kid´s painting competition at the faculty of veterinary medicine open house day

yummeee swimming birthday cake

Elisabeth prepared a delicious birthday cake, while Milli was watching her sceptically and Nele dressed up as an umpah-lumpa:)

sand castle exhibition at Berlin main station

We just had enough time to have a quick look at the enormous sand castles behind the main station before Katha´s train left.

U-hof community on the cupola of Berlin dome

The great thing in having guests is 1) that you meet friends that you haven´t seen for a longer period of time and 2) thet you finally get to see all those tourist attractions that you have always wanted to visit but never found the time to really to do so. The last time that I tried to get into the dome with Ati, they wouldn´t let us in, because they were holding re-entrance-interviews for people who left the catholic church. Unfortunately, I never resigned from that strange god-fan-association and Ati is a moslem... but anyway, this time we had more luck as you can see:)

visiting Berlin cathedral

@ surf & sushi

After we had accomplished half a marathon by visiting all the places of interests Berlin had to offer, we met Katja at our favorite Suhi restaurant: Surf&Sushi in Oranienburger Straße. We had far too much to eat and Ulli probably had a bit too much to drink:) Afterwards, we went to see the Blue Man Group - the show was not exactly our taste, but it was fun anyway and thankfully there we found a Starbucks location not far away from the theatre...

Christopher Street Day III

Christopher Street Day is a demonstration for gay rights and is held as a colorful parade that attracts many national and international participants and spectators.
Crazy corky gaudy people everywhere... Katha, Ulli and Nicté-há seemed to like it though:)

Christopher Street Day II

Christopher Street Day I

sightseeing tour

Sightseeing tour to Brandenburg gate, the "Stelenfeld", Reichstag, Potsdamer Platz and the Christopher street day, which is a very colorful and pretty crazy gay parade which has started as a demonstration for gay rights 30 years ago and attracts many spectators from all of Europe.

U-hof-community at the Punk Pizzeria

Nicté-há, Katha and Ulli at my favorite pizza place in Berlin - the "Tratto-ria Popo-lare i due forni" - or just "Punk Pizze-ria", as I call it - at Sene-felder Platz. I simply LOVE their egg-plant pizza with spinach and the rucola salad with mozza-rella, mush-rooms and walnuts! I know the U-hof-community for about 9 years now and it´s funny that whenever we get together, it´s as if we would still live together in Gießen...

graffiti & wall paintings at Hackescher Markt

Katha and Nicté-há

Nicté-há, Katha and Ulli came to visit me in Berlin for the last weekend in June. It was a weekend full of action, sightseeing, eating, shopping (Nicté-há really took the cake by trying to find the most stylish pair of hiking trousers in outdoor shops all around the city) and playing the "where´s-the-next-Starbuck´s-game", which is still extremely popular among the old U-hof-community...

Dahl-Rüblis wild garden

Prior to the red fox- meeting in Wetzlar, I visited Nina, Maria Regina and Bernd for a couple days. They live in a very nice old house which they renovated themselves (well, actually, it´s kind of their like their hobby, cause they´re constantly pottering around and redecorating rooms) and have a great garden - wild & full of food:)
The top photograph pictures Marla, one of their three cats. Below you can see Nina feeding the permanently hungry rabbit family.

Who needs a house when there´s a forest?

I love to wake up in the forest with no alarm clock ringing but the bird´s chirping. The forest floor is springier than any spring mattress and the air is absolutely clear. I don´t even mind rain in the forest; I actually think it´s more refreshing than annoying. To bad that I can´t live here permanently:(
It was also great to meet my little sister again - she lives so far away that I hardly ever see her except from the NAJU weekends. But now she´s here and as you can see, she loves the forest as much as I do!

outdoor cuisine

Julia prepared me a mushroom-shaped bannock bread with a champignon inlay - yummy! Johanna works on her spoon - she´s burning a deepening into a piece of wood, so that she can spoon up even soup and müsli with it. And Noemi just opened her egg which she previously cooked in a mudcoat in the fire. So: bon apetit, wild ones!

camouflage exercises

Julia and I found that we needed some rest from the kids and had the best idea ever: they got 15 minutes to hide in the forest as well as they could and then we would come and search for them. So far so good. We found two of our children after a couple of minutes, but the remaining four kids seemed to have dissolved in the mist - we searched for almost an hour until we found the boys somewhere immensely up in the trees and the girls hidden under foliage and branches, their faces covered in dirt. Great idea, really awesome! From this point on, the kiddies didn´t want to do anything else than improving their camouflaging techniques - and I have to admit they were damn good at it!

It´s Julia´s birthday!

our very own forest island

preparations before a forest weekend

Due to my stay in the US I couldn´t lead any Wildlife-project-courses for the NAJU last year, so for this year I resolved to spend as much time with the kids in the forest as possible. Obviously, there are prearrangements that have to be made before every event - a lot of the planning, packing and brainstorming takes place in our office in Wetzlar. On the pic: Berthold, the initiator of the project and Hendrik & Martin, who I know since they were 12 year old little boys who loved to build complicated tarp-constructions, had always high spirits, no matter if we had to hike in the pouring rain for weeks, and who would always finish the leftovers, no matter how many pasta remained in the pot. Now they lead hiking tours as well & they´re actually very good at it. Craaaazzzzyyyy how fast time goes by!

my very own zoo...

I personally believe :) that people belong into zoos as much as animals do. Selma and Siri look as if they try to measure Karl-Gustav, whereas Theda would like to adopt him right away. Look at Basti, he is really happy that he has discovered the existence of his own heartbeat while Fips seems to wonder if Lukas is going to eat him sooner or later. Noooo, not Luki, but maybe Karl-Gustav...

Tierpark, Homeopathy & crazy lemurs VII

These are the times when I completely forget that I live in a city together with 3.4 million other people - the Tierpark is a kind of oasis where time stops and where thousands of furry, armored, feathered and scaly weird creatures are waiting to be explored - how great that I can be here all the time! Two years ago we also came here with the homeopathy course; back then we observed the elephants in the late afternoon and formed little elephants from clay until our hands were grey, wrinkled and felt dry like the elephants´skin. There´s such a magic about those huge beasts that left us completely in awe.