidewalk wasn't the living room for street kids but only the canteen for some workers. It was like an inverse culture shock.
In addition I was able to joke with the construction workers a bit because the language barrier wasn't that high as in Brazil - although my strong German accent.

PS: Did you notice the pig on the helmet of the worker on the left?

Toronto Pavement, Part 1 / Canada

2008-10-29T06:15:00.002+01:00

I am pretty sure the duck felt like the king/queen of the world after walking through the wet concrete.

I spent only a few days in Toronto on my way to San Francisco. Canada is not on my travel list this time because it would take much more time.

For a reason I don't understand my Toronto experience was about pavements and sidewalks. I like to look down to the ground and watch for small things lying on the floor. Therefore I decided to see Toronto not by the usual way of looking up (e.g. at skyscrapers) but by keeping my eyes down.

Nice idea but more difficult that it seems - at least for me

Trans-gender? Trans-lucent? Trans-parent?

Life is good - even for a gully

The stains looked like a smiling sperm. I didn't add eyes or mouth, it was just stains. Do sperms have a funny life by default?

One more method of advertising. I do like the album 'Parachutes' much more than the new one

Wheelbarrow Taxis, Brazil

2008-10-26T08:56:00.005+01:00

When a pushy taxi driver runs after you because he wants to convince you that his car is the only taxi in the world it isn't that spectacular in a country like Brazil.
If the guy pushes a wheelbarrow with the word 'TAXI' on it maybe it is a little bit special - at least it was for me.
I spent a few days on the little island called Morro de Sao Paulo in Brazil.
On the island there are no cars or streets but only sandy paths. Therefore all goods were carried with donkeys or with wheelbarrow taxis.
Whether I was responsibly for his little nap because I preferred to carry my backpack on my own instead of using his service is beyond my knowledge.

Although the island is very touristy I loved the fact that there's beach everywhere and you simply lie down wherever you feel like it.
Sleeping in the sand, reading, sipping coconuts and watching some muscular guys practising Capoeira on the beach were pretty much all activities I did during my days on Morro.

As far as I remember I never went to a beach party before and although my attempts of dancing barefoot in the sand were ridiculous compared with the Brazilian guys (yes, you're right my dancing es even ridiculous compared to a centipede trying to grind a cigarette) I enjoyed chatting next to the dark water with some Brazilian music in the background and an (non-alcoholic) cocktail in front of me.

The painting on a shop window was claiming that I am on 40%. Hmm, 40% of what?
I had only days with more than 90% on Morro de Sao Paulo.
Ok ok, I am talking crap. The painting was announcing a sale with "TUDO 40%" and I was shooting only a part of the window. Is this really cheating? Probably it's the same if you take a photo of a beautiful beach without the ugly German tourists at the edge, isn't it?

Handstands in Las Vegas

2008-10-23T18:31:00.002+02:00

After lots of days with no Internet access or activities more attractive than sitting in front of a computer the blogging guy is back.
I have lots of things to tell and tons of photos to share but this time it is only a short note that I am still alive.
Currently I am in Las Vegas (and I think it is horrible) and in an hour I will drive towards the Grand Canyon. It seems as if I'm more into great landscapes than slot machines.

The next days I will try to catch up with some photos from the last weeks.

What I want to share with you right now is not a photo but a song.
Yesterday while strolling through Las Vegas I was sitting on a bench below a huge huge huge LCD screen and an ad for iPod Nano was running in an infinite loop. The song within the ad managed to sneak into my head and I hummed it the whole day.
I am pretty sure that I will connect the song to stupid theme hotels like 'The Venetian' or to millions of flashing lights my whole life. I call such things 'songs with attachment'.

The song is nothing sophisticated but you never know what song makes it to a 'song with attachment'.
This one is called 'Bruises' from the band 'Chairlift' and is about the bruises one makes by doing handstands for another person.

Here is the video. Maybe it beams you to Las Vegas, too.