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2010-04-13T00:17:00.001+02:00

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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

2010-02-28T19:09:00.003+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 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 D�si 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 D�si accomplished the mission and here is their report of it - uncut and in their own words. Thanks folks - you rock!

D�si 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.
�
D�si & 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

2010-02-28T15:09:00.008+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

2010-02-26T19:30:00.002+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

2010-01-22T18:30:00.000+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 J�rgen 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

2010-01-13T18:13:00.003+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

2009-11-24T19:02:00.002+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

2009-10-27T00:05:00.000+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

2009-10-26T00:14:00.002+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

2009-10-25T14:41:00.002+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

2009-10-20T20:01:00.004+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 d�j� 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

2009-10-19T18:49:00.004+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 "Ver�nderlicher Blattk�fer". 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

2009-08-22T18:55:00.002+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.

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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

2009-08-03T23:30:00.004+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
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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'
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Private Concert after midnight on the Pegnitz river
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Money-fetch-girl
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The male part of the 'Kinky Strings'
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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.