The birds are wild and sad, free and clearvoyant, lonesome and light and sometimes darker than I would have ever imagined them to be.
This is the best thing ever-ever: Ati is pregnant and we get to see her little baby even before it´s ready to leave her belly!
It´s Katha´s birthday, so the whole Unterhof-community came to visit her in Fulda. It´s always strange to be together again. We used to share a flat for almost 6years; not just a flat, but also our lifes and now we meet again and it´s as if time would zip us back and everything´s so normal and we eat, sing and chat until midnight. And we went to dee Basta... Oh yeah, in case you don´t know the U-hof-community: Katha, Ulli, Ati, Alice, Lars and me were part of it and Nic´té-há often came to visit us back then in good-old-Giessen:)
This cute vegetarian belongs to one of my favorite species that inhabits the Tierpark - it feeds of lettuce, squash and other healthy stuff and appears to be pretty easy-going. And what a service: there are hundreds of little fish that are always busy with cleaning the manati´s skin.
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:)
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"...
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 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.
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.
These pictures were taken by Markus - I hope it´s okay to borrow them:)? 
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!!!
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...
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!)
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!
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!
Apples from Arnold Schwarzenegger´s hometown must be dipped in gold - at least their price of 1 Euro per piece suggests that.
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....
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.
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.
