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March 24th

I'm sitting at Frankfurt airport.

My destination: the world!

I can’t believe it is finally happening.

My old apartment. Almost all my stuff I either sold or gave away.

It is a bit scary. I’m surprised by my own courage – or maybe naivité!? But it IS happening. I’m embarking on a journey into unknown places for… well, I don’t know how long. Strange to think that I don’t know how long I won’t be “home” or whether it actually still IS home?

Currently, home is in a travel backpack and a day pack that still feels too heavy anyway ;). Almost all the rest of my life as I knew it is gone – sold, given away – only a small collection of things, mostly of emotional value, remain in boxes with my Dad.

What's left of my stuff fits in two bags (and a couple of boxes at my Dad's ;))

I am questioning everything. I am open to everything. No idea what will come my way. I will be getting rid of all the little economic, social, cultural "shoulds" and other expectations that determine me rather than me living my own life. To find "home" in myself, wherever that may be in the end. I’ve been running in a maze of closing walls left and right for too long. Questioning my job plans, questioning my education, questioning the system of our society, questioning my relationships even. Everything is open.

Friends and family saying goodbye. The bets are 4:3 against me coming back ;).

What a Good... nay... Great Friday!!

As a land animal, we humans are inevitably bound to this surface called earth. It's gotten much more bearable since we found out it's not actually flat as a disc and we started climbing mountains and sailing on the oceans without constant fear of just dropping off somewhere any moment.

However, life on the ground still provides us with a rather narrow perspective and limited view.

In a generous effort to expand my perspective, my Mom gave me the gift of a flight over the Swabian Albs, the area in which I grew up. It is naturally hilly and the types of landscape change frequently between forests and fields, fields on hills, fields on mountains, fields in valleys and the occasional stone quarry next to a field, at least that's what you get from the ground... and that's cool, because it's a lot more interesting than just plain fields like in the US Midwest ;).

So off I went on the little power glider above to see the landscape that I had crossed so many times in my youth: from the Degerfeld airport, close to the small town of "Burladingen" to the Lake of Constance

Anyway, from above ground, things take a different perspective. Everything looks a lot smaller (surprise!), distances are shorter and the world feels a lot more connected. Here are some of the impressions from my flight. Enjoy!

The cockpit of the plane. 3 different systems for navigation are integrated: GPS, ADF a system which uses spots on the ground drawing directional lines from one to the other and VFR (Visual Flight Rules aka sight ;))

Typical for Swabia... "Realerbteilung", which meant that every child inherited an equal amount of land, split up and thus shrank fields for agriculture. On top of this, three different section of a field were treated differently in terms of crops. One year, a crop with high nutriant demand would grow, the following year one with a lesser demand, the third year the land could rest...

In todays modern, technologized economy, the dynamics seem to have somewhat shifted...

"Down" at the Lake of Constance lies the "Flower Island" Mainau. In the summer this island as well as the Reichenau (vegetable island) close by are great attraction for tourists. The yellow stream on the water to the right side of the image is pollen from spring flowers.

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From the lake flows Germany's greatest and longest river, the River Rhine. While the Rhine valley in mid Germany is probably the most beautiful part of this stream northbound, the Swabian Albs are also home to Germany's other great river, the Danube flowing East. This is the most extreme bend on our flight through the Danube valley, photographed at a 90 degree angle by the way ;).

Along the Danube are several little castles and other historical buildings. One of them is Kloster Beuron - an old monastery. The monks used to produce cremes, chocolate, liquor and meats after old recipes back when the monastery was mighty. These products are still sold here today actually and attracts tourists this way.

The last famous tourist attraction on our tour was the Hohenzollern Castle. I've been inside the catacombs with the jewels many times and sat on the cannon like any other child growing up in the area. But instead of looking up from this historical castle into the sky where the planes flew, this time, I had the unique opportunity to be on the other side. Purely amazing!!

Japan comes in for a visit (well, sort of)

Yesterday, I got a great late birthday surprise from my friend Iris.

Since she had forgotten (!) my birthday, she had to make it up with a special treat.

What she did was not only making it up, it was fantastic!!

When I visited her in Japan in 2009, pretty much all we ate were Okonamiyaki - (check out an earlier post with a picture) a delicious Japanese sort of pancake with all sorts of deliciousness in it! And the best part? The sauce on top!!

This is actually the hard part of it when trying to make Okonamiyaki from scratch, since the sauce is not easy to get (at least not in Germany).

BUT, she managed to find some and here is the magical result!

It looks like the real stuff, it smells like the real stuff, it tasted like the real stuff.

NOW, I gotta get my hands on that recipe - stay tuned ;)

Mainz to Paris Recap

The trip to Paris is passed a couple of weeks now, but the memory remains.
What's more: I've grown a completely different relationship to my race bike (although it's not even the same bike I rode to France!).

I've patched up the old fellow, I cleaned it and last Sunday I went for a crazy power-ride into the Taunus (that's a more hilly area around here). 3 hours, 50 kilometers, 800 m in altitude ;).

Anyway, in memory of the greatest bike ride ever, here are some more photos from the trip!



Right behind "enemy lines", when we crossed the border to France and found our first Patisserie / Boulangerie



Me in a sexy bike shirt and helmet in front of the Cathedral of Reims, a city that carries mostly negative connotations exept for......



...... the Profiterol I had there! Woot for sweetness!



This was our little camp set up in the hills of Champaign! To the right lies the city of Reims Which we could see, including the night firework!). The the left lies the beautiful Champaign countryside! The best true outdoor camping spot ever!!!

But we DID have another enormously great camp site.
It was our last night before Paris, it was raining cats and dogs, it was cold, the ground was soaked, we were tired, the day had been long. In three words: it was fucked up! (fine, four words!)
I was sick of it and I didn't want to set up camp in the dirt. Neither did Kamil!



So we found the next farm and asked to stay in their barn... and ended up just between the straw!

The day after that, we finally made it to the big city! 7 days, roughly 700 kilometers and 70 bucks for the bike that I had to sell there unfortunately :(

MapVideo: On a Bike from Mainz to Paris

Life has no adventures? You're not looking right!




This is a MapVideo of the tour I did with Kamil, a great friend of mine.
the clue: The least possible amount of planning. We had printed out a sketchy map off the internet the night before we left. Other than this, THIS was our map:




We traveled from Mainz to Paris in seven days, got scorched by the sun, drowned by rain and went through agonizing pain. We slept in a tent on the fields of Germany and France, we had no idea where we would stay the next night or where the next shower would be (in fact, there was only one before Paris... ehem..)
But when we reached Paris, we had a great sense of accomplishment... and a carbon footprint of ZERO!

This is a preview of a VideoTour with pictures on a Map in GoogleEarth:
Update: I am working on fixing the bug that keeps this window from showing up properly and will try to redo the video as well!

Dude, where's my bike?

Dude, where's my bike? - I don't know, which country are we in?

So here we go. After an amazing weekend in Sweden and like - what? Two weeks in Germany? we have arrived at the ultimate reason for Kamil coming to see me: our bike trip!

You would think after such a long time of talking about this, we would have it all planned out... well, then you don't know us well! For months, we have been arguing wether to go to Lyon (Kamil's favorite option) or along the beautiful rhine river all the way down to Rotterdam where father rhine kisses the north sea (guess who preferred that option!). Our plan is to have the smallest amount of planning possible - it should equal the biggest amount of fun, right?

Well, we are going to .... Paris!!

We finally managed to get bikes last Thursday (about an hour before I was leaving for a wedding!) and today we got a tent, bike bags, travel towels (see the Hitchiker's Guide!), food, jackets, helmets and some other more or less useful stuff. Check it out:



What we still don't have is a plan... or a route for that matter! But hey, we got a GPS (thanks to Max who provided us with a lot of useful stuff and advice like: you will smell anyway, so don't worry about bringing clothes to change!).. AND we have this very useful map:




Obviously, nothing can go wrong now!
Kamil and I are already excited! Like reaaally excited! We feel really double rainbow actually, as this little video shows proof of!



So now let's see where these bikes will take us! No matter what happens though: we will take our towels!!

Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden - A Time to Make Friends (isn't in the morning)

Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden
When you can't travel yourself to go and see the world, it is almost as much fun to have the world come to your own place. So many cultural differences, so much potential for misunderstandings, so much to learn ;).

I just picked up my Seattle friend Kamil Michnicky from the airport last night (yes, this time I picked him up, although I let him in doubt about that until the very last minute ;)).

After feeding him and putting him to bed last night, the pupil got his first lessen this morning: Do NOT talk to your friend/temporary roommate for the first hour after getting up - he will be grumpy ;)

Intricate questions about Germany grammar are for after breakfast, DUDE - THAT'S the time to make friends! (by the way: same goes for guitar playing ;))