Out there in the wide wide world...

Istanbul, Turkey - 2011

2011-11-26T08:09:00.001-08:00

This November I had some free time at university, enough free time to go on a little 10 day trip to Turkey. The destination was Istanbul at the Bosporus which islocated on the crossroad from Europe to Asia.

A city full of interesting people, food, culture, parties and lots of life.

Along with me I had 4 friends from university and they also had a good time down there with the turkish people.

Summer of 2011

2011-09-25T04:45:00.001-07:00

This year I spend the summer in Germany, this was for several different reasons but most important was for me to meet with old friends that I haven´t seen for a while and have fun with them in good old Europe…

By now this is almost tradition for us to climb up the “Ulmer Münster” which has the highest church tower in the world.

l.t.r.: Eyerusalem, Tabea, Manuel

BBQ in my backyard after the minster climb

Also spent some time in Budapest, visiting old friends and have some fun…

along with me came Marius, a friend from university

Hiking in the German Alps

In Schwäbisch-Hall visiting Eyerusalem from Ethiopia

St. Peter Ording at the North Sea

Cologne

Nabada, the city festival when a lot of people swim in the Danube…

Back in Europe…

2011-06-24T13:52:00.001-07:00

in Austria where my grandma comes from…

hiking in the German Alps over the easter holiday

in Bonn for a seminary

March, it was still cold outside

6 month in Ethioia in pictures 2010/11

2011-03-27T05:53:00.001-07:00

These pictures are not on chronological order, but still should give you a little taste of how my time there has been!

I´ve been there to work at a local university on different projects connected to solar energy. Most pictures are not about the work but life is not all about working….

Enjoy! Comments are also welcome…!

Faranji update – Ethiopia 2010/11

2010-10-16T02:49:00.001-07:00

Sorry for this late update…I tried two weeks ago to upload some new pics, but the connection broke down…so now here it is!

fist at Lake Ziwei

Lake Ziwei

Obama from tomorrow…

Pikosystems Test Village, Soleguraja

One of the reasons why I am here in Ethiopia…

Girls Shelter in Addis Abeba, we installed some LED lamps there…

Breakfast in Debre Zeit….

on a local bus from Debre Zeit to Mount Zuqualla

Saturday morning…market time

Orthodox monastery on Mount Zuqualla

my hiking partner Melanie from Germany and the monk that provided us with a roof over our heads for the night

Germany-Ethiopia table soccer match…

Enjera in Addis

at my friend´s place….

church on Teto mountain, Addis Abeba

home sweet home

flat mate #1, no name yet…

flat mate #2, Alemayo

So as you can see life in Ethiopia is treating me allright, still sometimes I wish for myself to waste less time on getting basic ingredients for my life…or get some projects done at my work in less time but on the other hand this life here in slow motion also has it´s good sides…just for example spending most of the evening going from one little restaurant / bar where I have friends and drink some beer, chai or eat some local dish for dinner.

So far from here, Salam!

Settling down – Ethiopia 2010/11

2010-09-10T23:47:00.001-07:00

First of all መልካም አዲስ አመት (Melkam Addis Amet) - Happy New Year to all of you out there! Now Ethiopia arrived in the year 2003…

2 weeks ago I managed to move into a little house, renting this place is still a better deal than the guesthouse where I was staying in and so I have some more privacy and space to live in. Bying the household items was the bigger challenge…never thought I would miss the big SUPER-markets where you can do your one stop shopping…on the other side the bargaining here can be also a lot of fun!

So here just a few pictures from the last 3 weeks…

Saturday morning coffee in Debre Zeit with my professor. The lake is a old volcanic crater.

This little coffee place is on the way to the university. Most mornings I stop here for breakfast…

Sodere Hot Springs, swimmer pool

nonswimmer pool

on the right Dr. Aminu, one of the professors from the university in Adama

(safe) window from my new home

photo studio from my neighbour and friend Ato

neighbourhood cobbled stone street, built with support from the German government

عيد الأضحى مبارك (Happy Eid ul-Adha) – End of the Ramadan season, in the background you can see muslims walking back home after they had a big prayer meeting in the downtown area of Adama.

We instead went to the goat market to get some fresh meat…for the New Years eve celebration on the same evening.

Our little goat…

…the butcher getting ready…

…R.I.P….

taking the fur off and processing the meat.

መልካም አዲስ አመት (Melkam Addis Amet) - Happy New Ethiopian Year 2003

First impressions from Ethiopia – 24.08.2010

2010-08-23T22:15:00.001-07:00

Last week Monday it was time to board the plane in Frankfurt and fly straight down to Ethiopia. Already on the plane I had the chance to meet a bunch of interesting people. Lots or Ethiopians that live in Germany, NGO workers from Europe and some tourists…

In Addis Abeba I was supposed to be picked up by a driver from the Adama university, well he didn´t show up and so I stayed in a hotel close to the airport.

Tuesday then I had the chance to meet another German student that was working on one of the solar projects which I´ll continue. While she did her last shopping in Addis we still had time for coffee and lunch and exchange valuable informations about the daily live here.

My first days at the Adama university were full with meeting all kinds of people and also slowly start working in the Further Training Institute which is run by a few German Engineers. The few hours after work before it got darl I mostly used to explore Adama, esspecially the “Franco area” which could be considered as the city centre with most of the markets.

My first week flew by so quick and soon it was weekend, I used it for one day in Addis Abeba to catch up with Elizabeth, somebody from the states which I knew from her voluntary service in Germany. Always funny how small this world is and where I am able to meet friends again.

Sunday then was a “work” day for me. Time to see one of my projects…this was is with small solar systems which basicaly use a solar panel, battery and a LED lamp to provide people in rural villages some light in the evenings. I went there with 3 other students from the university, 2 of them have been working on this project for some time already. People there in that village were really friendly, communication worked because of the ethiopian students quite well and so soon we had to sit down in their little houses, eat enjera and drink their home brewed beer and liquor made from corn.

So far it´s the people here that made this country so special to me, wherever I go here in Adama, kids start walking with me, try to talk a little bit or just a quick “hello, how are you?”. Even older people make the effort to speak with me a little bit on the streets. I´m sure there are still lots of good things waiting out there on the streets of Ethiopia…so stay tuned!

cheers

Balkan Trip 2010

2010-07-16T06:06:00.001-07:00

After my 5 months in Budapest, I got the chance to go on a little trip through the Balkan countries.

This time not by myself like you´re used from me, no this time with Nicole. I knew her from the time in Budapest and we became good friends there. And so why not try to go on a trip together…

So we started to hitch hike from Budapest, got a first ride within 10 minutes close to the Croation boarder…well but then we got stuck on a quiet gas station and we had to try to get to the next city and take a train from there to Zagreb our first destination…

Here after several hours waiting in the burning sun next to the highway finally in Nagykanizsa at the train station where we caught the last train to Croatia…

Zagreb, Croatia was a good city to spend two days, there we also met up with two fellow students from Budapest.

I was so looking forward to these markets in the Balkan countries, fresh veggies and fruits for a good deal…

Next stop was the Plitvička Jezera National park. Lots of small lakes connected by hundreds of waterfalls…

We were even brave enough to swim illegaly in one of these lakes…

Zadar, Croatioa

Our daily coffee ceremony in the morning…this time next to the Adriatic Sea.

One of the small towns on the way down the coast to Split…

Split, major transportation hub in the region with tons of boats going out to the islands…also a nice old town here with (hungry) tourists all over the place!

Next morning we took a ferry out to Hvar Island. Here in Stari Grad we did a short stop over before hitch hiking to the town of Hvar…

To have your coffee in the morning is part of the culture down here…and you see a lot of locals sitting in these coffee shops in the morning.

Lots of old buildings here and it was great fun to roam through the alleys and get lost in there!

Seems like in Hvar you shouldn´t be kidding with the local wheelchair mafia….

crystal clear water just perfect to spend a 39°C hot afternoon…

Little work out after dinner up to an old castle with nice view over Hvar and the smaller islands out on the coast.

Hvar Castle at night

From Hvar we took the ferry down to Dubrovnik, the last city in Croatia before Montenegro and also a major tourist attraction with its old town.

along the way down the coast…

Dubrovnik old town

After two days in Dubrovnik a bus brought us into Bosnia and Hercegovina.

First stop on the way was Mostar, famous for its bridge that was destroyed during the Kosovo war and later rebuilt to connect the two sides of the city.

also first visible signs of the Muslim religion

probably my favourite beer in the Balkans…”Sarajevsko Pivo “

Next and final stop from our trip was Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Hercegovina.

For me it was the best city on the entire trip, people are friendly and generous. Food is great and the Turkish old town has a magic character where you can roam through the cobbled stone streets, have a Bosnian style coffee, eat some delicious dishes and just chill away with a Sisha and some tea…yes you could say it´s a backpackers heaven! And then in the evening to go one or two of the fun little bars with outside seating in inner courts with a good mix of locals and foreigners…

11:30am on a weekday, locals standing on one of the squares watching a chess game…guess one way to spend your lunch break!

little street market

watching the Soccer World Cup game Serbia – Germany… 1 : 0, at least the sisha was good!

Bosnian style coffee

Sarajevo city

Nicole and Karlo

local kids playing

Nicole trying to catch the perfect shot of Sarajevo

memorial for the massacre that happened here just a little more than 10 years ago while the Nato troops stood next to it watching the whole massacre… (1998-1999 Kosovo war)

Raki…sweet liquor

outside of Sarajevo on the way to the tunnel museum, which was closed and so we ended up buying some ice cream where we got to know a nice and friendly couple from there. we even got invited for delicious coffee and some sweets. they told us their story and their picture of their country, europe and how they see western europe from their perspective… This afternoon was definately one of the reasons why we should get out there and try to get in touch with some locals!

old women sitting in the Sarajevo train station

Last picture before we took the train back to Hungary…great trip and fun times! Thanks to Nicole, Karlo and all the other people along the way that helped us to make this a special experience!

I´ll miss the Balkans…

Life in Hungary

2010-04-11T13:10:00.001-07:00

Now I´ve been living here for over 2 months…collected lots of cool pics, some of them I will share here with you. Enjoy, if you want to see more then come and visit me here…

This is part of a huge building, actually it´s for sale…but who wants to buy an old “castle”?

Blaha Lujza tér, 2 minutes from where I live…supposed to be one of the more dangerous places here in Hungary, but so far no problems…more the opposite is the case. I love the VIII. district…

a building in my street…

one of my favourite buildings here in Budapest, check out the roof!

Metro Line #1

one of our first sightseeing tours here in Budapest

Danube with the Parliament in the background

Parliament of Hungary

an old Spa

nice B U D A P E S T

HÉV suburban train station

graveyard in Szentendre

Szentendre

Visegrad

ferry across the Danube

Visegrad

Train station in Nagymaros

Vác

Anonymous

Hungarian Train…

Eger, the city of wine…

Castle of Eger

Downtown of Eger

Wine Tasting in the Valley of Beautiful Women

train station

Esztergom

Gergö, Timi and Patrick

Szent Istvan

across the Danube is Slovakia

Bori, Andrea, Timi, Patrick and Stefan

Gergö, Me, Andrea, Timi, Patrick, Stefan and Bori in the back

Basilica

border town in Slovakia

Hollöko

actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site this small village

my sister Tabea and Andrea…guess girls talk!?

castle ruins of Hollökö

Andrea and me

countryside….

Tabea and Andrea

Bratislava, Slovakia

Pécs, Hungary

Fringe 2010, free music festival in Pécs

Alexandra and Andrea

first it was a Mosque built by the Turkish, now it´s a katholic church…

we cooked for our couchsurfing host

Alexandra, her friend and me

Budapest - first impressions - 8.2.2010

2010-02-08T06:36:00.001-08:00

I arrived on sunday by train from germany, after settling down in my new home I had my first walk in the evening with my flatmate

the place where we live in close to Blaha Lujza tér on the border of VII and VIII district. big old appartment, the building is ancient but I like the old look of it!

so far I didn´t have any classes and so there was some free time today to walk through the city and enjoy the sunny winter weather

lots of old buildings in this city

one of the cool old metro lines…

stay tuned there are more pics to come…lots of stuff here to take pictures of!

Bremen-Hamburg - 26.-30.11.2009

2009-12-02T09:40:00.000-08:00

3 friends from my uni and I went up north for the weekend, we got a cheap evening flight to Bremen and planed to take the train from there to Hamburg.

the first day we did some sightseeing in Bremen, although it was a rainy day we had a good time wandering around the old town

old man riding his bike in front of the central train station

found that in a church, don´t ask me what it means...

christmas market in downtown

musician of bremen, in front of them my friend christoph

tourists staring at a moving clock in the old town

weser river

Hamburg harbour

Michels church

Speicherstadt, probably europes most known new housing project...

fish buns, delicious!

getting the beer for the party later on

cooking the dinner for my friends where we stayed at

steffi and benni, I spent over a week in alaska hitchiking with benni

underground party in an big old shoping centre

the dutch connection, benni´s friends

6am after the party breakfast at the fish market...christoph, thomas, manuel

blankenese, rich people´s quarter...

old tunnel in hamburg

Last few weeks - Fall 2009

2009-12-02T09:32:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I had my good friend Esther and her friend Verena at my place. We spent some time in the city and also went goodie hunting in the local second-hand store here in Ulm.

myself, esther, verena

with some friends from school we went to munich for a exhibition about electrical engineering, afterwards we joined the local student in their protest against some problems in our education system here in germany...

actually they occupied some parts of the university building in Munich...

Alaska - Canada hitchhiking tour 23.7.-29.9.2009

2009-10-02T09:52:00.000-07:00

Allright, here it is my long promised Alaska-Canada trip report!

I just got back to Germany on Tuesday, classes started on Wednesday and I am still trying to adjust back into school mode...still I sometimes wake up in the morning, not knowing where I am...kind of when I woke up sometimes in the last few weeks when I had to figure out where I went to sleep the last night before...but this was part of the fun beeing out there, not knowing where I will be the next day and always meeting new interesting people along the way.

Enjoy the amazing scenery, read along my stories and give me a feedback by droping a comment or two on how you like it!

Picture taken from my 13 hours long flight, just after an 1 hour layover in Whitehorse, Canada where the plane droped up and picked up some passengers before heading on to Fairbanks, Alaska, USA. During the flight I got to know another German guy called Benjamin, he kind of had the same idea of travelling through Alaska and so we hooked up with each other.

After we left the airport in Fairbanks we walked to the place where I arranged through couchsurfing.com a place to stay for 2 nights. We stayed in this 'old' house with 3 students that study at the local university. None of them where there when we go there around 3pm but they left the door open for us and so we could make ourselves at home.

After a night without any darkness, here in Fairbanks they have 23 hours of sunlight during some parts of the summer. A thing which really made it hard for me to get over my jetlag....but we still made it to check out the city, which wasn´t too attractive at all...

but still a few nice statues and old buildings, back from the gold rush days...

one or our hosts posing with us for a goodbye picture before we took of after 2 days in fairbanks

time to get out 'into the wild', in order to get there we took the bus to get outside of the city and from there our hitchhiking adventure started within not even 10 minutes holding out our thumbs and sign.

First destination was the Chena Hot Springs Park, around 100km north-east of fairbanks. There we went on the Chena Dome Trail, a 29 miles long ridge hike along the peaks above the tree line.

great hiking up there, always a nice wind that kept the bugs away, at least for most of the time...

one of our campsites

along the trail we passed the site of a former plane crash from the 1950ies

on the second day we soon found out that there was no water on the trail, even though promised by the park rangers and guide book. well so we were hiking with 2 liters each per day for 2 days. So on day 3 we had to make a choice, either keep on going along the ridge another 10 miles to the end of the trail or going down a trail, almost 600 metres of elevation to fill up on water in a creek on the bottom of the valley below us. Well we went down but also had to go back up because there was no way out along the valley. Alaska is one of these countries where you don´t find a lot of hiking trails....

well back up on the trail we enjoyed the luxury of having enough water and so we drank and cooked some pasta. tonight benjamin was cooking the dinner.

while I was fighting the bugs...most evenings I wore this mosquito net on my head and long sleeved pants and shirts...

day 4, we walked the last few miles out back to the park road, and there we discovered a old log built cabin and restaurant in where we got ourselves some burgers and cold coke. While eating we got into a talk with another man in there, he was a helicopter pilot working for a gold mine company that was digging for gold out there somewhere in the mountains. he told us his story of when he was in our age, hitch hiking across the states and alaska. so after he fell in love with this country he moved over here from the netherlands... then when we were going to pay we got told that he already paid for us...man how lucky can you be?!

the luck stuck with us for the rest of the day, after we left the restaurant we got a ride within 30 seconds. Next stop was up the road at the dead end where the Chena Hot Springs are, here we went into the hot water, soacked our aching bodies and had some time to relax. After the hot springs we tried to get back to fairbanks, our driver this time was Greg, probably one of the most interesting man I ever met in my whole life. Just a great guy with great stories, and even though he was a rich man he didn´t show anything from it, stayed on the ground and had a great view of this world and how we´re supposed to live in it. So the time (3 hours) back to fairbanks just flew by so quickly and we had to let him move on his own ways...we stayed the night on a local campground before moving south along the Richardson Highway on the next morning.

it took us quite some time to get a ride out of the fairbanks area but once we were out there it was easy to keep going, here you can see benjamin trying his luck just before we got picked up by a 19 years old girl which was part of the US army stationed down in Delta Junction, her dad was driving behind her on his motorbike and promised her to kill us in case we would harm her along the way...

this picture was taken from a sacred mountain south of Delta Junction along the Richardson HWY, there we set up camp for the night.

climbing up the sacred mountain, which is still used as a ceremonial site by the local native people

in the distance, we could see the Alaska Range with it´s high mountains, some of them the highest in North America

the next morning we moved on down south, our driver this time was a 'private' gold prospector, he drives all over Alaska during the summer, saves some sites where he thinks there could be gold and then goes back to the Lower 48 (mainland USA), checks if the sites are on government land or not and if yes he comes back the next year to start digging for gold. Actually he makes a living of this kind of work...

...if you look at the truck he was driving you might suggest not the best living...haha but up in Alaska nobody cares about the look of your truck, house or clothes you wear!

We got droped of in Paxson, here is the junction with the Denali HWY, a 200km gravel road across the wilderness to the George Parks HWY and also the Denali National Park. This road is only open during summer months and not maintained during the winter, which is pretty long as you can see on the sign in this picture.

took us quite some time to catch a ride on this gravel road, about 2 cars in one hour makes it hard to hitch hike, finally we got picked up by a german family in their motorhome. great people but the ride was only 20 miles long to Tangle Lake. Instead of staying on the road we decided to spent there the night as well.

our camp was right on the shore of this lake

next morning we got picked up by a young man and his dad on the way to Cantwell. they drove a pick up truck and we could sit in the open back of it. first it was fun, but the chilly wind turned this into a cold fun experience...haha we ended up wearing our hat, jackets and still feeling cold in the back of the truck. but the scenery along the way made up for this and we had one of the best rides in our lifes. wide open country, wild rivers, mountains, glaciers, ice fields and nobody else around.

3 hours later we told our drivers we want to get droped off here at Brushkana Creek, if we would have kown that it would take us 3 hours to catch the next ride the next day we might have kept on going with the two guys in the pick up truck...

after half a day on the road we arrived in the Denali National Park, there we got our backcountry permits, park bus ticket and food containers. the last bus brought us out to the backcountry unit 4 where we had a permit to stay for the first night. this park is all about permissions...but good thing is they regulate the numbers that can stay out there, which helps to keep this huge area wild and full of wildlife.

the first night turned out to be a cold one...

5am, we had to get back to the park road to catch the first camper bus further into the national park

the pictures speak for itself, beautiful sceneries, valleys, canyons, mountains, rivers and so on. on the way in we saw a couple of eagles soaring above the road, 2 grizzly bears, cariboos, moose...

and here she comes, the mighty Mount Mc Kinley, also known as Denali Mountain, North America´s highest mountain and usually covered in clouds. But we were lucky and could see him 3 days in a row during our time in the park backcountry

it´s hard to capture it´s size on a picture, but the 'foothill-mountains' in front of it are 3000metres high...

we spent the rest of our backcountry time in unit 32, accessible by a wide river bed divided by several arms of the glacier fed river. first day we tried to go up to a mountain lake. going up along a creek turned out to be very rough and later impossible because of too much thick bushes, and trees in our way. so we went back down to the river bed, a fairly safe place to stay for the night. next morning we saw these two mooses feeding close to our tents.

we planed to scale another mountain the next day across the river, so after several crossings of the river arms we looked back and found out that this grizzly bear was following us just 30metres behind us. he also crossed the river, luckily after we made enough noise he kept on going his own way upstream.

we set up camp on the foot of cabin mountain, while hiking up the mountain we saw a wolfe going through our campsite a few hundred meters below us, first we thought it was a bear but when the wolfe checked out our food and later sniffed on my tent we realized it was too small for a bear...it could have been a bear as well and so after we scaled the peak we went back down into the river valley which seemed to be a much safer place for the night because we could see much further and were not on game trails which crossed the mountains.

the last day we spent walking back out to the park road, took a bus to the end of the road and then took the same bus back out of the park. There we split up because we wanted to try to go our own ways from here on. we spent almost two weeks together and had a good time on the road and in the wilderness.

the same day, around 7pm I caught a ride down the George Parks HWY to Eagle River, a suburb town of Anchorage. There I spent a night and restocked my food, hitchhiked to the Crowe Pass trailhead and got to know two guys from the states. because of a supposedly dangerous river crossing along the trail we hooked up for the hike. Next day we came to the river crossing, high waters because of the heavy last night´s rain and warm temeperatures which melted the glacier ice. Half way through the river we couldn´t feel our legs anymore, the water was waist high, freezing cold with chunks of glacier ice flowing in it´s strong currents...good part of the story...we made it across and after 15 minutes we could also feel our legs again.

the we hiked up the crowe pass, up a big valley and even the sun came out, which was nice since we´ve been hiking in rain since we left the trailhead.

another night on the trail just below the glacier with a cold skinny diping bath in a small creek with a nice water bowl

hiking up to the highest point of the pass

here already descending down the trail on the other side of the mountain, the clouds just came up from the valley which made up for a spectacular show of clouds and mountains

once we got down to girdwood, a small town along the Turnagain Arm, we dried our stuff in the sun, took a 6$ shower in a laundromat store and then caught two rides all the way to the Girdwood Trail trailhead from Cooper Landing to Hope. We decided to continue on this hike together since we got along pretty well and had about the same hiking pace.

the trail wasn´t that challenging as the last one we did, but still nice scenery along the trail and good times in the evenings with a campfire and usually nobody else besides us around

campsite just before we traversed the resurrection pass the following day

the valley we hiked through was loaded with blueberries, and so we used them for breakfast...fresh berries with oatmeal...exactly the stuff that gets you going for another day on the trail with a heavy backpack

on our last day on the trail we came to a river loaded with salmons, it was the salmon run which started when we were there. we talked about gettign some fish before and so we tried out luck here. I got this one with my hiking pole, yes you read right, stabbed him right through with my pole and then got him out of the water. well then we had the problem of processing the fish in an area also loaded with bears that came down to the water for catching salmon, and I had a big salmon loaded in my backpack...guess what how fast we were trying to hike to the next place were we could make a fire to BBQ our big catch. oh and so good the salmon, just a little pepper, salt and fresh garlic on the salmon made us a delicious lunch.

My two new friends didn´t have that much time as I had and moved on to Seward, myself I stayed a night in Hope, small village which was left over from the gold rush days and now mostly habitated by people that hate the big city and chose to live out here in this little community of 180 people.

little climb up to Hope mountain the next morning before moving on to Seward as well

wild sheeps

Salmon run in the river

Resurrection Bay in Seward

Jim and his daughter took me out fishing on their boat for a day, I became friends with them while staying next to them on the local campground. great people which I will keep in my memories of alaska! hope I can visit them sometimes in the future....

Exit Glacier and the Harding Icefield

After 3 days in Seward I hitchhiked to Whittier, once built as a secret US military bas but now a small village with 80 people, mostly old, artists and people that work on the fishing industry. bad weather forced me to move on with the ferry...

along the coast chunks of ice from the glaciers that cover huge parts of the coastal mountains

when I got to Valdez it was still raining, even the next day it hadn´t stoped and so I decided to move on towards better weather...I tried to get closer to canada...

got picked up along the Tok Cut Off HWY by an older man who had a house and a cabbin back in the woods where he let me stay as long as I wanted, I stayed for a night. Enjoyed the wood stove and blueberries but also moved on the next day because the rain caught up with me again...

blueberry rice for supper, looks better than it was...

In Tok, close to the border to canada I tried to get a ride up the Top of the world HWY, but the weather was so crappy that nobody except one young women with a baby and a car full of stuff went up there. so I ended up to get picked up by a couple from the states. they took me across the border, helped me to convince the border official to let me in and then even offered me to stay with them for the night on a campground.

the next day we stoped at the Kluane National Park for a little hike and then they took me all the way to Haines Junction where they decided to go west and I wanted to go east to Whitehorse. On the way to there I realized that O must have left my camera in their van, but these great people found out my email address, tried to get in touch with me and even sent my camera to a friend´s place in vancouver...otherwise all these pictures would have been gone...! GREAT to knwo that there are still AMAZING people out there that care for each other! Thanks Susan and Christian!

Kluane National Park, Yukon, Canada

in Whitehorse I slept one night in a hostel, my first night in a real bed under a roof after almost 5 weeks...in whitehorse I spent some time in the city but soon felt like it was time to move on, so after a last walk along the Yukon river I moved on along the Alaska HWY.

back on the road

5 hours down the road my driver droped me off around 9pm, checked out the sign forest here and then found a nice place at a small lake for the night

the next morning I had a few coffees at the local grocery store, a bunch of locals where there as well. I got to know them a little bit, heard some stories of hitchhikers that got stuck here in Watson Lake for up to 5 days, knowing this I went back out to the HWY, but not even 10 minutes later I had a ride from Tom in his nice old VW van, I shared my trailmix with him and he returned the favor by stoping and brewing some tea for us on his camping stove, another one of these easy going people I was able to get to know along the way.

I asked Tom to drop me off at the Liard Hot Springs Provincial Park, there I soaked my body for 2 hours before trying to catch another ride. It took me almost 2 hours, the bugs were really bad here because of all these hot mineral springs and I ended up trying to catch a ride with my mosquito net on my head....and I got a ride! A semi truck driver on his way home to Edmonton picked me up...

..so trucking down the HWY wasn´t really fast but still quite a interesting experience.

through some of the best parts of the Alaska HWY, Stony Mountain Park and other small protected areas.

After 2 days on the road with him we got to Fort St. John, there I had a place to stay with friends of mine.

The Bidulka family lives 20km outside of Fort St. John and make their living with farming. They tried to do everything to make my stay with them a great experience, they introduced me to their community pasture and the couple that takes care of it.

Calvin, the cowboy, fixing the fence for the cattle

they even arranged for me to go on a horse ride through the fields with one of their friends

New friends!

Next stop, just 3 hours down the Alaska HWY was Beaverlodge, my friend Lee lives there out in the woods with his family in the cooles log house I´ve ever seen. Had a great time with them and I even had the chance to go fishing with Lee at the Wapiti river

From Grande Prairie I went straight to the Rocky Mountains National Park.

I spent 5 days hiking in the backcountry in the Jasper area

met some interesting wildlife along the Skyline trail

a few small lakes along the Skyline trail

down in that side valley I spent a night

because of another wild fire close by the visibility wasn´t that great

hiked out on day 3 on the skyline trail

and continued on the Maligne Pass trail further south

on day two I got to a valley full of bushes and a river flowing through it

the first hour or so I was still able to hike along a fairly good trail but then I got to a point where there was no more trail, all grown over, sometimes there were some game trail which were leading into the right direction but soon also stoped to go further through the bushes. So after 2 hours of intense bushwacking I decided to turn around and walk back to Maligne Lake. Made it even all the way back to Jasper where I spent a night on the campground.

Hiking down the Parks HWY wasn´t that easy since it´s a toll road and mostly used by tourists. Well but some of them do pick up people like me, first ride was with a guy who was on a two year moving trip from England to New Zealand and my second one was with a couple from Belgium in their rented motorhome. First thing they did when I got onto their vehicle was they offered me a fresh cold beer! AWESOME RIDE!

They even let me stay with them on a campground outside of Calgary, shared their dinner with me and listened excitedly to my stories! My pland was to get to Lethbridge, souteast of Calgary, in a day. Getting through and out of Calgary was a tough job since hitchhiking wasn´t legal in that area. But got a ride from a cowboy in his pick up truck, had to listen for 90 minutes to his political views and ideas. Next ride was from a local farmer guy that offered me some fresh weed which he just had bought. From his farm road turn off to the next town I got a ride from a Hutterite farmer going into town to get some fresh groceries. From Fort Mc Leod I had a ride from a charming young girl on her move to Lethbridge for university. She even drove me all the way across the city to where my brother lives with his housemates.

we went to a little bird sanctuary with injured birds

my brother also had planed a big hiking trip for us, so here you can see us preparing all the food...

the plan was to hike a part of the Great Divide Trail which follows the British Columbia and Alberta border along the water divide line, mostly along mountain ridges. The trail is not maintained and most of the time wilderness hiking without any trails

up and down several peaks with still nice sunshine on the first day

my brother checking on the maps and guide book for the trail

always along the ridges...

this little canyon on top of one of these ridges was freaking awesome! the tower to the left looks almost like a face

I named this mountain the "Wine Cup Mountain"

the weather turned from sunshine to rain and later during the hike into ice and snow...well so we had to wear almost all the clothes we brought along and be carefull not to slip on icy rocks and snow

on day 4 the sun finally came out again

we had to climg up this one on the ridge leading up to it...pretty exhausting with a 30kg backpack on your back

peaks sourounding us

West Castle River valley, we used the trails down there to get to the Castle Mountain Ski area from where my brother´s friend picked us up

my brother Simon in action

that bearded guy is me...I did trim it after that!

Great challenging hike, thanks Simon for doing all the planing and preparing...

2 days later I was back on the road to Vancouver, along the Kicking Horse Hwy along the US border through great country with lots of gold rush history and good people living in it.

Coming back to Vancouver, after 2 years, was quite an exciting feeling.

sure I did some memory refreshing and went to several beloved places in my 2nd home city

musician down at Canada Place

meeting up with friends was anoter big highlight on this trip! Fairy, haven´t seen her for 3 years...

Erna, my former landlady and close friend of mine! I stayed with her again during my time in vancouver. here she treated me for a sea food dinner at the Pan Pacific restaurant

Lisa and Fairy did some hiking with me

Deep Cove, one of my most favourite places in Vancouver, the view up from that rock is almost sacred to me!

fun times with friends, here Lizl and me

Shenanigans with Chiemi, Lizl and Ray...like in the good old times!

another one, Café Crêpe on Granville with Lan, Keri, Kaylene and others

Joe and me

Kitsilano Beach

Burrard Street Bridge with Granville Street Bridge in the back

English Bay during sunset

downtown from Stanley Park

North Vancouver

Before flying home I went on a little road trip out to Gun Lake where my friend has a cabin on the lake. So Lan, Erna and me drove out there on Thursday. Here along the rough gravel road known as the Hurley Pass starting from Pemberton north of Whistler.

early morning shot from the cabin

rode the ATV to Gold Bridge for a coffee in the old restaurant

up and down the mountains...

day 3 we used to do some hiking up Green Mountain. The dark blue lake on the left is Gun Lake and the bright blue one is Downton Lake fed by a glacier river.

left over from the logging industry...

once we got to the peak of Green Mountain we kept on pushing further along the ridge towards the glacier

there we found two small mountain lakes hidden behind the peaks

last night at Gun Lake

On the way back we took the Carpenter Lake road to Lilloet, from there the #99HWY south to Whistler and from ther to Vancouver.

Then a day later, Monday September 28th I had to fly back home...

Alaska - Canada tour 2009 update 2

2009-09-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

Well I kind of forgot to tell you that I have great news! The couple which took me along in their van all the way from Tok in Alaska across the border to Haines Junction in Canada found my email address in Whitehorse at the hostel I stayed at. Good thing I mentioned to them before that I would be staying there. And they also found my camera im their van...yeeehhaa! So now my camera should be on the way to Vancouver and I´ll be able to put some Alaska pics online once I get there in about 2 weeks. In the meantime I will give you some of the pics which I took since I left Whitehorse. Currently I am in Lethbridge, Alberta. Staying with my brother and his housemates. The plan is to do some hiking with him and then move on to Vancouver, you guys can expect me to get into the city around September the 16th...
Well enough talking now, enjoy the pics and keep in touch, many more will follow soon with more text explaining them more and the stories that come along with them!

Outside of Whitehorse along the Alaska highway

Tom´s old VW van

1000km, 2 day ride with a big truck

5 day hike, Rocky Mountains National Park

Alaska - Canada tour 2009

2009-08-17T22:14:00.000-07:00

Allright, time to put something up on my blog...I wish I could show you some of the (great) pics that I shot the last 4 weeks, but today I lost my camera in Haines Jct. or maybe on the van with the people I travelled for two days before it...I'm hoping to catch them tomorrow along the highway, if not my pics are gone and somebody else is the new owner of a good camera and my pics as well!

Beside that I hitch hiked across the border into the yukon territories in canada and made my way down to whitehorse. this is my first night since almost four weeks in a hostel with a nice warm shower and internet access...the weather has been a little wet the last 5 days since I left the Kenai peninsula in alaska and I'm hoping for better weather here in canada and esspecially down in british columbia which is still about 1400km away...

yeah so far from my side! I'm really sorry for not beeing able to present you some pics of the adventures I had so far up here!!

all the best and happy travels!
cheers

Ulmer Spatzenflug - 28.6.2009

2009-07-10T01:21:00.001-07:00

Another little event was held in Ulm 2 weeks ago. There was a little dragon boat race between the two universities, which my uni team won without any problems...

at the same time there was something like the "red bull flugtag", but since we live in ulm this was called "Spatzenflug"...the spatz is a famous bird connected with a little tale about the history of ulm...well anyways the participants had to dress in costumes and then jump/fly into the danube river. One of them you can see in the picture preparing for the jump...beer always helps!

last presentation of the pilots

before flying into the river

fly, fly, fly like a bird!

Black & White Ulm - 15.5.2009

2009-05-15T10:46:00.001-07:00

I had to get out for a while, so I used the time to take some pics of Ulm, the city where I live at the moment....I concentrated on some older buildings in the downtown area.

Oststadt

small houses are built on top of the city walls

Judenhof

Library

Major Hall

Fischerviertel - Fisherman area

little wall in a park where it´s legal to spray some art

Ulmer Stadtlauf - 10.5.2009

2009-05-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

I had another run this weekend, this time "just" 10km through Ulm, the city where I live right now.

I was part of my university running team. With 35 members we were the second biggest team that took part in this run.

me running

if I remember right then this pictures was taken just a few seconds before I finished my 10km in 43:56 minutes...

the picture after the run...

Half Marathon Kempten - 19.4.2009

2009-05-08T07:55:00.000-07:00

My second run this year...after I did a 10km race a few weeks ago it was time to run a little longer distance...

...nice weather and a fairly good run from my side...

made up for a nice day with a desecent time of 1hour and 41 minutes for the 21km!

Hiking in Austria - 11.4.2009

2009-05-08T07:51:00.000-07:00

Over the Easter Break I went with my family to Austria, we had a family reunion and some quiet days with my grandma. One afternoon my sister and I hiked up the "house mountain"...

along the way we had to walk some parts of the trail in deep snow...

my sister, Damaris, hiking up a steep ridge, which was covered with snow

new look?! ;-)

finally at the peak cross, both tired but proud!

on the way down...