As a friend of mine was singing at the local Strawberry Festival, a whole group of us went there to check it out.
The festival was held at the farm of a farmer in Weiterstadt, close to Darmstadt. A sunday afternoon crowd of mostly elderly and kids gathered in a big marquee and enjoyed a variety of dishes based on asparagus or strawberries.The Jazzband “Focus on Jazz” performed many ever-greens and also some less well known tunes. Overall they were really good, very professional musicians. Because of this, I got the impression, that the band was quite a bit overqualified for the crowd.

After the band, an asparagus peeling competition between some local “celebrities” was set up and moderated by a very distinct entertainer from the area. While the contestants were peeling away, she was singing behind them in a very strong hessisch dialect.

The “grand finale” was reached, when a dancing group of some girls from a local school presented their very enthousiastic routine:

Overall it definately was a very interesting and diverse Sunday arvo!

Gemeinsam für ein sicheres Deutschland. Die Kampagne „Du bist Deutschland“ war 2005 der Beginn einer positiven Stimmungswelle im ganzen Land. Diese gebündelte Energie hat sich 2009 umgekehrt, denn nun bist du potenzieller Terrorist und wirst überwacht.

Before diving in deeper, let’s cite Wikipedia to explain this concept in a few words:

[...] a social movement involving individuals who offer hugs to strangers in public places. [...] The hugs are meant to be random acts of kindness – purportedly selfless acts performed by a person for the sole reason of making others feel better.

At first we settled right underneath the Heiliggeist Kirche near the market. Being so lucky to catch on of the very first sunny and warm days this year, our signs were shining in the bright sunlight and the first confused looking people started to ask us why we were actually doing this. After dispersing the suspicion we might be some sort of sect or organisation trying to hook people, most people were amazed by this idea and loved it. Especially mid-aged and elder people agreed that Germany needed more of such events. (I think this is true for any country at any time)

A younger German couple we hugged early during the morning came back, carrying their instruments. After settling right behind us they started jamming on their guitars, creating an amazing atmosphere. As we were giving out our hugs for free, they also played without a hat on the street. (Thanks again unknown musicians, you certainly improved our mood even further!)

Around midday we moved down the road a bit, as the sun had moved away from our previous spot. We kept on hugging random strangers till the sun set behind the beautiful old-town of Heidelberg.
After this long day of hugging, everyone was rather exhausted. After dinner at a Libanese restaurant, we walked through the old town, catching a glimpse at the illuminated old castle. Later we crawled some local bars and got introduces to a “special” local schnapps. At the end of a long day, everyone joined their hosts, surfing some local chouches (thanks again hosts!).

Click here to view the embedded video.

The band itself arrived around 22:00 and sat down for a late african dinner. After moving in all those diverse instruments (e-guitar, bass, vibraphone, keyboard, trombone and some indian double-sided drum) they started playing. Their sound reminded me a lot of a more psychedelic version of the early Santana. I massively enjoyed those chilled tunes relaxing on the comfy couch. They played till 01:00, but it felt way shorter as I was so immersed into the sound.

After this concert, the musical balance of this week is regained (see prev. post).

In the evening I drove down to Mannheim and found a parking spot in the area after a few minutes search. I got to the venue around 9ish and had a unpleasant encounter at the entry. They refused to let me take my camera (non-SLR that is) inside! I really didn’t expect this from a band who call themselves punks. On the other hand I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to see that the fully virtual ticket process went smoothly; as I don’t have a printer hooked up to my computer, I stored the ticket PDF I got online on my mobile and presented it to them. The girl typed in the number underneath the barcode and I could enter. I still wonder though if it is possible to scan the barcode from a display?

Inside, I got me a shandy and a few minutes later the band started. Soon I realised that their studio recordings were way better then their live show. The drumset was mixed way too loud, blowing everything else to pieces, which is especially sad, as they run a very interesting mix of instruments (e-violin, acoustic guitar, washboard percussion, …). Also their appearance on stage did not feel authentic, more like a well choreographed freak show. Being rather dissappointed, I just left about 1 hour into the show.

I guess one can’t always be lucky with the concerts, though the majority of the recent concerts was really good.

The next day we enjoyed the beuatiful weather in and around the pool, just relaxing and talking, playing some garden games (Boule, Beachball, Water-Volleyball, …) from time to time. We even witnessed a partial lunar eclipse that night!

Though the weather was predicted pretty bad (a lot of rain and strong winds) we again were rather lucky. It just rained a little bit Thursday night and it got story Friday, but that was it, the rest of the weekend was rather pleasant, not too hot or cold.
Because of the wind on Friday our pavillions mostly consistet of random sticks and fiber-reinforced tape by then. (Hail tape! What would I do without it?)
As I didn’t expect the parking area to be some sort of remote from the campsite, I removed the backseats from my car (which was surprisingly simple, cheers Toyota-engineers) in order to be able to fit my bicycle trailer in there. Arriving at the festival around midnight (the Filderstadt friends had saved some space for me), I realised that this was no necessary. As the concert area and the camping area were on different sites, there was plenty of space and one could just drive the car right to the campsite. With things beeing very well organised and easy going, I could just dive right into the festival spirit and relax. (Aside very good operated sanitary installations they also organised a small tent-supermarket with all the basics)

The next afternoon, Martin and I met at the beergarden in Leinfelden. After a laid back late brunch we went to Vaihing to get drinks for the party at Flowrider’s garden that night. At the mall we stumbled into a store selling nonsense gadgets like Hawaii flower garlands and soap bubble toys, of course we couldn’t resist and bought a bunch of the garlands and bubble toys for the party.
As things already got late, we drove straight to Flowrider’s party in the fields behind Vaihingen. The usual crowd barbecued and partied all night, getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes from the nearby pond.

I know it has been a while, so let me give you a brief update:
As most of you probably know I moved to Darmstadt to start a postgrad position at the Department for Computer Integrated Design at the TU. I found a pretty nice flat at the southern outskirts of Darmstadt and settled in quite well so far.

The job is just in the field I was looking for, the intermediate area between engineering and information technologies and my project allows me to get around a bit.
So far for now, I’ll also add a few more details about my recent trips.

Cheers
TIm

All my boxes are packed and tomorrow I’ll be ready to go!

Let’s see when I’ll be able to post again, hopefully activating the DSL-line won’t take too long!

Cheers
Tim

Local Culture

I made it home well, right in time for quite a few late summer / autumn festivals. The first and biggest was the traditional Wasen, a few weeks later I visited the Fellbacher Herbst for the first time. A pretty nice wine festival in the heart of, you guessed it, Fellbach with live music and many booths selling local wine and food. The last local festival in that row was the Krautfest, a festival around Filderkraut, which is typical for the Filder region and only produced here.

Good old Friends

Two weeks after I returned back home some good friends from highschool times and I went to Switzerland. The first day and evening we spent in Basel, joining with one of our friends who had worked there for his studies. After we finally decided on a restaurant I had a really nice wild boar roast which I won’t forget for quite a while.
The second day we drove to Luzern and started hiking up the Pilatus with fog all around us, one could barely see 50m. Overall the elevation difference would have been 1600m in one day, but in my corrent condition I gave up at about 1000m and took the cable car to the top. There we had a reservation for the hotel and enjoyed a relaxed evening (the others were totally tired as the last 600m were the toughest part).
Sunday the fog had cleared and the view was really marvellous. After a brief sunbath we took the cable car back to the lower station where we had parked the car and spend the rest of the day browsing around the inner city of Luzern.

The Studymates

The last weekend of October my group of best friends from the aerospace studies in Stuttgart gathered in Hamburg. The first day had a bar crawl through the Schanzenviertel and along the Reeperbahn.
After everyone had recovered from the night before, we went down to the pier (Landungsbrücken) and took a boat trip around the warehouse district (Speicherstadt) and the harbour. After that we just walked around downtown a bit and found a really nice and small mexican restaurant where we managed to get a table for the nine of us. After a good meal and some Tequila we retreated to Oli’s place where most of us stayed and had a rather calm last evening.

My Grandma’s 88th Birthday

As we planned the gathering in Hamburg quite a bit ahead, I could arrange that it would be the same weekend as my grandmother’s 88th birthday. So Sunday I got up a bit earlier, took the bus to the main station to get a few fresh flowers and visited her. It is truely amazing how clear her mind is, everytime I really enjoy talking to her. As usual I ate quite a bit more than I had planned, but I guess that’s a universal fact for grandmas all over the world!

Santa and the view on Heslach

a small puppet-theatre we discovered right around the corner

It still feels so unreal, on the one hand being at home makes me wonder if I ever left at all, while other stuff just confuses me, like cash refund on plasic bottles and the 1euro coin you have to put in the shopping trolley.
I already met some friends, and the nice people from the photo-shop I usually go to still remembered my name!
So far for now, I’ll have a big gathering with my friends on friday, and after that, there’s plenty to catch up with at uni.

Cheers, Tim.