wohaaaaaaaäää!

Seppel, Andi and Marcus obviously don´t want to percieve anything of this chaotic bunch of people anymore:). Unfortunately, they still have to bear with us for another 10 hours or so - we´ll be on the train for another day, Germany is far, far away, huhaahahaaaaa. So better start preparing yourselves, misters! Or Julia and I are going to plan the next trip:)

hasta la vista, Beskid Nieski

Two really nice guys tought me this song on our first day in the hut. It´s a story about about a linden tree and a bird that is singing, and about a girl who doesn´t want to marry an old man as well as two of three young men, cause they´re yokels and have no sense for the girl´s feelings. - I hope I got the message right? Cause I don´t really speak Polish, except from "zubr", "krowa" "byk" and "cielak"...

Krakow nights rock

On our last day in Poland we allowed the city to take us over again. So bye-bye cabbage, hello pierogi! The shower at the hostel was so refreshing and the local food that we had in the restaurant was yummy-yeah. After Marcus had given us a private guided tour through the Old Town, we miraculously found a fun club that dindn´t raise any objections against us entering in hiking boots, so we danced until sometimes in the morning to celebrate our re-civilization.

the smell of the forest

The week in the forest in Southeast Poland went by real fast. We consumed tons of cabbage and carrots, followed tracks and Julia and me almost caused Andreas to go on the rampage - maaaaybe we taxed his patience a bit, but who can stay calm and well-behaved outdoors:)? And other than that? Katja had a bad cough, Seppel found some cool kind of woodpecker species and Julia drank more tea in a week than I can possibly ingest in a month.

Who says muddy wet winters can´t be beautiful?

beautiful forest

this is what I´m living for, how amazing!

the camp in the forest II

the camp in the forest I

track in track, step by step

One of our exercises was to imitate the locomotion patterns of some wildlife species - here we try to walk like wolves: the whole pack follows the leader and every animal sets its footprints in the tracks of the man in front. In this way, they firstly save energy and secondly, appear as one. For us humans it´s a bit difficult, because we differ a lot in height and everybody has a different step length. So either everybody has to make tiny steps if Heidi´s leading the group or Heidi has to jump if somebody else is in front.

wild life

These pictures were taken by Markus - I hope it´s okay to borrow them:)?
topmost picture: Julia impeded me from baking pancakes. above: we found a dead cow - well, a skeleton - and practiced fencing with it´s ribs.

following the tracks

While we searched for the ultimately perfect campsite for the next week, we came across many droppings and footprints that we tried to identify & follow. The track above might be a marten´s; the one to the left is most likely a wolve´s. How exciting!!!
I´ve never seen more tracks in my whole life than here in the Beskid Nieski in Poland. Seems as if we detected the busiest wildlife-highway ever!

hó, hó, jaj de jó

Yey, snow! At least it´s enough to build miniature sculptures out of it! - Although we really really hoped that we could finally practice building igloos and snow-burrows. Instead, the snow melt after 4 days and left us only mud...
But that didn´t matter, we still had a lot of fun searching for tracks, preparing food in completely new ways (which sometimes resulted in exploding eggs and burnt venison), singing, chipping tons and tons of wood and taking nature in in every possible way.

I didnt even know how much I missed the snow...

On the picture on top: me, Julia and Katja (left to right). Beneath it: Julia and the forest. Trees are great:) And thereunder: Marcus, Katja, Dirk, Heidi, Seppel and Markus (I always mix up the first and the last one, Im soooorry!)

On tour with the wild guys - wintercamp in Poland

Yeah! 10 days in the forest somewhere out in the wild plus nine other outdoor-lovers. I missed the wild terribly, so I´m happy, happy, happy!
The place we´re going to is located about four hours away from Krakow by car in the forests of the Beskid Niski near the Ucranian border. Bears, wolves, deer, foxes, martens, hares and many, many bird species inhabit the area - and we are here to follow their tracks...

jodeldihihoo

To satisfy all clichés of this strange country of mine: these are supposed to be real Germans, dancing "Schuhplattler" in Lederhosen and Dirndls. I bet Andrew would have been thrilled to watch their performance!

Arni´s apples

Apples from Arnold Schwarzenegger´s hometown must be dipped in gold - at least their price of 1 Euro per piece suggests that.
But luckily the "Green Week", a huge food fair held anually in Berlin, has more to offer. Katja, Tina and I went there to try loads of foreign cheeses, take part in a quiz about fruits and cuddle corn snakes (see above), praying mantises and the dogs in the rescue dog unit.

Fips the Hamster

May I introduce you to Milli´s tiny pet? It´s Fips, the Hamster. Fips is the cutest little creature ever, he eats as if he had only one day left of his little life and runs like a steamroller on speed. He´s simply gorgeous! Here you can see how Mister Barber & Nele try to win his little heart - with food, of course....

DAGEGEN

It´s always good to be against something, isn´t it? So Marie and I are protesting against all protesters, especially in sushi restaurants. And against the weirdest bathroom ever, that gave me a shock cause when I looked in the mirror, I saw Seppel (this shouldn´t be taken as an insult, Seppel, really...). And, by the way: Katja and Martin experienced the same thing, I guess.

art meets chaos

Seppel, Martin and me also went to see some museums, get a cultural shock and introduce the museum attendants to our kind of art. For example a postmodern interpretation of "Seppel´s red jacket hanging next to some really meaningful grey stuff" on the left and above the neo-classizistic performance "2 tired people in the New National Galery". The full catalogue can be orderd at the artist´s office.