There and back again...

Surprised by the weather forecast promising a sunny weekend, we put on our hiking shoes, packed Cléments backpack and drove to Immenstadt. After finding the tourist office closed we were approached by some locals and before we knew what happened we found ourselves nevertheless well equipped with advice.

Blinded by the sun.

We took the chair lift up the next mountain and crossed some of its neighbours to reach our final challenge: the ladder. To the top you could either take some nice little path or climb up a very heigh ladder. After I made up my mind, Clément decided to join me despite his fear of heights. And he did well! A little shaky but proud we reached the top and enjoyed the view over the mountains and lakes.

Take in the ladder on the right.

Clément and a nervous grin.

This row of mountains is called something like God's beton, because they
are made of all those little stones held together by some sand turned to stone.

Holding on to the rope.

After getting excited by the first bit of snow, we started our quest for something ranging between hotel and stable to spend the night. After being denied once, we convinced the owner of the Naturfreundehaus Kempten that we are just fine to sleep in sleeping bags brought up from the cellar in a room with 40 other men, sharing our matress with at least one of them.

After some deep fried food and being laughed at by everybody in the restaurant for asking for something less than half a liter of beer, we went to bed. We slept surprisingly well, which was very unexpected after the concert of snoring started when everybody came to bed after I don't know how many beers and me having the dark suspicition that this will be a long and cruel night. We were woken by the sun shining into the window and with breakfast waiting for us.

So we were back on the road a little after nine heading in the direction of the Alpsee. The way was very steep and we could feel our muscles for quite a few days.

It was totally worth it and sometimes spontaneous ideas like that are the best! Not much planning which looking back at it could have gone quite bad if we would not have found a place to stay.
Living on the edge!!! (imagine weird hand shake here)

The Feeling Of In Between

Trying to get to know myself by trying to get to know the world that I'm living in. That's why I try to see as many different places as possible. It doesn't always have to involve crossing the equator. Sometimes adventures and paradise are just around the corner. Although I get this weird feeling of being stuck when I spend too much time at the same place, missing the feeling of being in between two lifes that's always striking me when I'm on the airport ready to start a trip. My old one and a new one....

I can feel it in my heart that soon, very soon, decisions have to be made, and a long distance flight to be booked...

Vacation on Oleron

 Holidays finally came and took me away from work obligations and moving and renovating stress. Clément and I moved our stuff from two into one flat a couple of days ago and leaving a big mess behind, we got behind the steering wheel to drive the 1200 km from Ulm to Oleron, where Cléments mum lives. The sore muscles on the other hand stayed with us some more days reminding us constantly of the chaos that is awaiting us on our return. We took a break in a shitty Formula 1 "Hotel" which could not have been located closer to the highway without being ON the highway. But even that could not interrupt our sleep after all the boxes, furnitures, fridges and washingsmaschines that we moved up and down several flights of stairs.

The money we saved by not using the roads that you have to pay for and by staying at the Formula 1, we spent on lunch. We ended up taking a break close to a little lake and the only restaurant there was a five star Hotel Château de la Cazine where the waiters are wearing uniforms and exchanges your knifes and forks after every course. We enjoyed being pampered eating an awesome desert while trying to look as if we belong there under this enormous chandelier on antique funritures.

We arrived on Oleron in the evening taking our first walk on the beach and reunting with Cléments family.

The next days where full of family activities and my ears were ringing because of all the fast french that was spoken around me. Cléments sister arranged a little get together with a part of the family in St. Trojan so I could meet some of them before the big family party. It was very nice, we had the perfect weather and a tasty picknick, just the waves where a little to high even for us to go swimming.

Hugo, Cléments nephew, fixing his bike with the help of the firefighters.

French kid, crazy about baguette :)

And then, on Monday evening, my little accident happened, when a wave caught me and I smashed my nose against Cléments ellbow. It made a loud cracking noise and I was really scared that it's broken. After a quick assessment by the life guard and the pharmacists it was decided that I would take some pain killers and rest to see how if its better the next day. Because it still hurt a lot and I felt dizzy and tired all the time we went to the doctor and finally to the x-ray. My nose is not broken so I am very relieved. Today, four days after it happened it still hurts me a bit and I rest a lot but I am sure I will be okay :)

Clément diving back into his childhood as a LEGO-knight.

The rest of the time I help Clément packing boxes for Ulm, taking pictures of his beloved LEGO and putting them gently into a big box so nothing can get destroyed, and going through his papers and books from primary school deciding which are worth keeping.

 We see a lot of Cléments friends and its nice because they all make a great effort to speak English. Even Cléments mum tries really hard and our mix of French and English can almost be called a coversation.

We will leave tomorrow so we can take our time to get back to Ulm and do some hiking on the way. We don't know yet which way we are going to take but we will figure it out on the go, I guess.

 

I hope you all have a great vacation and whenenver you want to come and visit us in Ulm, you know you are welcome and a spare bed is waiting for you! <3

 

Happy Birthday, Boyfriend!

Gosh, how corny... Go get yourself loved.

I'm so restless...what could be over there?

The city must be mentions in loniplanet or something. When we went there to spend a lazy day wandering around in the city, we found ourselves among half a million foreigners. And it's mentioned in all those travelling guides for a reason. Because it is just ridiculously picturesque!

The whole city is like a museum with all those little frame houses growing bigger towards the top. Living in an old city myself, I can tell you that land was expensive so by building the upper stories bigger than the ground floor could get you some extra square meters to store your twenty kids.

This kid was just running around in her gum boots like a maniac. Reminded me of myself.

While listening to the guides leading the tourist masses through the city, you can learn a lot of other interesting facts. For example that the people dicovered only over the past years that the houses are actually having this carcass constructions which was hidden under the rendering. So they began to remove this layer of rendering and the picture of the city changed completely. 

After this we went to a little village called Kaysersberg which isn't far away either and were greeted by some storks that were nesting on some building. They have nests here everywhere so it feels a bit like looking for koalas in Australia :) 

We went up to the ruins of an old castle and had a great view over the surroundings. Pretty!

This last weekend I spent in a conference room working on future projects for our research department. Not as much fun as city trips so no pictures of that, sorry! :) But if you want to see where we spent our time you should google Kloster Neresheim. If you ever think about sleeping in a monastry thats the place for you! 
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AND some other great news! We got the keys today for our new flat! We will be moving in about four weeks and I can't wait to paint, screw, hammer and rearrange furniture and make this place a home! And we will have space for a whole bunch of visitors so feel free to come and visit anytime you want! :) 

Call your girlfriend and tell her how much you love her.

Since my time in Sweden, I really love Robyn. Her music, her style, how she dares to be different and everything I am not. And now I stumbled over these two videos both adding something very adorable to this already great song. Can't decide which version I like better. But: I don't have to! Yejj! Enjoy :)

 

Romeo & Julia

On Tuesday we went to see Romeo & Julia performed by the ballet here in Ulm. After watching Swan Lake in Prague, I knew it would be somewhat different, very modern and sensual, but nevertheless I was really excited. 

After a rather slow start it became very impressive to watch. The dancers who danced the part of Romeo and Juliet very especially great. But also the whole idea of this version. The director decided to make the two characters memebers of two tribes, one consisting of women, one of men. And the whole men against women and love against everyone really worked out for me. 

Another fact that made it so interesting to watch was the set up of the stage. Or more the water that was dripping down in very fine drops, almost like mist or steam, making the stage slippery and allowed the dancers to let each other flow across the stage. 

We were sitting almost in the last row which kept me from seeing the orchestra. And I like to watch the orchestra while they play. The only thing I could see was the conductor's baton which was appearing and disappearing over the barricade that blocked our view. The way it moved reminded me also of a dancer with all the passion that it had in its movements carried out by the conductor. And isn't the orchestra not dancing to the music just as much as the dancers on the stage really? Next time, I definetily want to be able to watch all of them... the dancers on the stage AND the orchestra in the pit.